The Goal of 2009.

By: chris | August 6th, 2009

This is, plain and simple, one of the best goals you will ever see. Not that every own-half goal isn’t brilliant, it’s just the pace, accuracy and trajectory with which this ball left from the boot of Kazumasa Uesato is beyond perfect. Floating with such harmless intent until landing casually in the goal, almost as though the ball was carried on a cloud steered by baby angels.

And the fine fellers over at 101 Great Goals, where this video was found, mentioned two names destined to evoke memories whenever an own-half lob is scored: Xabi Alonso and Mr. Sir David Beckham. No doubt justified. But every time an own-half goal is scored, I can only think of one man: Roger.

It’s been mentioned in these waters before, but it’s no doubt deserving of another. While most great long range scorer might have two or three in their entire careers, Roger Garcia scored three from his own half in one year.

He did cheat slightly, having moved at the end of the 2002-03 season from Espanyol to Villarreal (who sells a man with two own-half goals the previous year? who?) and kicking off the 03-04 campaign with an own-halfer for Villarreal. But while it wasn’t one season, they were within 365 days of each other. An incredible feat any way you shake it.

“I was at the Olympic Stadium to witness his effort,” recalls James Gibson. “I was in the process of berating Roger for trying to release Savo Milosevic with a fruitless long ball when it suddenly dawned on me that he’d actually taken a pot shot at goal – and managed to lob the Recreativo keeper in the process.”

“You need to spot the keeper off his line before trying it, judge your direction and power perfectly and hope the wind is with you,” explained García. “Then you must pray that it goes in because you feel stupid and people criticise you otherwise. It’s a beautiful goal to score and, although it only counts the same as one which trickles in from one metre, this is the kind of thing I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a young boy. You grow up knowing that not many people can do it; you try it and succeed a couple of times and then it starts to feel really special.”

Every time we see one of these brilliant goals from someone – and Uesato’s is second to none – it only feels right to pay tribute to The Forgotten King, Roger.