We all know its goals that win matches, and such we all know its the great scorers of goals who win championships and cups men like Gerd Muller and Filippo Inzaghi who would find a way no matter what to get the ball into the net. But its the scorers of great goals that win cult followings and adorn posters on walls across the world.It has to be noted that scorers of great goals are those who seem to score spectacular goals regularly (some a little more than regularly - like nos. 1, 6 and 9 in the list),unlike players like Roberto Carlos, whose long distance missiles more often ended up in orbit around Mars than nestling in the back of the net. Reality check he didnt even have the best shot for a defender - Sinsia Mihjalovic was a beast and even John Arne Riise (in his prime) was more accurate and just as scarily powerful.With that, I present to you ten of the best Scorers of Great Goals the football world has ever seen.NOTE:The list is far from exhaustive and is in no particular order.The views expressed here are the authors own
#1 Gabriel Batistuta
When he received the ball in Manchester United’s half with his back to goal, there was very little on for him. For those (few) who knew nothing about the man, there was still nothing on when he created just a little bit of space after shrugging off Jaap Stam - with the ease of a grown man playing against a schoolboy (not something that one could ever associate with the man mountain that was Stam). After all he was still a good thirty odd yards from goal.
But for those who knew what Gabriel Omar Batistuta was capable of, the alarm bells started ringing. Looking up briefly, Batistuta let fly with an absolute howitzer of a strike as the ball arched straight down the middle with a velocity that bordered on the incomprehensible.
‘El Angel Gabriel’ they called him- never has a moniker ever been so misplaced. The man who was eminently capable of the most angelic dainty flip over a goalkeeper in a one-on-one usually had no time for chips, lobs, neatly placed curlers or other such niceties. Why would he, when he had the Hammer of Thor where most people had a right foot.
Batigol’s career was one long never-ending highlight reel full of screeching volleys and astonishing screamers delivered with the emphatic certainty of a vengeful God delivering judgement unto sinners. Whether it be in Florence, Rome or Buenos Aires; from 1998-2005; Batistuta won over legions of fans with his wild and primal machine gun celebrations and even more violent goals!
#2 Matt Le Tissier
Matt Le Tissier seemed to waft around games, jogging around aimlessly (it seemed) and trying his best not to break into a sweat. Till he got the ball at his feet, that is. With an imagination that would have made Wile. E. Coyote proud and a right foot that oscillated between an artist’s brush and a blacksmith’s hammer, Le Tiss scored some of the most astonishing goals ever seen.
Chips, lobs, flicks, volleys, mazy dribbles and lazy wafts – Le Tissier scored goals with a delicious absurdity that made every one of his goals so beautiful. The clip above shows just how cheeky he could be, twisting and turning past two defenders before stunning the great Peter Schmeichel - who was probably expecting one of his booming cartoon volleys - with the most delightful chip.
Le Tiss didn’t win much - having spent his entire playing career with perennially mid/ bottom table Southampton as he was criminally overlooked by the English national team selectors – but he did cultivate a religious following at the Dell where he was worshipped for the joy he brought them with his magic on the field.
#3 Dejan Stankovic
A consummate midfielder – Dejan Stankovic’s versatility, accuracy and vision combined to make him the manager’s favourite. But he was a cult hero with the fans of whichever team he represented for one irrepressible attribute – a laser guided rocket launcher of a right foot.
His goals were as much a testament to his incredible accuracy from long range and incredible vision to spot an opportunity as his sheer power. The Yugoslavia/ Serbia and Montenegro/ Serbia legend’s greatest performances came in the blue and black of Inter Milan where the Nerazzuri faithful worshipped him for his never say die spirit and spectacular long-range goals.
The clip above shows just how he good he was, when Schalke’s Manuel Neuer came up with a trademark brilliantly aggressive rush off the line and headed the ball clear (some header that!), the ball went straight to Dejan Stankovic on the half-way line.
What happened next is pure footballing genius as Stankovic absolutely hammered a first-time volley straight back into Neuer’s goal – the ball arching beautifully to bounce just in front of the net. There was much to admire about the shot, the impeccable technique to hit a ball so far and so powerfully, the sniper like accuracy and the sheer audacity of the attempt.
It was a shot that would have been considered a fluke had it been hit by anyone else, but with Stankovic – nothing was ever a fluke
#4 Tony Yeboah
In the clip below, after a bit of head tennis in the Wimbledon half, the ball fell to a powerfully built Ghanaian in a Leeds United shirt. He chested the ball down onto his left thigh, and after feinting with his left foot, he transferred the ball to his favoured right. The entire stadium waited with bated breath, for all that juggling and feinting was done for one specific purpose. With a violence that bordered on the demonic, Tony Yeboah let fly a thoroughly unstoppable blast that crashed in off the underside of the crossbar.
