Last night, Austrian striker Ivica Vastic earned himself a lifetime’s supply of beer from a Vienna-based brewery, by slotting away an injury time penalty. In the spirit of rewarding overpaid athletes for fulfilling the criteria of their job description, Paddy Power have offered the first Spaniard to score against Sweden tomorrow night a Hummer. That’s not a ‘hummer’ in the sense that Cristiano Ronaldo and his lady-of-the-night associates may understand it, but rather one of those grotesque gas-guzzling military vehicles that they can’t shift for love nor money anymore.
There is, however, one condition for the giveaway. The Spanish scorer must also perform the ‘Chiki-Chiki’ dance - it’s a joke routine that started on Spanish television and ended up being their 2008 Eurovision entry:
The best goal of the European Championships thus far is undoubtedly Pepe’s opener against Turkey on Saturday, but elsewhere in the world an even more impressive strike hit the onion bag. The video above is from a World Cup qualifier between Australia and Iraq, where the latter’s Emad Mohammed banged one in from 35 yards.
Impressive stuff, particularly as the Aussies were one of the first nations to send troops to the conflictuous nation and they only pulled out last week.
For all the doubters out there, you were right. The American “soccer” leagues are silly - not the robust, sensual, glitzy, angry matches everyone was expecting. Dynasty had given everyone the wrong impression of Americans, as it turns out. Below, a bored David Beckham hoofs a goal from his own half just to make a point.
Villarreal barely need to leave their half to score
UPDATE: The spoilsports at YouTube appear to have taken the video down, but you can see it here.
The best (if not cheekiest) effort of the weekend goes to Villarreal’s Marcos Senna, who scored the only goal of yesterday’s game with Betis from the centre circle.
Remember that 50-yard goal that put David Beckham on the route to international stardom. Well I do, because I was sitting in the stands watching my side go 3-0 down on the opening day of the season. Anyway, Polish defender Tomasz Hajto mimicked Mr B’s long range effort for his club Górnik Zabrze in a recent match against Polonia Bytom.
Hajto briefly played for Derby and Southampton - both clubs could certainly have used his ability to find the net talent this season.
Here’s Ronaldo’s amazing dead ball strike from last night, which Sir Alex is dubbing ‘the best kick ever in the history of things that have been kicked.’ Or something like that.