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My favourite goal of last season...

BoringOldFan

It's better to burn out than to fade away...
Sep 20, 2005
9,955
2,498
My favourite Tottenham goal of the 2006/07 season wasn't even included in the top 25 that the official site put together. Extending to 16 passes between 8 outfield players, Robbie Keane's second goal against Boro is the one that does it for me.

The move begins with Jermaine Jenas taking a corner on the right. Now had he plonked it on Dawson's head and it had rocketed into the top corner, I'd have nothing to write about. But he didn't - in fact it was headed clear by Jonathan Woodgate. The next time a Boro player touched the ball it would be Woodgate again, vainly trying to head Keane's shot off the line.

You can download the goal as a Quicktime movie here.

Let's go through it again...

boro01.JPG



Woodgate's clearing header falls to Malbranque, who controls it (1) and feeds it back to Ledley King in the centre circle. King in turn passes it (2) to Rocha on the left.


boro02.JPG


Rocha takes a touch before flighting a right-footed pass (3) to Keane on the right-hand corner of Boro's penalty area. Keane battles for possession and exchanges passes (4,5,6) with Chimbonda. In the background you can see Lennon trying to find some space, which he does later in the move. But for now, Chimbonda has to play the ball infield (7) to Jenas, who returns it to Chimbonda (8).

boro03.JPG

Chimbonda then feeds the ball to Zokora (9) who exchanges passes with Jenas (10,11) before feeding the ball to Lennon (12) who had now managed to make himself available on the right touchline.

boro04.JPG

Lennon plays the ball back to Chimbonda (13) who sweeps it on to Jenas (14), who has come a little deeper to pick up the ball. As soon as Jenas takes a touch, Lennon knows what's coming and is ready to go. By the time Jenas makes the pass, Lennon's body is angled forwards, ready to sprint onto the pass (15). By contrast, his marker Stuart Downing is upright and flat-footed. He is beaten before the ball is played.

Such is Lennon's pace, he easily beats Downing to Jenas's pass even though Downing's starting position is about five yards closer to goal. Lennon has time to look up and cut the ball back (16) to Robbie Keane, who has pulled away from the near post to find some space. His fine clipped shot beats Schwarzer, and Woodgate's despairing header cannot prevent the ball finding the net.

Football is a team game and it's about doing the simple things well. Great though it is to see Berbatov slalom through a defence or Robbie Keane smash home a spectacular volley, these are the cherries on the cake. The bread and butter goals - if that's not mixing a culinary metaphor - are ones like these, made up of simple passes along the ground, good movement of players and an incisive final move. The team showed great patience in retaining the ball until an opening had been worked that could be successfully exploited.

Of the outfield players, only Berbatov and Dawson were not involved. Rocha's lofted pass to Keane early in the move was the only time the ball left the ground. There were no mazy dribbles, the ball was simply passed around and through the Boro midfield and defence. Keep it simple, play the way you're facing, find space to receive a pass, keep the ball on the deck - all football cliches but look how effective they can be.

So while I can enjoy Berbatov's goal against Besiktas, Defoe's against Charlton and Huddlestone's at Manchester City, it is hard to plan for these wonder strikes. But for me, doing the simple things well as was so brilliantly demonstrated at Boro has an equal sense beauty and satisfaction.
 

MattWilliams

Active Member
Jul 14, 2004
2,417
57
Great post. It's a shame most people don't seem to have the patience for good football anymore. People want the game to be a constant highlights reel and forget to watch these pieces of brilliance.
 

camaj

Posting too much
Aug 10, 2004
8,195
883
It wouldn't be my favourite goal but I'd rather they attempted something like this than thrash some lame cross in from the halfway line. All to often we give the ball away rather than create a goal.
 

Strettsville

Member
May 15, 2005
126
0
The long ball from the back towards the beginning of the mood annoys me, it was just hit and hope from there, a long ball to robbie keane!? It's just stupid. From then on they did everything right.

It pains me to say it that whole move (minus the long ball) is exactly what the jonny foreigners at Arsenal do every game.
 

shelfsideyid

Member
Feb 7, 2005
986
15
Twas a great goal, but ......................

berbatov vs charlton is my favourite, showed class, brilliance and genius all rolled in one

As above, Berba's magical first touch to turn the defender, if seen in isolation, perfectly illustrates the genius,imagination,technique, and true (unlike the majority of players, wrongly tagged by the media ) world class talent, which was Berba's awesome debut season.:clap::clap:

Just, so gutted that (much like the movie follow up to Highlander) the sequel to Dimi's glorious first season, has been such a massive dissapointment, it actually taints the memory of the original:bang::bang:
 

Boaman

Member
Oct 31, 2005
935
1
I went to this game, all 3 goals were very good. This one and Berba's being special.

My favorite goal of last season was Tainio against West Ham, great stuff
 

StuckinPoland

Active Member
Feb 8, 2005
903
39
tainio's is memorable for lennon's flick, which was perfect. but berbatov's at charlton will live with me forever. his best goal last season by a country mile and should have been more praised than it was. just for having the gall to attempt it is genius. but to actually succeed. amazing.
 
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