The Leeds faithful celebrated yet another over-the-top, crossbar-rattler of a volley (aren’t they the best kind?). He was renowned for such unstoppably powerful volleys and was a regular feature of the Goal of the Month/ Season competitions and a terrifying prospect for opposition goalkeepers and crossbar maintenance men.
A prolific striker, his gloriously direct style, speed, power and love for the spectacular endeared him to the public wherever he played and made him a cult hero at Frankfurt, Leeds and Hamburg.
The extent of his cult and the ridiculous power of his right foot manifested itself in a classic video released by the club “TONY YEBOAH – SHOOT TO KILL” !
#5 Dimitar Berbatov
There is a name for the particular genre of footballing p*rn that Dimitar Berbatov served up on a regular basis on football fields across Europe. Fans call it ‘Berberotica’. Opponents call it death by silk.
The languid ease and effortless elegance made it appear as if Berba was uninvolved at times, but with the ball at his feet, there are few more inspiring more footballers on the planet. In the video linked, Berbatov (playing for Bayer Leverkusen against Roma in the Champions League) received the ball in the box with his back to goal – the defender probably expected him to hold him off like any proper Andy Caroll-esque centre forward should do.
But the defender doesn’t account for the fact that he is marking Berbatov. In one lighting quick movement he flicked the ball over the head of the defender leaving him for dead. The goalkeeper rushed out expecting a quick and powerful shot low to the ground – again as most strikers would have done. But Berba saw a more beautiful picture than most strikers would in their dreams. He lifted the ball over the onrushing keeper with one lazy looking flick and the ball beautifully – almost in slow motion - went right into the net
With that velvety touch that could kill a bullet dead in its tracks, the lanky Bulgarian has subjected opponents to his ‘death by silk’ for years across leagues in Bulgaria, Germany, England and now France. His lazy elegance hiding an awe-inspiring power and an active imagination that along with his ‘berberotica’ have won him a legion of fans across the world and made him the poster boy for effortless chic.
#6 Marco van Basten
On graduating high-school, most non-engineers are left wondering what they could possibly do with all the geometry and trigonometry and physics that they had just learned. It’s quite simple really – you use that knowledge to try and figure out what in the hell Marco van Basten did on a football pitch – when he went about scoring goals the likes of which the game had never seen before.
Using every inch of space available, the Dutch legend made angles and trajectories laughably irrelevant as he mocked the traditional laws of physics with one outrageous goal after the other.
His most famous, shown here, was quite possibly the greatest volley ever scored by anyone, anywhere. Van Basten was at the far right of the USSR penalty box in this 1988 Euro Cup final when he received a cross from wide on the left. Now, most players would take the ball down and attempt to make a play of it - try and beat the defender, try and put in a cross into the danger zone, try and do something or the other – but most players aren’t Marco Van Basten.
With textbook perfect technique, he hammered in a first time volley that went beautifully over the legendary Soviet keeper Rinat Dasayev, who was caught out by the audacity of the attempt as much as the perfection of the strike itself.
He would do this time and time again for Holland, Ajax and the great A.C.Milan side of the early 90s - finding the goal with the sort of regularity that would have made Gerd Mueller envious. But unlike the great German, van Basten always seemed to score in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible. This twisting header (it surely would have tore apart the neck muscles of most ordinary mortals) perfectly encapsulated the prowess of the incredible Dutchman, making the impossible look mundane.
What was more; the apparent effortlessness he displayed heightened the pleasure of each van Basten goal.
#7 Francesco Totti
Historians will tell you that Romulus Augustus was the last known Roman emperor. Historians know the square root of nothing.
Every time the true Last Emperor of Rome steps into his footballing empire, legions of fans start chanting “Tottiiiii… Totttiiii”, the hair on the back of the neck stand up and not just because of the goosebump inspiring devotion that Francesco Totti commands among his Roma faithful, but also because the mind knows that something spectacularly awesome is on the cards here. Booming drives, perfect volleys, powerful driving runs, cheeky backheels; the great man had them all in his arsenal.
But nothing encapsulates the arrogant nonchalance of the great man more than the variety of chips, flicks and lobs he pulled out every now and then to leave opposition goalkeepers and defenders spell bound. The video shows perhaps his greatest ever goal, where – winning the ball with a strong challenge near the halfway line, Totti started motoring through the pitch, and just as he reached somewhere near the middle, he cocked his foot seemingly all set to unleash Jupiter’s thunderbolt.
That’s what the likes of Messrs Yeboah, Batistuta and Stankovic would have done- the fastest and easiest route to goal.
But Totti sees a problem with that – easy didn’t make the most beautiful, fastest wasn’t always the best. With practiced insouciance, he chipped a completely flummoxed Julio Cesar from way out, leaving the gasping Inter keeper wanting to bury his head inside the San Siro pitch.
