10 Incredible Goals That’ll Turn Soccer Haters Into Fans

Image via Complex Original

Date: 4/16/2008

Match: Rangers @ Celtic

Before Shunsuke Nakamura took the pitch for his first Old Firm derby at Celtic Park, goals like this didn’t happen IRL. They happened in the 2004 classic Shaolin Soccer, but that’s a movie about a soccer team full of kung-fu masters manipulating and bending the ball like the Monstars version of Lionel Messi.

Nakamura brought Hollywood to Scotland with his whiplashed volley from 30-odd yards out. The finish on his kick mirrored the power and grace seen in martial arts moves. And my oh my, that swerve delivered no mercy. It was a lose-your-senses moment of mind-bending football physics, and we’ve got video to prove that it happened. Respect what was impossible until it happened.

Date: 6/2/1997

Match: Brazil @ France

This is, without a doubt, the best free-kick goal ever struck. It happened during the one-time Tournoi de France tournament of 1997. Held across four French cities for a week in June, England, Brazil, France, and Italy competed. During the 21st minute of the Tournoi’s opening match in Lyon, Roberto Carlos did that. In the middle of the pitch from way out, he hit that ball straight on the seams. Brazil drew the match 1-1, and England WON THE TOURNAMENT (surprise, right?!), but it turns out that nobody cared about the Tournoi because everyone still brings up England’s alleged half-century trophy drought.

Regardless of the circumstances (yes, Carlos could definitely do this on a cold rainy night at Stoke) or the significance of the match, this was an act of technical, tactical, and creative genius. As a southpaw, he threw a legit two-seam fastball. That’s not supposed to happen for lefty strikers of the ball. The preposterous inside-outside-inside action you see is something that Roberto Carlos will take to his grave. A golden mold of Carlos’ left foot is in order, for sure. Look, don’t touch.

Date: 12/8/2004

Match: Olympiakos @ Liverpool

If you’re reading this with the video volume off, turn that sucker on. If you heard Andy Gray’s call the first time watching, then I hope your bowels are intact and your spine isn’t too tingly and chilly. WHAT A HIT SON, WHAT A HIT. It’s a defining moment in Steven Gerrard’s legendary career, and the best call in Scotsman Andy Gray’s cabinet of chesty, gargling goal calls.

The strike from Liverpool’s 24-year-old captain booked their place through to the knockout stage of the Champions League. It sent the home Anfield crowd into a madness that’s only pronounced further by the blown-out audio of the YouTube clip.

The goal would prove to be especially crucial in Liverpool’s up-and-down 2004-05 season. Without Gerrard’s goal and Liverpool’s subsequent advancement in the Champions League, one of the greatest matches in soccer history doesn’t happen. The Reds ended their season with the Champions League Final. Just six months after Gerrard and Gray blew our pants off, Liverpool lifted the European Cup after the “Miracle of Istanbul.”

Date: 2/12/2011

Match: Manchester City @ Manchester United

Before playing some pick-up footy, I was talking to a friend about this goal the other day. On a crappy pitch in the Lower East Side, we tried in vain to replicate the technique. But while the technique can be achieved, if I trained as hard as Wayne Rooney does, I could probably do a bicycle like that, film it, splice it side-by-side next to this goal, and feel proud. Great.

What wouldn’t be possible to replicate, however, is the idea. When Nani delivers this swooping cross from the right, it looks like Rooney is going to fight with Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany for a header. But Rooney reads the flight of the ball differently. Mid-air, he sees that Nani’s cross is bending like mad—it’s actually an inaccurate ball, as Nani was definitely aiming for Rooney’s back-post run-to-be. It whips harshly, and Rooney sees this before anyone else on the pitch. He cuts back, decides that he needs to attempt the goal of a lifetime, and Kompany ends up marking a ghost.

My friend and I decided that everything in Wayne Rooney’s life was built up to that goal. It’s insane on the eye, required every bit of Rooney’s technical, spatial, and intuitive ability, and it proved to be the winner in a crucial February Manchester Derby match. With three points secured, United went eight points clear of City for the title and never looked back.

Date: 2/15/2015

Match: Levante @ Barcelona

Barcelona may be known for their slow-burning style of play, but with Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar in attack, opposing defenses bend and break almost at will. To cap off Barcelona’s 5-0 destruction of Levante, Suarez buried a looping two-pass sequence to goal. It took over four seconds to shift the ball from deep in midfield to inside the penalty box. 

Ready to strike at any time, Suarez’s predatory instincts put him in the perfect position to get on his bicycle. He’s backpedaling while waiting for the cross, but that works to his advantage—his momentum drags him across goal and sets up the preposterous attempt on his favored right foot. The connection off the boot was too pure to stop. 

Date: 9/30/2006

Match: Arsenal @ Charlton

That Charlton defender definitely thought that he was about to clear a crappy cross from the Arsenal wing. Nah. Robin van Persie came dodging in with his left foot and sent that cross into the upper 90 from 18 yards out. The goal feels like it came out of nowhere, and it kind of did. RVP doesn’t come charging into frame until the cross is split seconds away from coming in hot. This is the exact thing I picture myself doing to my haters when things get rough.

Date: 4/16/2014

Match: Real Madrid @ Barcelona

Barcelona defender Marc Bartra is the poor man you see here getting skinned by Gareth Bale. Bartra clearly didn’t do his homework on Bale, because he should know that there isn’t a man alive fast enough to outrun Bale on the left wing. Bale not only runs right in on goal, but he powers through Bartra’s challenge.

After that, his acceleration leaves the then 23-year-old defender in the dust. Poking the goal through Jose Manuel Pinto’s legs added just further insult to a maimed Barcelona defense. The 85th minute goal ended up being the winner for Real Madrid in last year’s Copa del Rey Final. 

Date: 4/7/2010

Match: Bayern Munich @ Manchester United

In April 2010, Manchester United were seeking to make their third consecutive Champions League final. Against Bayern Munich at Old Trafford, United stormed out to a 3-0 lead, giving them a 4-2 advantage on aggregate in the quarterfinal tie. Bayern poked in a goal right before halftime, and in the 74th minute, Robben struck.

Coming from Franck Ribery’s corner, this goal looked 100 percent rehearsed. 99 out of 100 times, a corner kick swung in like that would be considered a bad ball in. Who’s going to head in a high-arching rainbow that’s so far away from goal? Well, nobody, because that wasn’t the plan. As the ball descended from the night sky, only Robben knew what was coming next. His volley was the result of genius training ground practice and opportune timing. The trick left Manchester United stunned, and ultimately, out of the semifinals. 

Date: 6/9/2012

Match: Brazil @ Argentina 

One of fiercest rivalries in South American sport was transplanted to MetLife Stadium in the summer of 2012. In the swamps of New Jersey’s Meadowlands, the largest soccer crowd in state history gathered for an end-to-end firecracker of a match. Argentina won 4-3, and Lionel Messi’s second goal was the peach of the bunch (his hat-trick goal in the 85th minute won the match).

It’s everything we love watching Messi do on a pitch: dribbling that strikes fear into backpedaling defenders and technically perfect shots from any distance or angle. Once he beat Marcelo on the wing, nobody on Brazil wanted to touch him. Not like they could’ve, anyway. It’s Messi, man. 

Date: 6/22/1986

Match: England @ Argentina

Count the bodies on the ground. I count six, including one midfielder who tried and failed three times to harass Diego off the ball. This 12-second clip of television needs to be rebroadcast into the universe until aliens come back with their version of recorded history based on the man they will come to recognize as their God, the one Diego Maradona—the being who scored against England and won the World Cup for his God and his country. It’s that real.