Event Type: 1001 GREATEST FOOTBALL MOMENTS - 2023

2023-05-16

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 458

SENDING OFF NO JOKE FOR BEST (1969)

With a flick of the wrist George Best landed himself in trouble – once again – with the football authorities. As the Manchester United player walked off the pitch after a frustrating 3 December League Cup semi-final against Manchester City, he flipped the ball out of referee Jack Taylor’s hands. Best, who had been booked in the game, claimed it was a playful gesture, but the ref reported the player’s action to the Football Association. The result was a four-week suspension and a £100 fine. Lowly Northampton Town were the victims of Best’s enforced rest when, on his return, he scored a record-equalling six goals in an 8-2 FA Cup win.
Best flanked by team mates argues his case but referee Taylor is in no mood to show leniency.

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2023-05-15

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 457

PELÉ’S 1000TH GOAL (1969)

Who knows how many of the thousands in the crowd realized it at the time, but when the great Pelé struck a 77th-minute goal in Rio de Janeiro’s magnificent Maracana Stadium on 19 November he was notching up yet another career high. The strike for his Santos team was Pele’s thousandth in all competitions, national and international. Fittingly, it sealed a 2-1 win over his club’s arch rivals Vasco de Gama, but it was not the end of the Brazilian’s scoring prowess and he continued scoring for Santos and after that the New York Cosmos.
At club level Pelé was a lethal predator and scored prolifically from all areas of the pitch. He missed few penalties and no goalkeeper relished the one-to-one confrontation with him. Many of Pelé’s greatest goals were captured by the world’s TV cameras on the international stage and he scored 78 for his country in 91 international appearances. Both his goals and his general vision brought success for the teams he played within, culminating in the World Cup triumphs for Brazil in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

Pelé’s 1000th goal – a penalty kick – was captured in this photographic sequence.

 

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2023-05-12

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 456

FOOTBALL MATCH SPARKS WAR (1969)

It all began innocuously enough with Honduran fans throwing stones at the hotel windows of the El Salvadoran national team on the night before their countries met in Tegucigalpa. The El Salvadorans slept badly and lost 1-0 on 8 June, causing distraught fan Amelia Bolanios to shoot herself. In their quest to reach the 1970 World Cup finals the teams met again in San Salvador, and this time the Hondurans were harassed and lost 3-0. Honduran fans raced for the border, but several died. The ensuing war lasted only 100 hours, but left over 6000 dead, 15,000 injured and thousands homeless. A peace treaty was finally signed 11 years later.
Soldiers point their machine guns towards Honduras from a frontier post near El Poy, El Salvador during the conflict.

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2023-05-11

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 455

PENALTY SHOOT-OUTS MAKE THEIR DEBUT (1969)

George Best’s low shot to the right heralded a controversial change in English soccer. The penalty shoot-out had arrived and it was apt that one of the game’s most colourful characters should strike home the first one. Best converted the first penalty as Manchester United beat Hull City in a Watney Cup semi-final on 5 August, a month after FIFA had sanctioned shoot-out deciders to games. Brian Kidd and Bobby Charlton also scored, but the normally deadly striker Denis Law became the first player to miss in a shoot-out. In another first, the Hull goalkeeper became the first custodian to take a penalty in a shoot-out, but he missed.
Denis Law holds the unwelcome distinction of being the first player to experience the heartbreak of failing to convert in a shoot-out.

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2023-05-10

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 454

PASS MASTER RIVERA DESTROYS AJAX (1969)

A bravura performance by midfielder Gianni Rivera inspired AC Milan to their second European Cup on 28 May 1968. Pass after pass from the talented playmaker found its mark as the Italian champions overwhelmed an Ajax side which boasted the legendary Johan Cruyff in its line-up. On a warm night in Madrid, the Italians romped to a 4-1 win, with Rivera setting up two of his side’s four goals. In fact, Rivera’s masterful performance against the Dutch champions proved to be a high-water mark for him and he was voted the European Footballer of the Year – only the second Italian player to achieve this accolade.
Gianni Rivera stands second on the left of the back row. His accurate and lethal passing allowed Milan to tear apart the Dutch champions.

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2023-05-09

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 453

ORDER OF LENIN AWARDED TO ‘BLACK SPIDER’ (1968)

In 1968 Lev Yashin, the man credited with bringing a new dominance to the penalty area, received his country’s highest honour, the Order of Lenin, for his services to Soviet football from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He played for Dynamo Moscow, his only club, for 22 seasons and in winning 78 caps for his country played in three World Cups. A great ambassador for Russian soccer, he won a football gold medal at the 1956 Olympics and remains the only goalkeeper named European Player of the Year – in 1963. In 1999, nine years after his death, he was voted Russia’s athlete of the century.
Yashin was nicknamed the ‘Black Spider’ due to his distinctive all-black kit and the belief that he must have eight arms to make so many incredible saves.

