by Nick Holt
8. Michael Owen’s solo effort against Argentina in 1998, taking a pass from David Beckham and giving one of the world’s best defences the charge, sprinting away from Chamot, whizzing past Ayala as if he were invisible and thrashing the ball beyond Roa. All at the ripe old age of eighteen.
7. That goal from 1970, when Brazil play pinball and Pelé slides the most exquisitely paced pass into the path of right-back and skipper Carlos Alberto, and he sticks it away. Only at seven? The opposition were tired and demoralised.
6. Sweden, 1958, and coach Feola belatedly introduced seventeen-year-old Pelé to the starting line-up with predictably astonishing results. This goal, in the final, was the best expression of his youthful talent. Didi tosses in a nicely weighted cross; Pelé chests it down past a defender, flips it up and over a second and volleys it low and hard past the ’keeper – all in the blink of an eye. Instinct, yes, but there must be something in great players that allows them to plan goals like that and execute the plan instantaneously. Otherwise it’s just luck, and I refuse to believe that.
5. Esteban Cambiasso. Who he? He was a hard-working midfield player in the Argentina team that flattered to deceive in the 2006 World Cup Finals. Part of that flattery and deception was a sublime fifteen-pass move that culminated in Cambiasso lifting the ball past Serbian goalkeeper Jevric. All the front players had at last one touch and Crespo’s dart to the right to make space and back-heel to return the ball to Cambiasso was a mini masterpiece of attacking play in its own right.
4. Pony-tail flapping he wandered in off the left wing, ball ghosting aside his feet. He swayed one way and turned the other with the merest shift of emphasis at the hip. He appeared to drift a fraction above the ground, Zen-like – and the defenders were entranced, for none so much came as near him as he weaved amongst them. A sudden dash, a spark and a strike and the ball is nestling in the goal. We love you, Baggio, we do. Don’t think Czechoslovakia were that keen in 1990, mind.
3. Archie Gemmill. I can’t go through all that emotion again, just read the big piece about Scotland in 1978 if you missed it. A real lump in the throat goal. The artisan turned artist.
2. One potato, two potato, three potato – GOAL! In 1986 Diego Maradona beat all the English potatoes and scored. In the next game he beat all the Belgian potatoes and scored again. It was the most devastating exhibition of close control at speed with a football that we had witnessed. The cheating little b******.
1. I’m not a big fan of the tiki-taki. I like a bit of variety. Mix up the possession stuff with a bit of pace and fantasy stuff. My favourite World Cup goal was pure route one, Frank de Boer’s unbelievable sixty-yard pass cushioned, flipped and volleyed into the Argentinian goal by Dennis Bergkamp. And with a minute to go to win a quarter-final against tricky opposition. After the agony of England’s quarter-final defeat it was like a healing balm on a still raw wound. Thank you, Dennis. Please, please, please watch it on YouTube and make sure you have the Dutch commentary. I just watched it four times to make sure I’m right, and confirm that it is, in fact, the greatest goal ever scored. And I’m right.
These are the Best Ten Attacking Players Never to have Appeared in a World Cup Finals tournament:
10. George Weah. Not really as good as he was made out to be by FIFA, but a real powerhouse and the first global African superstar.
9. Arsenio Erico. Paraguayan striker either side of the war who was an inspiration to Di Stéfano. He played his club football and scored over three hundred goals for Independiente in Argentina.
8. Liam Brady. Gheorghe Hagi before Gheorghe Hagi was out of short pants. The brilliant Irishman only had foot but it was a cracker. He once scored a sumptuous goal of the month, cutting in off the left flank and curling a shot around the goalkeeper – with the outside of his left foot! He was the first player from the British Isles to be taken seriously in Serie A.
7. Jari Litmanen. It should be illegal, Ron Atkinson once quipped. Litmanen was a much-travelled playmaker with a variety of European careers – he graced Liverpool late on but Gérard Houllier didn’t really know what to do with him. He won four Dutch titles and a European Cup with Ajax. He won nothing with Finland.
6. Eric Cantona. King Eric. Nobody really got what made him tick, but at Leeds United and then Manchester United he wielded an enormous influence on the outcome of the English league title, uniquely so for a single player. Finding a manager and a strike partner who could work with him was a challenge, and one that most French managers failed. Cantona was in the French side that failed to qualify so abjectly in 1994. Cantona retired at his peak in 1997; imagine if he had done another year and been welcomed back into the French team; that defence, that Zidane . . . and Cantona. Mmmm.
5. Bernd Schuster. Arguably the best midfield player in Europe for a year or two in the eighties but he barely played for West Germany. Why? Because he was arrogant and headstrong. His loss, they did okay without him.
