Formula 1

“ I bloody love football” David Brent, 2000.

Whilst revealing the statement to be something of an overblown expression of a sport to which he was largely ignorant, Brent was pretty much on the money with the sentiment here. Football is bloody brilliant. There is so much to admire in a football match: incredible reflex saves, huge crunching ball-and-man-and-first-three-rows-tackles, exquisite first touches that kill the ball stone dead. But really, there is nothing as beautiful, as exhilarating, and as bloody brilliant as Goals.

The currency of football; they change lives, define eras, and create history. They also don’t come around that often in relation to the scoring system of other sports, which makes them all the more special. The purpose of this post is to examine goals in all their glory and decide, which is best?

Harry Hill may think the only way to resolve a dispute is to get two underpaid junior producers in hastily arranged costumes to jump on each other, but he is wrong. And he is also in danger of going a bit stale – TV Burp will need to shake things up a bit next time round to retain the high award-winning levels it was achieving – but I digress.

He is wrong, as I have devised a scientifically perfect (and in no way thrown together because I am effectively stealing money from BT these days*) formula to calculate the perfect goal. Behold:

PG = I*S(CIDI factor)

Perfect Goal = Importance x Setting x(Could I Do It factor)

This is copyright by the way so don’t try nicking it or when you wake up camel spiders will be chewing your legs off whilst you sleep. Possibly not true but do you want to take the risk? Camel spiders are the stuff of nightmare, trust me – don’t Google them unless you enjoy flinching at every unexpected contact for the rest of your tragic life.

The formula should first be examined in terms of the things it rules out. We can all spank a ball from 30 yards, and every now and then it will fly in top bin. AFC Hamsey players and supporters who witnessed my thunderbolt against Portland at home this year will never forget the sonic boom when it left my boot, replaced with the whipcrack of the ball slapping into the night at a frankly frightening speed. And I’m crap. So in our search for the Perfect Goal, I’m ruling out the majority of ‘screamers’ as every player has that in his locker more or less - so the CIDI factor will be 0 on goals like that

This also rules out goals which, although massively important in terms of winning a cup or something like that, have a low CIDI factor. Now you see why I have copyright, because it’s a frigging genius formula, right?!

Importance and Setting are equally weighted – Importance points are lost if the beautiful goal is the 4th in a 6-0 win; or the consolation goal in a defeat for example. Setting points are gained in finals, at showpiece games, you get the gist. Think Giggs v Arsenal, or Zizou v Leverkusen.

It is the CIDI factor that will really decide things though. Both the efforts mentioned above score highly – Giggs’ slalom to take him through the defence, and Zidane’s pure and perfect technique to set himself and then catch the ball so perfectly – CIDI? CIF.

Goals that would score high on the CIDI factor also include the steely-eyed, assassin like dinks over the keeper a la Torres, Ronaldo or Rivaldo (one in particular against Denmark in WC98 is criminally under-rated). Every time an elite striker scores one of those when clean through, drawing the keeper out and then lifting it ever so slightly over them, I always picture Leon, seconds from death…’This is for…Mathilda…’ BOOM. Hitmen like that have a composure in front of goal that most of us lack. It even applies to professionals – Heskey, Ormerod, Heskey again – given time to think they don’t have the composure.

Another high CIDI factor is sheer technical ability. Begrkamp’s spin against Newcastle, Edmundo embarrassing United, any one of dozens from Le Tissier – a flash of genius and creativity that makes idiots of fellow professionals and leaves us mortals gasping.

So, here is where you come in, beloved readers. Using the comments, give me a goal that you consider to be one of the best. I’ll apply the formula, and let’s see what we come up with.

------------------------------

*Once, years ago, my sister fancied pulling a sickie from work. Our Dad, outraged, posed the question – verbatim – ‘Would you get out of bed, go round to Woolworths and take £40 out of the till?’ A period of confused silence followed (Zoe’s speciality, that) with which he followed up..'Well then.’

Er...yeah, good point, loser. Despite the somewhat melodramatic way in which he chose to make his point, evidently in my Dad’s eyes it’s stealing to either call in sick or sit around blogging all day. Oops...