open goal

plural open goals

1. hobbiesAn undefended goal.
2. figurativelyAn opportunity that is readily available.

   Labour missed an “open goal” to beat Theresa May and should not pretend it achieved a famous victory, a former shadow chancellor has said.

   2017 June 10, “Labour should have won against May's ‘open goal’, says MP”, in The Guardian, sourced from Press Association, →ISSN

   2 more examples

   Reeves, a former Bank of England economist, was presented with an open goal thanks to Kwasi Kwarteng’s badly received mini-budget and she was determined not miss it.

   2022 September 26, Larry Elliott, “Rachel Reeves was never going to miss the open goal left by the Tories”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   But with Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron facing red cards at home,[…] Giorgia Meloni – post-fascist poster girl turned star centre-forward of the new right – is shooting at an open goal.

   2024 May 4, Simon Tisdall, “Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen, the double act that is steering the EU ever rightwards”, in The Observer, →ISSN