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2023-05-08

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 452

REPLAY CLINCHES EUROPEAN CROWN (1968)

Jubilant Italy needed a second attempt to win the 1968 European Championship and the game went into the history books as the only international final ever to be decided on a replay. Italy, desperate to end their 30-year gap between major international titles, had frustrated a dominant Yugoslavia in the first match in Rome on 8 June, which ended 1-1. The teams returned to the same stadium two days later where the hosts took advantage of a tired Yugoslavian side and strolled to a 2-0 win with a goal from Luigi Riva in 12 minutes – the fastest goal of the tournament – and Pietro Anastasi on 31 minutes.
Italy’s Luigi Riva opens the scoring beating Yugoslavia goalkeeper Pantelic with a fierce drive to set Italy on the way to victory in Rome.

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2023-05-05

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 451

LUCK FLIPS ITALY INTO FINAL (1968)

Italy needed Lady Luck to stay on the path to their first major soccer title for 30 years in the newly-named European Championships. The Azzurris’ 5 June semifinal against the Soviet Union was decided on the toss of a coin after the two sides were deadlocked at 0-0. Luck certainly didn’t favour the Soviet team, despite the fact that they had their talismanic keeper Lev Yashin in goal. They went on to lose the third and fourth-place decider to England 2-0. The 1968 tournament was also unusual in having two-legged quarter-finals with the semi-finals held in the host country, Italy.
The ltaly squad of 1968 was talented but had to rely on a very unorthodox means of breaking the deadlock to reach the final.

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2023-05-04

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 450

MULLERY’S UNWELCOME RECORD (1968)

A moment of madness in Italy put a major stain on the footballing CV of England’s Alan Mullery – and England’s international record. The no-nonsense midfielder boiled over in a European Championship semi-final against Yugoslavia on 5 June and he became the first England player to be sent off in a full international. A kick by Trivic was the final straw after Mullery had endured 89 minutes of persistent fouling. He retaliated and was sent off a minute from the end of the game. Yugoslavia won 1-0, ending the World Cup winners’ bid for a second major title in two years, and England had to be satisfied with third place in the tournament.
England midfielder Alan Mullery trudges back to the dressing room after being sent off in the final minute of England’s 1-0 defeat.

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2023-05-03

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 449

WEST GERMANY’S SWEET REVENGE (1968)

It might have talken them a year and it may have been a friendly, but West Germany finally gained revenge for their 1966 World Cup final defeat to England. When, on 1 June 1968, the Germans claimed their first win over England after 38 years of trying, both teams featured only a handful of players from the 1966 encounter, though, and ironically it was ironically it was a defensive player who settled the game. Franz Beckenbauer scored the only goal of the game in front of a 79,208 crowd in Hanover.
Three England players are unable to prevent Franz Beckenbauer’s strike that gave West Germany their first ever victory over an England side.

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2023-05-02

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 448

TEARS AS UNITED ARE CROWNED (1968)

Two men who had been through so much together wept as, on 29 May 1968, Manchester United became champions of Europe. This tearful moment for United manager Matt Busby and player Bobby Charlton was all the more poignant for them because they had survived the Munich air crash that, ten years before, had wiped out the famous Busby Babes.
The English champions had swept aside Benfica 4-1 in a match watched by 100,000 at Wembley and approximately 250 million on TV worldwide. Fittingly, Charlton set United on the road to victory with a first-half goal, but a Eusebio equalizer saved Benfica and took the game forward into extra-time. The mercurial George Best was literally at his ‘best’ on this occasion and tormented Benfica’s defenders with his runs. He put United in front by cheekily rounding the goalkeeper and tapping the ball over the line. Then 19-year-old Brian Kidd and, appropriately, Charlton, scored to clinch an English side’s first European Cup success.
Matt Busby celebrates with Brian Kidd and Bill Foulkes on a night of high emotion at Wembley.

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2023-04-28

By: GodMorgenFrode / Comments closed

Nr. 447

‘BIG BILL’ SAVES UNITED (1968)

The big occasion needed a big man and Manchester United had just the guy. Bill Foulkes, a six-foot tall ex-miner, left the United defence dubbed the ‘wall of steel’ to score a goal against Real Madrid. It could not have been more vital as it gave United a 3-3 draw in Spain and, having won the first leg of the European Cup semi-final 1-0 at Old Trafford, a place in the final. Foulkes had been a rock at the heart of Manchester United defence for 18 years and had survived the Munich air crash in 1958.
Foulkes played 566 times for Manchester United but was only capped once by England.

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