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The best overhead kicks ever: Garnacho, Rooney, Ronaldo, more

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The best overhead kicks ever: Garnacho, Rooney, Ronaldo, more

  • Chris Wright, Toe Poke writerNov 27, 2023, 10:00 AM

Alejandro Garnacho took roughly three minutes to file his entry for the Premier League Goal of the Season award as Manchester United cantered to a 3-0 victory against Everton on Sunday.

The 19-year-old forward registered his first goal of the campaign in spectacular style as he opened the scoring at Goodison Park, rerouting Diogo Dalot’s deep cross into the far top corner with a flying overhead kick.

Garnacho’s outrageous strike drew instant comparisons to the similarly acrobatic goal scored by Wayne Rooney against Manchester City in the 2011 derby, with the technique involved being almost identical.

Joining the likes of Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the young Manchester United star can now rightfully take his place among the pantheon of greats who have previously taken to the skies to bang home incredible overhead goals.

In keeping with the spirit of technical excellence on display, here in no particular order are some of the most iconic scissor and bicycle kicks (yes, there is a difference!) to have ever graced the game.

– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

Alireza Jahanbakhsh (Brighton) vs. Chelsea, 2020

Jahanbakhsh scored only two Premier League goals for Brighton during the 2019-20 season, coming in back-to-back games, four days apart over the Christmas period. The second of the pair just so happened to be an excellent bicycle kick that helped rescue a point against Chelsea on New Year’s Day.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) vs. Juventus, 2018

Just a few months before he made the move to Turin, Ronaldo knocked his future employers out of the Champions League quarterfinals with a spectacular overhead effort — so spectacular in fact, that an Argentine journalist who attempted to recreate it ended up in hospital.

Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) vs. Manchester City, 2011

There can be no doubt that Rooney’s powerful overhead kick to win the Manchester derby was a work of instinctive brilliance. Who cares if it came off his shinpad?

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden) vs. England, 2012

The fateful night in which Zlatan launched a one-man assault on Joe Hart‘s professional pride culminated in him somehow scoring an acrobatic, long-range overhead kick that only he would dare attempt.

Dimitar Berbatov (Manchester United) vs. Liverpool, 2010

Berbatov secured his cult hero status at Old Trafford with a hat trick to down the old enemy, though the Bulgarian maverick’s second goal of the afternoon is definitely the one that sticks in the memory.

Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) vs. Liverpool, 2018

Wales. Golf. Stupendous gymnastic volleys from the edge of the area in Champions League finals. In that order.

Emre Can (Liverpool) vs. Watford, 2017

Can himself heralded this beauty as “the best goal I’ve ever scored” and it’s really not that hard to see why.

Ronaldinho (Barcelona) vs. Villarreal, 2006

The kind of goal you can watch several dozen times and still have no idea how Ronaldinho successfully controlled the ball, let alone found the back of the net in the same movement. Less an overhead kick, more a contortionist’s act.

Rivaldo (Barcelona) vs. Valencia, 2001

Another timeless classic from the Barca vault sees Rivaldo rounding off a ridiculously good hat trick with a phenomenal tumbling strike from 18 yards. We believe the correct term is “arrowed.”

Philippe Mexes (AC Milan) vs. Inter Milan, 2012

Not a name you immediately associate with spectacular net-finding prowess, but the France centre-back certainly made a knack for the spectacular — usually against Inter, as it happens.

Oscarine Masuluke (Baroka FC) vs. Orlando Pirates, 2017

You might be wondering why the scorer of this perfect, last-minute overhead kick is wearing gloves and a different kit to everybody else? That’s because Masuluke is a goalkeeper — the only goalkeeper to have been shortlisted for a Puskas Award.

Mauro Bressan (Fiorentina) vs. Barcelona, 1999

Proving that Barca were just as susceptible to conceding miraculous overheads, Bressan graced the Champions League with a 30-yard masterpiece that is still regularly cited to this day as being the best overhead kick ever scored.

Pele (POWs) vs. Nazis, 1981

Perhaps the most iconic overhead kick of all time is the one deployed by a young Brazilian prisoner of war by the name of Pele, who single-footedly defeated the evil Nazi hordes in World War II in the 1981 Sylvester Stallone movie “Escape To Victory.”

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