With the Bundesliga’s restart just over a week away, it’ll be fascinating to see the differing levels of fitness on display when, for example, Borussia Dortmund hosts Schalke in the Revierderby on Saturday, May 16. After over two months off, it’s only natural that some players will have taken better care of themselves, while others might need an extra week or two to last more than 60 minutes.
If the Bundesliga ever returns, Hertha Berlin’s Salomon Kalou will have to wait even longer after the club suspended him for violating strict social distancing guidelines on Monday.
The Ivory Coast forward posted a Facebook livestream video showing him breaking numerous rules, including shaking hands, fist bumping teammates, bursting into a room while some one was apparently being tested and, overall, just being a complete moron.
On May 3, 1998, legendary goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar scored the first and only goal of his professional career. In recognition of those in net, this list of the five best goalkeeper goals has been made to celebrate goals scored from the most unlikely source. Before starting the list, let’s take a moment to appreciate a young Van der Sar scoring.
Now on to the good stuff.
No decade in the Bundesliga’s 57-year history has been as thoroughly dominated by one club as Bayern Munich’s reign over the last 10 years. Apart from Borussia Dortmund’s back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012, the rest of the 2010s were steamrolled by Bayern.
Over this period, the club routinely landed players in the Bundesliga's top 10 scorers each season. The notable examples include Arjen Robben, Thomas Müller, Mario Gómez, Mario Mandžukić and Robert Lewandowski.
When the 2006 World Cup was over, eight of The Guardian’s 12 correspondents in Germany named it the match of the tournament. That sentiment has lasted 14 years as a recent poll on FIFA’s Twitter — with nearly 45K votes cast — declared it the one game from the 2006 competition that fans wanted to rewatch most.
And all this fervent nostalgia for a match that remained 0-0 over the course of the first 118 minutes of action in Dortmund.
Goal #100: An acrobatic side volley that’s made to look effortless. Goal #99: A velvety first touch loaded with purpose, a graceful cut beyond a defender and a curled finish inside the far post.
And now there are 98 superior goals?! As Ray Hudson once said, “The insane becomes the routine with this man.”
Enough time spent scouring YouTube and the internet for best goal compilations will make an individual believe they've seen it all.