Abhijit Sarkar

Morgan Rogers Refuses To Remove Ski Goggles 24 Hours Into Europa League Celebrations

Aston Villa, Europa League, Football Fashion, Morgan Rogers

For Morgan Rogers, Aston Villa’s Europa League triumph was the moment everything finally came together.

After years of loans, Championship football and constant questions about whether he could truly explode at elite level, Rogers suddenly found himself at the centre of one of the biggest nights in modern Villa history.

And he did not just participate in the run.

He became one of the defining players of it.

Throughout Villa’s Europa League campaign under Unai Emery, Rogers constantly delivered in transition-heavy knockout matches where composure mattered most. His ball-carrying became one of Villa’s most important weapons in Europe, especially in tense moments when the team needed somebody capable of breaking pressure single-handedly.

That is why Villa fans became obsessed with him so quickly.

The Europa League final itself only elevated that reputation further.

Rogers scored during Villa’s 3-0 win over Freiburg in Istanbul, sealing the club’s first major trophy in decades and later admitting: “We’ll go down in history.”

But while most footballers would spend the celebrations holding scarves or trophies, Rogers somehow became the internet’s biggest talking point because of something completely different.

The ski goggles.

As Aston Villa’s post-final celebrations continued through the night and into the next morning, Rogers was repeatedly spotted wearing oversized mirrored ski goggles almost everywhere he went.

And fans genuinely could not stop laughing.

One of the first viral moments came during the dressing-room champagne celebrations, where Rogers appeared fully committed to the goggles while teammates sprayed alcohol everywhere.

That alone confused supporters.

But then more clips started appearing.

He was later seen still wearing them during group celebration photos. Then again while sitting around casually with teammates. Then came the moment that completely finished football Twitter: Rogers calmly eating breakfast the next morning while STILL wearing the goggles indoors.

That image spread everywhere.

Fans could not understand why he was dressed like he had just returned from a skiing holiday in the middle of a European trophy parade.

One supporter posted: “Morgan & these f***ing ski goggles,” while another joked that Rogers’ entire packing list for Istanbul was simply “boots, shin pads… ski goggles.”

But there actually was a very specific reason behind them.

The goggles are part of a long-running championship tradition in American sports, especially the NBA.

They are commonly called “champagne goggles” because players wear them during title celebrations to protect their eyes from champagne spray, alcohol irritation and flying corks inside locker rooms.

The tradition became especially iconic in basketball over the last decade.

When LeBron James won the 2020 NBA Championship with the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the first things cameras caught him shouting during celebrations was: “Where’s my goggles?” before entering the champagne-filled locker room.

Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors also famously wore celebration goggles throughout their 2018 NBA title celebrations while spraying champagne around the locker room.

Players like Kawhi Leonard after the 2019 NBA Finals, Kyle Kuzma with the Lakers in 2020 and even Ray Allen years earlier all became associated with the tradition too.

Unlike NBA players, who usually remove them after the champagne spraying ends, Rogers seemed determined to wear them for the entire aftermath of Villa’s Europa League celebrations.

And after helping Aston Villa win a European trophy, he somehow still managed to become football’s funniest viral moment purely because of a pair of ski goggles.

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