#3 Mauro Bressan vs Barcelona First Group Stages, 1998-99
Most footballers go through their careers playing and living in relative obscurity. The Italian midfielder Mauro Bressan would have been the perfect epitome of one of those journeymen footballers – he had a career that spanned 20 years and across 12 divisions in Italy and Switzerland, but he would play his best football at Fiorentina between 1999 and 2001 where even though he didn’t have many league starts, he would start three Champions League games.
One of those would be enough for this unknown midfielder from a tiny town in the vine country of Trevisio in the north of Italy to forever etch his name in Champions League folklore. In a high scoring group stage clash against Barcelona, Bressan would pull off one of the most memorable goals ever scored. When the ball was cleared out of defence, it appeared that the danger was averted and yet another La Viola attack had broken down. But, with the ball bouncing around just in front of the Catalan penalty box, Bressan decided to take matters into his own hands. Or feet, rather.
With the kind of technique that would have made the likes of Rivaldo and Marco van Basten proud, the Italian jumped up and executed a perfectly timed bicycle kick that had his more illustrious opponents, not to mention one or two of his own teammates, awestruck. This was the kind of goal, kids kicking a ball about on a playground dream about scoring. And Mauro Bressan had just gone and done it against freaking Barcelona!
He wasn’t done for the night either, as he produced a gorgeous back-heeled assist to set Abel Balbo up later in the match, which would end with the scores level at 3-3.
Bressan will recede into anonymity in the annals of the great history of European club football, but, in that one moment of technical perfection and pure audacity he had shown why this beautiful game was loved by so many – everyone has it in them to flirt with immortality.
And for that signor, take a bow.
