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We all watch soccer for the moments that we will remember for a lifetime. We love to watch our favorite player score a dream goal. We live for our team winning the title. It’s these moments that we live for because they are special to us, they are unique. In honor of that sentiment, we have collected 10 of the most special moments in the history of soccer. These moments are glorious in their own right, but they are legendary because we will never see them repeated.
Here are the 10 football feats that you’ll never see repeated.
1. Messi’s 91 Goals In A Calendar Year
Photo: FIFAcom | Twitter
Years from now, when people are looking back on Lionel Messi’s career, they will bring up the year of 2012 as the year that Lionel Messi unequivocally established himself as the greatest player of all time. It’s hard to truly appreciate just how impressive Messi’s 91 goals in a calendar year are without some sort of context. Messi broke a record that was set by Gerd Muller 40 years earlier. In those 40 years, only two players came anywhere near Muller’s Mark: Romario with 65 goals in 2000, and Cristiano Ronaldo with 61 in 2012.
In breaking the record, Messi’s form ranged from immaculate to hotter than the sun. He scored 18 goals in 8 games. He scored two or more goals 27 times, including multiple 4 goal games and even a 5 goal Champions League masterclass. Truly remarkable.
If you feel like watching an hour of brilliance, here are all of Messi’s 91 goals in 2012.
2. Maradona Carrying Argentina To A World Cup Win
Photo: FutbolRetro_ | Twitter
The 1986 World Cup in Mexico was the tournament of Diego Maradona. It was him against the world, and he laughed in the face of the challenge. He played every single minute of every single game Argentina played. He knew that it was up to him to inspire his side to victory every time that he stepped onto the pitch, and he succeeded in a way that the world will never see again.
It is impossible to appreciate what Maradona accomplished that summer though numbers alone. Yes, he did record 5 goals and 5 assists in 7 games, including all of Argentina’s 4 goals in the quarter- and semi-finals and the tournament-winning assist in the Final against West Germany, but what he did to England in the quarter-finals was nothing less than legendary.
Against England, he controlled the game from the moment the whistle blew. The men in white simply had no answer for him as he ran up and down, side to side across the field with impunity. Then, within 4 minutes of each other, he created arguably the two most iconic pieces of play in the history of soccer: “The Hand of God” and “The Goal of the Century.”
Never again.
3. Roberto Carlos’ Impossible Goal
0.82˚, that is the angle at which Roberto Carlos had to shoot at when he struck this most miraculous of volleys. Did he mean to do it? Of course not. But complaining about that is a little like complaining that ice cream was put in waffle cones only because of a chance meeting of vendors at the World’s Fair. Thank god for luck, we say.
4. The Massacre At The Maracana
It isn’t every day that you see an entire nation have its heart wrenched from its chest and then systematically stabbed, but that is exactly what happened one Tuesday in the summer of 2014. The big bad Germans played their part to 7 goal perfection, complete with fit-for-a-situ-lord black and red jerseys. It all started innocuously enough with a mismanaged set piece, but it ended as one of the most shocking losses of all time.
If you are German, a masochist, or simply enjoy criminal soccer, you can watch the entire game here.
5. City Winning The League In Extra Time
Where to start with this. In 2012, after half a decade of living in Manchester United’s shadow, of always hearing about Sir Alex Ferguson and how he would go down in history as the greatest of all time, Manchester City found themselves on the cusp of winning the league title. They went into the last match day even on points with United, needing match or out perform the rivals one last time. What happened next was the kind of thing that makes you believe in fairy tales.
“I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again! So watch it, drink it in!”
Why thank you, Martin Tyler. We could agree more.
6. The Miracle At Istanbul
The legend of Liverpool is sometimes recalled with contempt. Supporters of rival teams are always quick to mention, yes, Liverpool has history, but that’s all that it has, and history has never won anything.
They are right, of course. History has never won anything. But, what about the passion that that history cultivates? What about the pride and belief that comes from it? That must surely count for something. Often, even we ourselves would disagree, but one night in Istabul changed all of that.
The first half for Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League Final against AC Milan was an absolute shellacking. They were at the mercy of the Italians, and the resulting 3-0 deficit that they took into halftime should have been a death sentence, but it wasn’t.
As Liverpool returned from the dressing room to start the second half, they did not walk out to silence or jeers. They walked out to the entirety of their traveling support serenading them with the most rousing rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that we have ever heard.
Liverpool didn’t win the game you are about to see because they were the best team; they won it because they believed, because their fans grabbed them by their very souls and forced them to believe.
That it happened at all is amazing, that it happened on club soccer’s biggest stage is truly unique.
7. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Free Kick vs Portsmouth
We go from the emotional to the scientific. As in, this goal looks like it should be breaking multiple laws of physics.
We don’t know how you do what you do, Ronaldo, but we’re pretty sure no one else will ever do it like you again.
8. Zlatan Dribbles Through NAC Breda To Score
This goal predates YouTube, which is really a shame because if it had happened, say, yesterday, it would have blown up the Internet in ways Kim Kardashian’s photoshopped butt can only dream of. This goal is quintessential Zlatan. The ego to not pass, to keep on dribbling. The composure to perform shot fake after shot fake. And the pure quality to finish the move with a goal, and not a shot blasted 10 yards over the bar. This goal could start it’s own religion.
9. Rene Higuita’s Scorpion Kick Save
We simply don’t think there are any keepers left in the world that have the cojones to pull off anything like this in a game. Even the marauding Manuel Neuer, who reintroduced the world to the term “sweeper-keeper” with his fearless forays outside his box, would think twice before attempting it.
10. Real Madrid’s 5 straight European Cups
Photo: EternamenteRM | Twitter
Real Madrid’s other worldly achievement of winning the European Cup (the equivalent of today’s Champions League) in 55/56, 56/57, 57/58, 58/59, and 59/60 is as impressive as it is impossible to reproduce today. The parity in the Champions League in 2015 is miles higher than it was in the 1950s. A team hasn’t even won it two times in a row since AC Milan 25 years ago. There is simply too much money and too much competition for any club — even the giants of Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich — to even start to believe that they could win the competition 5 times in a row.
11. The Simultaneous Double Bicycle Kick
We forgive you if you read the title and immediately thought that we were making a late attempt at an April Fools joke. Now that you know that this actually happened, we accept you apology, and hope that you understand that this will never, ever happen again.
Players go through their entire careers without ever attempting a bicycle kick, and here are two teammates pulling it off at the very same time and scoring.
We hope those two remember this goal for the rest of their lives. It’s never gonna happen again.
