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.
The life of a defender can be a brutal one. Your strikers and midfielders score the glorious goals and get the attention while your goalkeeper makes the amazing saves. Unless your name is Virgil van Dijk, the majority of the players in the back line don’t typically bask in too much glory. In honor of those in defense, here is a list of the 10 best goals by defenders.
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.
As the final whistle approached, it looked as if Barcelona would have to settle for a draw. The Blaugrana had led with just five minutes remaining in normal time of El Clásico, but James Rodriguez leveled the score at 2-2 for ten-man Real Madrid. Enter Lionel Messi.
On April 22, 2000, Marcelo Balboa scored the greatest goal in MLS history for the Colorado Rapids in Columbus. The Balboa bicycle kick is an iconic goal that won MLS Goal of the Year in 2000 and is still one of, if not the, best goals in league history.
Somehow it has already been more than two years since Ricardo Kaka retired from football. The Brazilian is now 38 years old after celebrating his birthday on April 22. Let’s take a look back at the best Kaka moments in honor of his birthday and everything he contributed to the sport.
Messi was coming.
For the first and only time — barring a grizzled move to Inter Miami — the greatest footballer ever was going to play competitive matches on American soil. The fact that it was the Copa América — a grand old competition summoning the specters of Zizinho, Javier Zanetti and Carlos Valderrama — made it all the more fantastic. By all rights and definitions, the tournament didn’t even belong here.