The best overhead kicks ever: Garnacho, Rooney, Ronaldo, more
Credit to Author: Chris Wright| Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 08:53:18 EST
Rob Dawson tries to put Alejandro Garnacho’s incredible bicycle kick into words after Manchester United’s 3-0 win over Everton. (0:47)
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.
What are you watching there, @AGarnacho7? 😂👀#MUFC || #EVEMUN pic.twitter.com/5vMNLoqiTX
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.
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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.
😍 No words really needed here, enjoy!#BHAFC 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/BCxf9J8Def
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.
Best. Derby. Goal.
Ever!@WayneRooney #MUFC pic.twitter.com/AX2lENFFv2
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?
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.
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.
Wales. Golf. Stupendous gymnastic volleys from the edge of the area in Champions League finals. In that order.
A moment of individual brilliance 🚲#GoalOfTheDay @emrecan_ pic.twitter.com/HjoBF3YXhm
Can himself heralded this beauty as “the best goal I’ve ever scored” and it’s really not that hard to see why.
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.
Hat-trick y una chilena extraterreste 👽
Hace 18 años, @RIVALDOOFICIAL nos regaló una de las noches más mágicas de #LaLigaHistory. 💫 pic.twitter.com/RVdAe7vY3H
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 Mexès: “You only score a goal like this once in your career.”@acmilan | #UCL pic.twitter.com/mnZ1Gumlrr
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.
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.
🔥 Best bicycle kick in history?
🤯 Mauro Bressan #OTD in 1999! #UCL | @ACFFiorentinaEN pic.twitter.com/1jhtfCjSWf
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.
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.”