4. Eduard Streltsov. Russian playmaker (and playboy) in the late fifties, Streltsov was lost to the game after being imprisoned for rape. No details of the trial were released and it is widely believed Streltsov was removed and taught a lesson for being un-Soviet. He resumed his career but was never the same. The USSR with Streltsov would have been genuine rivals to Brazil in 1962.
3. Ryan Giggs. Lovely old Giggsy, still playing at forty. From coruscating winger to crafty playmaker he has won everything he could have won at club level, and nothing at all at international level. Sadly Gareth Bale, Giggs’ natural successor, will follow the same path, although his career is still in its infancy so I can’t include him here.
2. Alfredo Di Stéfano. The masterful deep-lying striker in the Real Madrid side that dominated the early years of the European Cup. He played internationals for Argentina, Colombia and then Spain as an oriundi; in 1962 he was declared in Spain’s squad for the World Cup but never appeared. Whether injured or out of favour has never fully been established.
1. George Best. As per Giggs above, except he was an alcoholic wreck at forty, not still playing in the top division. Best had the lot; pace, aggression, skill, speed, finishing – he could even head the ball as well as most centre-forwards. A true genius, with all the flaws that term normally implies.
These were the Best Three World Cup tournaments:
1982
1970
1950
And these were the three worst:
1962
1990
2010
Here is my All-Time Greatest Squad to play Mars and all those other aliens in the inter-galactic World Cup. The squad is based on World Cup performance, as this is a World Cup book.
Goalkeepers:
Lev Yashin (USSR), Gordon Banks (England), Oliver Kahn (Germany)
Defenders:
Franz Beckenbauer (Germany), Paul Breitner (Germany), Cafú (Brazil), Paolo Maldini (Italy), Bobby Moore (England), Daniel Passarella (Argentina), Lilian Thuram (France)
Midfield & Wide Players:
József Bozsik (Hungary), Bobby Charlton (England), Didi (Brazil), Garrincha (Brazil), Diego Maradona (Argentina), Pelé (Brazil), Sócrates (Brazil), Marco Tardelli (Italy), Zinedine Zidane (France)
Forwards:
Johan Cruyff (Holland), Eusébio (Portugal), Gerd Müller (Germany), Ronaldo (Brazil)
Likely first XI
Banks
Thuram Beckenbauer Moore Maldini
Bozsik
Garrincha Pelé Maradona
Cruyff Müller
That’s an outrageous team. To think Didi, Zidane and Eusébio had to be left on the bench – and Di Stéfano and Best weren’t even available.
Argentina before the 1930 Final. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Meazza (Italy) and Sárosi (Hungary) shaking hands before the 1938 Final. (Getty Images)
Joe Gaetjens, who scored the winning goal in the United States’ 1–0 upset of England in the 1950 World Cup. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Puskás scores, but still loses in 1954. (Po
pperfoto/Getty Images)
Garrincha, the ‘little bird’. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Schiaffino, one of the unheralded greats. (Getty Images)
The incomparable Pelé, as a teenager in 1958. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
The Battle of Santiago, 1962. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
The inimitable Bobby Charlton. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
‘Der Kaiser’, Franz Beckenbauer. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Pickles the dog, briefly the holder of the trophy. (Getty Images)
Hat-trick hero, Sir Geoff Hurst. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Braziiiiiiiiiil! 1970. Genius. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Cruyff, 1974. Genius. (AFP/Getty Images)
West Germany defy logic, and the Dutch, to win in 1974. (Getty Images)
Passarella wins for the Junta in 1978. (Getty Images)
Somebody’s gonna get hurt . . .
. . . it was Battiston. (AFP/Getty Images)
Burruchaga, unsung hero. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
‘See, Peter, this is my right hand . . .’ (Getty Images)
‘. . . and this is my left.’ (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
Lineker doing what he did best. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
Shilton in 1990, still the world’s No.1 at 40. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
Klinsmann gave one of the great displays against Holland in 1990. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
US defender Alexi Lalas at the 1994 World Cup. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images)
The agony and the ecstasy of the penalty shoot-out: Baggio and Taffarel in 1994. (Bob Thomas/Getty Images; AFP/Getty Images; AFP/Getty Images; AFP/Getty Images)
Michael Owen en route to teenage glory in 1998. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Zizou (No.10) heads for victory in 1998. (AFP/Getty Images)
Coach Guus Hiddink took South Korea, who had never previously won a World Cup match, to the semi-finals in 2002. (Bongarts/Getty Images)
Grosso breaks German hearts in 2006. (Bongarts/Getty Images)
Rob Green howls after a howler in 2010. (AFP/Getty Images)
England expects (Jack Wilshere) . . . (Getty Images)
. . . as does Germany (Mario Götze) . . . (Getty Images)
. . . and Brazil (Neymar). (Getty Images)