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You might ask why anyone should give any sort of special attention to Jermain Defoe’s brilliant strike against Newcastle this weekend. Was it any more stunning than Charlie Adam’s 60-yard artillery strike? Does it make Rooney’s immaculate touch and finish look average? All four of the goals that Arsenal scored this weekend were glorious displays of skill — for Christ’s sake (literally, given Sunday's holiday), we probably even saw the save of the year this past weekend from American keeper Tim Howard. All someone had to do was chuck the ball somewhere near the 18, and a moment of brilliance happened.
Defoe’s goal is not separated by class or difficulty, it’s separated by circumstance. Newcastle vs Sunderland — a.k.a. the Tyne Wear Derby — doesn’t have the worldwide following or pomp and circumstance of other Premier League derbies (on our list of the biggest soccer rivalries on the planet, it doesn't even rank in the top 10), but it is still one of the biggest rivalries out there. This goal was the sole goal of the 2015 edition of this tradition; the game winner. You see two things when you watch Defoe score: the goal, and the crowd absolutely losing itself in its aftermath. Their reaction speaks volumes about the goal’s importance.
Jermain Defoe has become a man displaced in the past year, hardened by the reality of growing old in a young man’s game. He had spend the vast majority of his career as a Tottenham Hotspur man, either playing for the club or out on loan. The club and his career were intertwined for the vast majority of a decade, and then he was sold to Toronto FC.
Life in the MLS could never live up to the glory of the Premier League. His transfer to Toronto was not an elegant descent into quasi-retirement. Defoe was meant to play in England, always had been and always will be.
He came to Sunderland humbled, midway through the season. He understood that his career was in full decline. That goal was a reminder of everything great about the game. “This is why you play football,” he would say after.
Photo: BBC
That that man scored that goal in that game was why it mattered. None of those other wonders reduced a man to tears. They didn’t send the entire stadium crashing into delirium. Defoe did, and that is why he was so taken by emotion.
"I tried to hold [the tears] back but it's just a special moment and for the fans as well," He went on to say. "I said before in the presser, coming to the game on the bus and just seeing the kids in the street and how much it means to the people here, it just caught me really.”
It’s impossible to tell what was caught more sweetly, Defoe or the ball.
