I like making obvious statements like the average lazy commentator and hence I will tell you something that you already know: goals are why we watch football (you don’t say?!). Even though you might not believe it at first, it is the truth – 100% of the people watch this game for the goals.
Yeah, well, there are aesthetic passes and tapestried tackles that send tingles down many organs of people, but nothing gets them more pumped up than goals. After all, the real thing is always better than foreplay. It is, people, it is – and the sly grins on your faces are proof that you know it.
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And when someone scores an insane goal. Oh God! If I were to describe the feeling one gets after witnessing an almost-impossible goal, this article will lose its PG rating – which is already on the line – and become R-rated, something that isn’t allowed by the guidelines because some of you are kids (but know more than the average adult anyway).
Anyways, without further blabbering, let’s just celebrate these five players who had the dangerous tendency to score wicked goals.
#5 Dennis Bergkamp
We often see the word ‘technique’ being thrown around the picture without much explanation of what it truly means in the scope of football. Let me tell you what it is: Dennis Bergkamp and the way he played the game of football.
Affectionately known as the non-flying Dutchman due to his apparent fear of flying, Bergkamp was perhaps the most technically gifted forward of his generation. The way he moved with the ball, the way he caressed it – it was majestic.
After having two under-par seasons in Italy with Inter, Arsenal snapped him up for a then club-record fee of £7.5 million. And in the years to come, he would make sure that the Gunner faithful witnessed some of his finest goals in English football. When Wenger saw the potential in him, he instantly knew that he had the talent to be a focal point in attack – and gave him that privilege.
In the end, it was a decision that saw him score many wonderful goals as you can see in the video. My personal favourite, however, is THAT goal against Newcastle United. If you ever want to know what technique, just watch that goal over and over again.
#4 Juninho Pernambucano
How can I explain poetry to you when you haven’t watched Zidane weave magic using his feet as a wand? How can I explain Joga Bonito to you if you haven’t witnessed Ronaldinho dancing with the ball? How can I explain art to you when you haven’t gazed at the stupefying brilliance of Michael Laudrup?
And how can I explain insanity to you when you haven’t had your jaw dropped at Juninho Pernambucano’s free-kicks?
They say that this world is an illusion, that time and space are nothing but mere traps to bind us to this dimension. When one watches Juninho bend time and space with his direct-free-kicks, they begin to think that perhaps this world really must be an illusion.
For it is nigh on impossible to score free-kicks like that. How can you explain all those goals from 40-yards out? How can you explain the ball going above Victor Valdes’ head from an angle so tight that it makes skinny jeans look baggy?
You perhaps can’t – and that’s the point.
#3 Ronaldinho
Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho, Ronaldinho… man, what was he anyway? Was he an incarnation of God that was misled to the wrong path by the fallen angel? Or was he just a human who fell prey to his vices? I think the second narrative suits logic more while the first one gives him a more mystical feel, which he deserves.
Whatever be the case, the bottom-line is that Ronaldinho was a talent so good that the universe conspired against him so that he never reached his true potential. Had he done, then his achievements would have gone above and beyond any players’ reach.
When someone is great, they inspire people to be the same. When someone is impossible to replicate, they demotivate people to the point that they quit trying altogether. Ronaldinho had the potential to be the greatest player of all time but drained it all down with the booze that he had gulped incessantly.
You think I am exaggerating? Just watch some of his goals and you will realise that I am actually understating his abilities as a player. Just watch him take Sergio Ramos to the cleaners in a Clasico match. Just watch him take the mickey out of England players in the World Cup 2002.
Just watch him – that’s enough in itself.
#2 Diego Maradona
The only reason why people still aren’t sure about Lionel Messi’s credentials as the greatest player of all time is Diego Maradona. Now, look, what Messi does week-in and week-out, it is… well, ufff… damn you, words, you have failed me.
Well, that’s what Messi does to you anyway, and that actually reflects the point I am trying to convey. When Messi receives the ball, he analyses the channels, zooms in on the spaces, and then takes the decision about the next best thing to do.
And what follows is almost always the right choice. He is a picture of brutal efficiency, something that we may have never seen before.
Diego Maradona, on the other hand, might not have been as efficient as the current number 10 of Argentina, but he had something mythical about him that Messi lacks. One of which was grinta or, in simple term, grit.
It was this grit that made him score the greatest World Cup goal ever against England. The English were after his blood, but he dodged them one after the other to score the goal of the century.
The other players on this list have air-bending long-rangers to help their case, Maradona, though, was a maniac who would dribble past anything and score to get his team out of trouble.
This is what he did most of his life at Argentina and Napoli in a time when studs up lunges only warranted a warning. He was always the target of the most brutal fouls and wasn’t really protected like players of this generation – and this is why he is regarded by many as the greatest ever.
#1 Roberto Carlos
And the man with the ultimate uncanny abilities to score absolute blinders. He used to score goals so unbelievable that it became the subject of discussion among physicists as to whether they broke the laws of nature.
Watching them with the naked eye would make you realise that they did. They were insane, the very personification of the word. Sometimes it makes me wonder as to whether the word was invented just to describe Roberto Carlos’ goals.
His outside-boot free-kicks were the stuff of legends. Actually, sod that and follow this: his outside-boot kicks were the stuff of Roberto Carlos and Roberto Carlos alone. No one comes close to what he could have done with the outside of the boot.
Man, screw that goal against France and watch that goal he scored from the byline against Tenerife. The poor goalkeeper thought that he was going for a cross, but the Brazilian had only one intention: to ‘banana’ it in to the goal.
Roberto Carlos claims that Marcelo is more talented than he was, but there is nobody in the world that could score goals like that. Not Leo Messi, not Cristiano Ronaldo, not Zlatan Ibrahimovic… no-frigging-body.
