Top 10 Best Goals

Holidays are the time for trawling YouTube and making pointless 'best of' lists. So, in no particular order, my top 10 goals (with a very large Man Utd bias obviously).

Mark Hughes - Wales Vs Spain
I got many a bruise trying to do this. Give it a go. It is nowhere near as easy as Sparky makes this look.



Eric Cantona - Man Utd Vs Sheff Utd
The goal is great, the celebration is probably even better.



Denis Bergkamp - Holland Vs Argentina
This is a thing of beauty. Taking into account the stage and time in the game, this is all kinds of awesome. Great commentary too.



Marco Van Basten - Holland Vs USSR
Woof! I remember watching this as it happened and it was more of an immediate feeling of surprise that he had even tried this.



Archie Gemmell - Scotland Vs Holland
When something like this happens when you're 8, you're never really going to forget it. At this stage of the game we still had a, typically Scots, hope that we could still go through.



Ole - Man Utd Vs Bayern Munich
For any Man Utd fan, this will always be the greatest goal ever. I may never go this nuts again when a goal goes in. Only the second time I proper lost it at football. The first time was about 2 minutes before this. I had waited 29 years for a European Cup Final. I was allowed.



Wayne Rooney - Man Utd Vs Newcastle
You don't save those. The thing I love about this is how he seemlessly transitions from monaing at the ref to a light jog to clattering it in the net. Take a bow son.



Maradona Vs England
As Alan Hansen would say, pace, power, pace, control, pace, power. This goal is the reason that the whole 'hand of god' thing doesn't really matter.



Roberto Carlos - Real Madrid vs Tenerife
I really like to think he meant this.



Zinedine Zidane - Real Madrid vs Bayer Leverkusen
Best goal ever scored in Scotland?




Goals I couldn't add because they weren't embeddable from YouTube were:

Ryan Giggs' goal vs Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup Semi-Final
This is the goal that made me get Sky Sports.
Steven Gerrard's 2nd goal from the 2006 FA Cup Final
90th minute and he does this? Outrageous.

6' 5" Brazilian Pansy

I'm not usually one to go off in a current affairs kind of way, but having just watched the Celtic Vs AC Milan game, I feel compelled to write. First of all, I should say, I'm not a Celtic fan, so have no bias. Celtic won the game, but I fear they may lose the war.

I'm not condoning the actions of the brainless twonk that ran on the pitch and lightly brushed th AC Milan goalkeepr, Dida. I hope he is identified, banned for life and given an accidental kicking from some real fans. He may just have cost his beloved club big.

Its hard to see how Celtic will escape serious punishment for this, but my point relates to the ridiculous play-acting of the keeper. Losing the game, the altercation from the fan gave him a chance to benefit by collapsing in an idiotic heap. Of course, the fan should never have given him the opportunity to do this, but I'd like to think that UEFA will do something against the keeper too.

The fan didn't hurt him in the slightest. He was a tiny we nyaff who brushed his hand against the cheek of the Herculean Brazilian. In fact, before going down, Dida's initial reaction was to chase after him. It then dawned on him that he could profit from this and duly descended to the turf clutching his face and was, unbelieveably, stretchered off with an ice pack on his face.

I've seen City of God a number of times. I've been led to believe that Brazilians are tougher than that. I feel robbed. I hope that the entire Brazilain nation are embarrassed by him. I have no doubt that the similar collection of pansies in UEFA will focus more on the actions of the fan but I think the overacting is far more insidious and should be dealt with equally harshly. This is a feint hope. Feining injury is becoming the norm and it is a blight on the beautiful game. The problem will always be that the furore around the initial crime of the fan could and will mask the acting and he'll get away with it.

Remember, another Brazilian, Rivaldo, was fined a paultry £5K for something similar.

I'd like to think that no Scottish player would ever do this. In fact, if they summoned the spirit of Smeato and lamped the idiot fan, so much the better. Trouble is, you'd get in more trouble for that than lying on the floor like Hamlet in his final scene.

I make this simple plea:

Dear Mr Platini,
Punish Celtic, closed-doors whatever. But don't let Dida away with this. Ban the lanky twecker* for at least 2 games otherwise your going to create a much bigger problem.
Yours,
A Fan of Football

I'm just glad I'm not a Celtic fan or I really would be raging.

* OK, you're French, think Vichy.

EDIT: 5/10/07
I am very heartened to see the reaction of AC Milan and Italy as a whole to Dida's antics. Congratulations to them all, seems there is still some honour left in the world.