There was nothing to be embarrassed about though- after all, there was no shame in bowing before the Emperor.
#8 Paul Scholes
The Ginger Prince was arguably one of the greatest and most under-rated footballers ever to grace a midfield. More renowned for his exquisite range of passing and perfectly weighted assists, Scholesy was a darling of the Stretford End for one more reason.
As unassuming as he was off the field, he was a pocket dynamo on it - his ability to stand up on a big match-day and score crucial goals in the most spectacular manner ever endeared him to not just the United faithful but any neutral football lover who enjoyed the sight of a perfect volley arrowing into the corner of the net. He was equally capable of the cheeky, as this magnificent chip at the end of a flowing Manchester United movie against Panathinaikos showed.
Take his legendary goal directly from a David Beckham corner or his lightning bolt from way outside the box against Barcelona or any of his numerous sweet volleys – what stood out was the perfection of the strike, the ball imparting just the right amount of spin and fizz as it nestled into the farthest, deepest corner of the net. There was no outrageous swerving here, just a perfectly placed, powerfully hit volley that embodied the term “un-save-able shot”
His volley against Aston Villa at Villa Park (shown above) was probably the sweetest stuck volley of all time. When the ball dropped to him after a miserable clearance by the Villains, there’s just one thing on Scholes’ mind. Waiting for the ball to drop, he swung his right foot (as he had done so often) and made one of the sweetest connections with a football anyone had ever made – you could feel the perfect sound his boot made when it met the ball.
#9 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
There are big, powerful target men; there are small, scurrying dribblers; there are men with booming shots and incredible deftness of touch and a love for flair and there are still more who are ruthless goal mongers. To see a player with all these skillsets rolled into one is very rare – an almost impossible character.
But then, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is nothing if not an impossible character.
The incredible positions he gets into to control a ball or a score a goal defy logic at times, probably the fact that Zlatan is a taekwondo master explained it! Like a video game character controlled by a footballing god, when Zlatan got the ball at his feet, or head, or chest or any other part of the body, the things he did with it made jaws drop the world over.
The incredible overhead kick against England was just the tip of the iceberg. The outrageous overhead-flying-backheel- thing he scored against Italy in Euro 2004, that pile driver of a shot he hammered in for PSG against… any of the similarly preposterous goals he has scored for the multitude of clubs he has been at all lay as testament to the human You-tube montage video of a character that is Zlatan.
Perhaps no goal encapsulated the unpredictability and untouchable skill of the great Swede as much as the one that he scored at one of his first clubs, Ajax. The tall, powerful striker started with a strong challenge where he basically put his foot down on the ball, allowed the opposition defender to run into him, then went on a run that defied explanation – a mazy, twisting run that befuddled everyone (including his team mates), feinting and faking his way through the defence, as he made the goalkeeper charge and commit himself before coolly slotting home to make every opposition player lying on the ground look like perfect asses!
The scary/glorious thing (depending on point of view) is that the larger-than – life superstar seems to be getting better the older he gets!
#10 Diego Maradona
1986 World Cup, Mexico. – those words should be enough to justify Diego Armando Maradona’s presence in any “Greatest Ever” list.
Capable of doing things with his left foot that only Albus Dumbledore with a wand (on a good day) would have been able to replicate, El Diego scored goals that ranged from the sublime to the truly preposterous.
Goals that involved mazy dribbles through defences like the defenders manning them were more like those orange practice cones than actual world-class athletes, headers from beyond the penalty box, unstoppable volleys and cheeky (read, goalkeeper- shame –inducing) chips - he scored them all as he held the entire world was in raptures and he wasbecame a demi-god in places ranging from Buenos Aires to Naples and Barcelona to Malappuram.
The goal he scored agaisnt England in the epic quarterfinal of ‘86 was argualy the greatest goal ever scored. Executing a perfect pirrouette in the middle of the pitch, the great man started off on an incredible run, accelerating past almost the entire English defence before slipping past Peter Shilton with the ease of a grown man stealing toffee from a child. The pace. power, incredible vision and reflexive memory (he remembered that Shilton commited himself and he had once rounded the keeper with ease before) combined to make this a truly great goal.
#11 Honourable and very obvious mentions
Dennis Bergkamp
Like his idol, Van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp made math his personal toy, as he worked out impossible angles to twist and turn in ways no man really should be able to and made defenders look like clumps of earth.
And he used all that magic to score goals like this! And this! And these!
Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo
Through the 90’s and the mid -2000s, few players scored more spectacular, more important and more entertaining goals than the legendary Brazilian trio who samba-ed their way into the hearts of millions across the world.
(Of course I know Ronaldinho is still playing, but only a naïve idealist and/or a grammar nazi would question my usage of the past tense here)
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo
Is there anything the Argentine demi-god and his Portuguese counterpart cannot do? They make the impossible look so easy that the very definition of greatness is being stretched.
