Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The way football should be watched !

Came across this while reading an article and thought of sharing it.

Ask pretty much anybody to describe England's third goal against Holland in Euro 96, and they will speak of Teddy Sheringham dummying to shoot, then opening his body and laying the ball off for Alan Shearer to smash a controlled slice past Edwin van der Sar and into the top corner. Which is fine, in as much as Sheringham's lay-off demonstrated a fine awareness of his surroundings, great unselfishness and a deft touch, but the move began far earlier, and was glorious in its entirety.

Tony Adams won possession, anticipating and intercepting after Ronald de Boer had miscontrolled a Michael Reiziger clearance. He strode forward, before letting Paul Gascoigne take over 10 yards inside the Dutch half. He switched the ball left for Darren Anderton, and then received the return just in from the left touchline. As Clarence Seedorf closed him down, he rolled the ball back with the sole of his boot, creating room for a jabbed ball inside to Steve McManaman, who played an exquisite chipped return, arcing the ball over Reiziger and into Gascoigne's path as he made a forward charge. Gascoigne showed great strength to hold off Aron Winter, barrelling into the box and drawing Danny Blind before stabbing the ball back with the outside of his right foot to Sheringham, who sensed Johan De Kock closing in and pushed the ball right to Shearer.

The point is that every bit of the move was brilliant, and McManaman's chip to Gascoigne was a technically harder thing to do and displayed greater vision and imagination even than Sheringham's lay-off. But it is forgotten because of television's habit of focusing on the money shot."

Watch the goal from 3:55 in the video :

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