My Favourite Goal

Whether you have been a lifelong fan of the beautiful game or have just recently developed an interest in the sport, everyone will have a favourite goal, a goal they will reminisce and reference whenever a conversation about Football crops up. A goal, which from the moment you witness it, will be forever etched in your memory.  The goal could be your most cherished for emotional reasons, it could save your team from relegation on the last day of the season, or win your side a cup or league title, it could be a goal that just blows your mind for the sheer technique and skill involved, or it could be from your favourite player.  The strike that is my number one belongs in the latter two categories.

Thanks to the glorious invention that is the Internet, I know the date of the very first game I watched on television that started my obsession with the beautiful game.  It was the 10^th July 1994, I was seven years old, and my late father was watching the Quarter-final match between Sweden and Romania at the 1994 World Cup, at the time I was aware that the World Cup was taking place as a friend of mine had a USA ’94 football with all the groups on it and we used to go through all the exotic sounding countries like Mexico, Cameroon and Bolivia.

The start of it all

Having watched Football (and by extension Serie A) for nearly two decades I’ve seen goals that will stay with me forever, the pictures are so vivid even though the goals might have been scored years or even decades ago, it still only feels like yesterday that I first saw them (George Weah’s ridiculous salom run vs Verona in 1996 and Alvaro Recoba’s spectacular 30 yard rocket vs Brescia in 1997 spring to mind), some goals you forget about but with the creation of YouTube stumble across and remember how glorious they were (Alessandro Del Piero’s classy swivel and finish vs Man Utd and Youri Djorkaeff’s ludicrous overhead kick vs Roma, both in 1997, are examples of this).

I’ll set the scene for my favourite goal, it’s April’s Fools Day 2001, round 24 of the 2000/01 Serie A season.  Juventus, hot on the heels of Roma for most of the campaign, are at home to Brescia, but this isn’t just any Brescia side, this is a side with one Roberto Baggio, formerly of Juventus, in it’s ranks as it’s talisman.  Juve take the lead through Gianluca Zambrotta in the 10^th minute, Juve seem to be seeing the game through to keep the pressure on Roma who beat Verona 3-1 on the same day.

A very familiar image now

The game has 4 minutes left plus stoppages to play, when suddenly a future bearded genius called Andrea Pirlo, then on a six month loan to Brescia from Inter, picks up the ball from midfield, nonchalantly jogs a couple of yards inside Juve’s half.  He then floats a long pass over the top of the defence, Baggio springs in behind the Juve back line with the ball about to land on his foot and with only Edwin van der Sar standing between him and a equaliser for Brescia.

Decision time

Now most strikers in a similar situation as this would have two options; the first option would be to control the ball with a body part, gain their composure then either slot it past the onrushing goalkeeper or take it around him and score. The other option would be to volley it first time as it comes down from the sky alas Marco Van Basten Euro ’88 style, but it wasn’t in Roberto Baggio’s nature to do things the simple way.  As he once said himself ''I have never really been satisfied with the easily scored goal''

About to take his second touch

So now the ball is looming ever closer, about to drop onto Baggio’s foot, van der Sar comes out to meet him, the next few seconds will be crucial, and so what does Baggio do? Does he consider one of the two options mentioned above? No chance, he outrageously takes control of the ball and directs it past the hapless van der Sar with one touch and slots the ball into an empty net with his second.  The Stadio Delle Alpi is stunned, the goal scorer runs off to the corner flag to celebrate with his teammates.  Meanwhile, van der Sar gets up off the ground and just stands in disbelief, hands on hips, absolutely speechless.

Speechless

When you watch the goal in real time you don’t really appreciate the unbelievable skill involved, it’s only when you view the second and third replays that you begin to realise the moment of sophisticated genius that has just unfolded.  Anyone who has played football at any level, whether it be a amateur, semi professional or professional, will tell you that one of the hardest skills to conquer is controlling a ball coming your direction from a long distance with great speed, it’s twice as hard when trying to pluck it from the sky.

For ll Divin Codino to kill the pace of the ball and direct it in the way he wanted to with one touch, still to this day is astonishing, it’s one of the greatest pieces of individual skill that I have seen from a player, alongside Fernando Redondo’s stupendous back heel to poor Henning Berg in the 1999/2000 Champions League Quarter-final.

The game would end in a draw and Juventus would finish the season in second place, two points behind Roma. This game was viewed as one that put a massive dent in Juve’s title aspirations, and when you think that had it not been for Baggio’s moment of genius, Juve might have went on to win the title.

Final Serie A table 2000/01

A funny little footnote about the goal is that I never saw it as it happened.  Serie A at that stage was still being shown on Channel 4 in the UK but some weekends they wouldn’t even show games and within a year they would axe the coverage. I caught the goal on EuroNews on the Monday morning before school as they showed some highlights from Serie A in their sports section.

So why is this goal my favourite? It’s hard to put a finger on why, it won’t go down as one of the most important goals in history, it won’t even go down as one of the most important in Baggio’s career, and it was against the team I support and also going a long way in costing Juventus the 2001 Scudetto. 

However I think the reason why it’s top of the pile for me is because of the poetry of it, when the ball lands at Baggio’s foot, he ever so gently caresses the ball.  He doesn’t lash at the ball, like a lot of players would, it’s as if Baggio doesn’t want to hurt the ball by putting his foot through it, he wants to take care of the ball, and if he takes care of it, it will in return do what he demands.

The goal itself encapsulated two things; Baggio’s genius in two touches, and this wasn’t Baggio at the peak of his powers in 1993 or 1994 either, this was a 34 year old pulling this moment of pure unadulterated magic out of the sky, and it also showed what Andrea Pirlo could do being deployed in a deeper position. Carlo Ancelotti wrongly gets credit for ‘reinventing’ Pirlo as a regista at Milan, but it was the wily old veteran Carlo Mazzone who first used him in that position, turning a player with a lot of unfilled potential as a trequartista into a midfield maestro for the next decade and more.

I have often said that the Divine Ponytail was a painter who just happened to be a footballer by trade, instead of using brushes and paints, he used football boots and a ball, in my estimation no goal in his catalogue illustrates this more than this goal.