Forget the Premier League for a moment and celebrate these extraordinary goals, from Iñigo Martínez's 50-yard belter to Eren Derdiyok's acrobatics. And then let us know your favourites
Just to prove that there is life outside the Premier League – and away from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for good measure – here are 10 stunning goals from this season that you might not have seen, with their origins in Italy, Germany, Spain, Holland, Israel, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Portugal and Finland.
There are no favourites here, or rather 10 equal favourites. While the goals are numbered, they are in no particular order: I just needed to make sure I chose the right number. Enjoy.
1) Tal Ben Haim, Maccabi Petah Tikva 2 Ironi Rishon Lezion 2, January
Not that one. This is emphatically not the large, lumbering Israeli defender Tal Ben Haim, but rather the young, speedy Israeli forward Tal Ben Haim. The fact that there is another footballing Tal Ben Haim represents such an unlikely coincidence that Uefa have had to label him "Tal Ben Haim II", for the avoidance of confusion. And here he proved just how emphatically not-the-other-Tal-Ben-Haim he is by running at great pace from one end of the field to the other before producing a finish of most estimable nonchalance to send the ball looping over the goalkeeeper. Ben Haim thus wins the peg-it-down-the-pitch award ahead of Juan Gillermo Cuadrado of Lecce, whose remarkably similar goal against Siena in February was also quite something. Picks up ball well inside his own half? Check. Takes the ball past pretty much an entire team? Check. A couple of ostentatious nutmegs on the edge of the penalty area? Check. Nonchalant finish at the end of it? Check. Having to deal with any kind of tackle worthy of the name? Er, nope.
2) Lex Immers, Den Haag 2 Utrecht 2, November
As the ball connected with Lex Immers' toe 25 yards from goal there was, at a conservative estimate, an 83% chance that it was about to scud into a perfectly innocent woman in Row 48, in all likelihood breaking her jaw. Instead it rocketed into the top corner of the net so fast that Utrecht's veteran goalkeeper Rob van Dijk scarcely had time to arch his 42-year-old eyebrow, let alone attempt a save. "A goal like that you only score once in your career, and I scored mine today," Immers said afterwards. "Could it be goal of the year? Let's hope so." It's not far off. And of course it does help that Immers shares a first name with a superhero villain.
3) Miroslav Stoch, Fenerbahce 6 Genclerbirligi 1, March
A corner is pulled back to someone lurking on the edge of the area, who volleys it into the back of the net. It's a modern classic, and a goal type that Turkey knows all about since Hamit Altintop's effort in their Euro 2012 qualifying victory over Kazakhstan in September 2010 earned him the Fifa Puskas Award for the best goal in the entire world that year. They saw another stonking riff on the theme this season, courtesy of the young Slovakian winger Miroslav Stoch. Hannover's Jan Schlaudraff effort against Hamburg in November deserves a mention, while we're here.
4) Ismael Aissati, Ajax 1 PSV 0, March
Since we're on the subject of goals scored from corners, this is pretty sweet.
5) Iñigo Martínez, Real Betis 2 Real Sociedad 3, November
Iñigo Martínez is a young centre-back who turned 21 only last week and scored just three goals this season. One was a header thumped into the back of the net from five yards after a free kick – the kind of goal, in other words, that centre-backs are supposed to score. The other two were scored from a combined distance of over 100 yards, as first he equalised against Athletic Bilbao in October, and then, one minute into stoppage time and with the game poised at 2-2, he repeated the feat against Real Betis at the end of November. The goals are stunning, struck with his left boot at such force that they don't just sail over the goalkeeper's head and plop over the line, as own-half-goals are prone to doing, but fly into the top corner of the net at such velocity that even had the keeper been on the line – and on neither occasion were they terribly far away – they might still have failed to keep it out. The next best long-distance wonderstrike from a centre-back this season? Alexander Milosevic for AIK v GIF Sundsvall in April.
6) Yiannis Fetfatzidis, Atromitos 0 Olympiakos 2, April
Lots of players chip goalkeepers, but this one was special. Fetfatzikis – rather sensibly known as Fetfa – was standing 17 yards from goal when the ball left his foot, with the goalkeeper roughly on the penalty spot. The challenge here is to get the ball up and down; Fetfa got it up, and up, and up, and down. There could have been three keepers standing on top of each other, on stilts, and they still would have been grasping at thin air. The height the lad got on that chip was, frankly, astonishing. "All football players want to score such difficult and beautiful goals," Fetfa deadpanned afterwards, "but what really matters in the end is for our team to claim victory." A noble sentiment, but clearly a load of old rot.
7) Eren Derdiyok, Wolfsburg 3 Leverkusen 2, March
As it happened, the Bundesliga goal of the season and the best goal in Ligue 1 were pretty similar, involving a player setting the ball up for himself before converting acrobatically, like a one-man beach volleyball team only without a beach, and with overhead kicks. Younès Belhanda's effort for Montpellier against Marseille in April was only just less amazing than Derdiyok's, and made more memorable by presence of a pair of French commentators channelling Kenneth Williams. In their defence, there are occasions when saying "oooooooh!" a lot is simply the right thing to do.
8) Joel Pohjanpalo, HJK Helsinki 3 Mariehamn 1, April
Undisputed hat-trick of the season, for these reasons: it ticks the one-with-the-left-one-with-the-right-and-a-header box; it was scored by a 17-year-old making his full debut on the first day of a new season; and between the header with which he equalised and the low drive from 20 yards with which he completed his hat-trick and ended the contest in the 74th minute, just 162 seconds had elapsed. Just a few weeks earlier he had been on trial at Liverpool; fortunately it seems he left before their coaching methods could have too much of an influence.
9) Dalibor Veselinovic, Kortrijk 1 Gent 3, March
There were some brilliant bicycle kicks this season, but this won out on the basis that while many of the others make you say "wow", this one makes your mouth gape wide and your brain give up entirely. "Such a goal you might score once in your life," Veselinovic said. "It was a goal like Ronaldinho would score. I saw all the pictures and it is incredibly beautiful." And he's not wrong. Next best low countries overhead of the season: Maya Yoshida, in VVV Venlo's 3-3 draw against PSV Eindhoven in September. A couple of other brilliant contenders from Italy: Stefano Mauri for Lazio against Napoli in April; and David Di Michele for Lecce against Parma in December. Any of them could have made the list, frankly.
10) José Shaffer, Beira-Mar 0 Uniao de Leiria 1, September
Perhaps the most emphatic finish of our 10. The kind of goal which should be reported in capital letters, preferably using the words "blunderbuss" and "exocet", and followed by an indecent number of exclamation marks. The ball is laid back into his path and Shaffer judges his run-up perfectly before unleashing an unstoppable drive across goal and into the far top corner of the net, the ball moving at all times with hideously violent intent. Nice hit, mate. Though it's from a couple of yards closer to goal, and the goalkeeper doesn't so much dive to save it but kneel to worship it, Maicon's recent strike for Internazionale against Milan should also be mentioned here, mainly because it looks uncannily like a mirror image of Shaffer's. Read More
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