Every once in a while, one footballer rises above the rest to put in a performance that resonates through the ages. Although it takes 11 players to form a team, there have been instances when one player made all the difference.
These players set fire to the pitch and raised the roof of the stadium before the final whistle was blown. Their name was sung with pride and gusto as managers also joined in the applause. We look back at 7 such players who destroyed the opposition in recent years.
7) Andrei Arshavin vs Liverpool
Confirmed as an Arsenal signing almost 24 hours after the 2009 January transfer window had closed (the deadline was extended after adverse weather conditions in England had grounded flights), Arshavin had an instant impact in the side as the Gunners looked more potent in attack.
But it was in April when he cemented his place in Arsenal folklore with a performance that still stings Liverpool fans to this day. In that one night, Arshavin scored all goals for Arsenal and accomplished a feat no visiting player had achieved in 63 years – score four times against the Reds at Anfield. The diminutive Russian striker couldn’t believe he’d scored a hat-trick, let alone four – the celebrations after the third and fourth goals tell us as much.
“Liverpool players are collapsed all over the pitch; they cannot believe it! They are shell shocked!”
It would have been one of the greatest results in Premier League history had his team not let him down and allowed Yossi Benayoun to score an equaliser in stoppage time to make it 4-4. However, it effectively extinguished Liverpool’s hopes in the title race.
6) Luis Suarez vs Norwich
When Luis Suarez was sold to Barcelona in the summer of 2014, there was a tinge of sadness among Premier League fans. they knew that yet another special, albeit controversial, player had moved on like Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba in the past.
Not Norwich City fans, though. Nobody else would have been delighted to see the back of him once his move to La Liga was confirmed. The Uruguayan striker had tormented the Canaries so much during his time in England that he grabbed three hat-tricks in all against them.
“Thank god Liverpool sold him,” Norwich midfielder Alexander Tettey said after Suarez’s move. “Because every time we played against them he tended to score three or four goals.”
Arguably, his best performance came in the 5-1 win at Anfield when he scored four goals, including an audacious 40-yard lob over goalkeeper John Ruddy and a free-kick to complete the rout. Each performance was brilliant in its own right so here are all goals Suarez has scored against the Canaries.
5) Radamel Falcao vs Chelsea
Before Radamel Falcao moved to Monaco, he had the chance to get the feel of the place when Champions League winners Chelsea met his Europa League winning Atletico Madrid side in 2012. Typically the curtain raiser to the season, it was a game where the Blues simply failed to turn up.
A first half blitzkrieg by the Rojiblancos saw Diego Simeone’s side run riot at Stade Louis II and it was Falcao who punished Roberto Di Matteo’s lax defence with three goals of absolute quality.
It was a performance that typified Falcao before his injury-ridden seasons and made him a striker to be feared. The fact that he toyed with a goalkeeper like Petr Cech and a Chelsea defence in their prime spoke volumes about his capabilities and justified his high price tag at the time.
4) Lionel Messi vs Arsenal
Back when Arsenal regularly went beyond the Round of 16 in the Champions League, they still came up against the big guns in Europe and 2010 was no different. Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona had almost come away from the Emirates with a 2-0 win in the first leg before a late comeback saw the tie end 2-2.
At the Camp Nou, it was the Gunners who drew first blood through Nicklas Bendtner and suddenly Barcelona were on the ropes. 3-2 down on aggregate and suddenly Arsene Wenger’s side had a chance.
It lasted less than three minutes as the storm clouds quickly engulfed any ray of hope and Lionel Messi ran riot. As if a first-half hat-trick was not enough, he would humiliate the defence and poor Manuel Almunia with a fourth that stamped his authority on the game.
3) Cristiano Ronaldo vs Wolfsburg
Real Madrid’s 11th Champions League triumph (Undecima) almost never happened if not for the heroics of Cristiano Ronaldo in the quarter-finals. Trailing 2-0 from the first leg against the Bundesliga side, Real Madrid had a huge task on their hands as Zinedine Zidane wet his feet in football management for the first time. This was his first real test.
And the Portuguese forward delivered within 15 minutes. A simple tap-in and a glancing header within the span of two minutes saw the Santiago Bernabeu come to insane life and throw a spanner in the works of Dieter Hecking’s team. With the aggregate reading 2-2, they played on and then Ronaldo stepped up a third time in the second half.
A free-kick 26 yards from goal saw Ronaldo get the better of the wall and then beat goalkeeper Diego Benaglio to find the back of the net. The comeback was complete and Los Blancos were through to the semi-finals. It was a performance worthy of all the praise that came Ronaldo’s way due to the circumstances that surrounded it.
2) Ronaldinho vs Real Madrid
How often does an opposing player get a standing ovation – especially one who doesn’t even belong to that country? But Ronaldinho is no ordinary player, is he? Embraced by Barcelona fans during his time at the Camp Nou, he had the unique distinction of being applauded by the rival fans at the Santiago Bernabeu as well.
El Clasico continues to bring out the best (and sometimes the worst) in players involved with each passing year and in 2005 it was Ronaldinho who stunned fans worldwide with a performance that underlined his importance to the Barcelona side that would go on to dominate Europe.
The Galacticos project was in full swing at Real Madrid and, in one fell swoop, Ronaldinho had obliterated any sense of entitlement the Blancos felt they had in the same week he would go on to lift the Ballon d’Or.
The home fans were so enraged over the performance of their own players that they stood as one for the man who entertained every football fan watching the game, reminding them that pure talent knows no discrimination based on the colour of the shirt.
1) Robert Lewandowski vs Wolfsburg
8 minutes and 59 seconds – that is all it took Robert Lewandowski to leave his mark on a game where Bayern Munich were actually trailing 1-0. The final scoreline read 5-1 after his heroics.
Thrown on as a half-time substitute by Pep Guardiola, even the Catalan manager looked on disbelief with his hands on his head as the Polish striker publicly undressed Wolfsburg with the finest solo performance the Bundesliga had ever seen and also his first hat-trick for the club.
Lewandowski was scoring at such a phenomenal rate that television producers were working overtime to show replays of the previous goal as quickly as possible lest he went and scored another. In the span of nine minutes, Lewandowski set numerous records – including the fastest Bundesliga hat-trick, fastest four-goal haul and fastest five-goal haul. He also became the first substitute to score five goals in the Bundesliga.
Of course, it wasn’t his first hat-trick ever. We all remember that semi-final where Borussia Dortmund put Real Madrid away with a 4-1 scoreline in the first leg? How many did Lewandowski score then? All four!
