Faustino Asprilla

Faustino Asprillo, 'Tino' as the fans call him or 'Rubber Legs' as my Dad used to call him only spent two years in English football but had a profound impact. Sought out as the final piece of the jigsaw that would help Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United team lift the Premiership title, Asprilla was purchased for £6,700,000 from Parma. Quite a fee for the time! Asprilla made an instant impact, coming on at half time during a league game against Middlesbrough. He bamboozled a Boro defender before crossing the ball over for a goal to help Newcastle equalise. Asprilla kept at it and although inconsistent had some great goals during his time at Newcastle, though sadly his goals in the league totalled only 9 in 48 games.
Asprilla kept his best form for European competitions. In the 3rd round of the UEFA Cup Asprilla scored a goal and when celebrating lofted his shirt up on the corner flag. Unfortunately this got him suspended from the Quarter Final 1st leg defeat against Monaco. Of course the moment he is most famous for came during Newcastle's first foray into the Champions League. Asprilla became something of a cult hero on Tyneside through his hat-trick against the mighty Barcelona during a 3-2 victory at St. James' Park. Tino scored a penalty and then two headers which were assisted by an inspired Keith Gillespie. Soon after Tino was sold back to Parma in a £6,000,000 deal during a time when Newcastle were struggling under Kenny Dalglish in the league.

There were interesting rumours flying around later in 2002 that 'Tino' was to return to English football to sign for Darlington in the English 3rd Division but sadly nothing came to fruition. It would have been good to see old 'rubber legs' terrorising English defences again.


Picture from - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/1127511.stm

Davor Suker

Davor Suker had a brilliant club career. He won La Liga and the Champions League with Real Madrid and was consistently one of La Liga’s top scorers over a period of about seven years. Maybe the only blip on his record was a miss in the penalty shoot-out of the Uefa Cup Final in 2000 for Arsenal against Galatasaray.

But it is Suker’s international record that he is most revered for. Suker first came to my attention during Euro 96. How could anyone forget his performance against Euro 92 winners Denmark with the brilliant Peter Schmeichel in goal. Suker scored the first with a penalty, set up the second for Boban and then on the break scored a brilliant lob over Schmeichel (possibly the goal of the tournament). 

Fast forward two years and Suker was one of the standout players of the 98 World Cup along with Zidane and Ronaldo. And it is even more remarkable as he did it in a team full of great players. Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban, Igor Tudor, Dario Simic, Mario Stanic, Slavin Bilic, Aljosa Asanovic, Robert Jarni and erm, Silvio Maric.

This was Croatia’s first World Cup tournament and didn’t they do well. You can’t argue with a third place finish for your first World Cup. Spearheaded by the magnificent Suker, Croatia beat the likes of Japan, Jamaica, Romania, Germany and Holland. Croatia only lost to eventual champions France by one goal. Suker was the star of the show, winning the Golden Boot with 6 goals in 7 games. He finished his career with 46 international goals in 71 games for Yugoslavia and Croatia. Just to put that into perspective, Croatia’s current second top goal record scorers (Srna and Eduardo) haven’t even scored half the goals that Suker did!

Picture from http://www.footballteamplayers.com/davor-suker-biography.html

Tony Yeboah

Tony Yeboah the Ghanian powerhouse. What does everyone think of when you mention Tony Yeboah to them? Is it the goal against Wimbledon? Or the goal against Liverpool? Either one will be stuck in your memory somewhere. Fantastic strikes which made up just a couple of the wonderful goals scored by Yeboah during his three years with Leeds United.

As I said Tony was only playing in the Premier League for a few years but he made a huge impact. 24 goals in 47 league games is no mean feat. His first season was particularly impressive with 12 goals from 18 league games during a loan spell from Eintracht Frankfurt which persuaded Leeds to splash out 3.4 million pounds for the Ghanaian.

Now let’s get to those goals! The first one came up against Liverpool. The ball was knocked down to Yeboah outside the box a bit to the right and he smashed it first time on the volley. The ball flew straight at the top corner, hit the underside of the bar, bounced down off the line and up again into the net. I don’t think any keeper could have saved that no matter how good they are or were! About a month later Yeboah scored a hat-trick against Wimbledon and one of those goals was truly brilliant. After a bit of head tennis which I suppose you are bound to have during a game with Wimbledon the ball comes down to Tony, he takes it past one player and launches an unstoppable shot. Guess where the ball goes? He directed this missile in exactly the same place as before! Does his right foot have a homing device in it? He knows just where to hit the ball! 

I remember it well as I scored a goal very similar not long after during a game at school. Obviously my shot was not supposed to be directed towards the top corner though! It was a miracle if I ever got a shot on target at all!

Sadly in Tony’s third season he only contested seven league games with no goals to his name. Injuries were beginning to curtail his season and George Graham decided Yeboah wasn’t to his liking. Yeboah was sent off back to Germany to Hamburger SV. A bit of a cult here now though, Yeboah is still loved by Leeds fans and rightly so!

picture from http://www.sabotagetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/yeboahgq2.png

Alvaro Recoba

Here’s a little bit about the man known as “El Chino” and the one game that made him a legend in my eyes. Now there used to be a show on Channel 4 called Football Italia that gave rise to kids around the country running around and shouting “Golaccio” whenever they scored a goal. Football Italia would show highlights of all the games in Serie A and the occasional live game. Now Inter were now having the best of times in Serie A back in 97-98 despite having brought in the now sadly retired Ronaldo. The game I was watching at the time was against Brescia and Inter were 1-0 down and it was looking like being another game to resign to the back of my memory. Then as a last throw of the dice with little time left the manager brought on this little Uruguayan fella called Alvaro Recoba. I must confess to never having heard of the guy but ever since then it is a name I could never forget for I was about to witness one of the most remarkable debuts I have ever seen.

To start with Recoba got the ball about thirty yards out on the left side of the pitch, steadied himself and then unleashed an unstoppable rocket right into the top left corner. Now that really had me on the edge of my seat. But there was still more to come! Next Inter won a freekick about thirty yards out once again and up stepped Recoba. This time the ball flew into the keeper’s top right corner. The fans were on their feet, the noise was unbelievable. Recoba had saved the day for Inter with two contenders for goal of the season on his debut.

Later in the season the Uruguayan maestro also scored this belter from near the half way line against Empoli. Sadly over the years Recoba was in and out of the Inter squad and never really seemed to hit those heights again. After ten years in Italy and a short stint in Greece afterwards with Panionios, Recoba headed back to his boyhood Danubio to resurrect his career. A great player on his day with a lethal left foot that has left many a goalkeeper looking dumbfounded as the ball flew past them into the net once again.

Matt Le Tissier

The Southampton fans call him 'Le God' and it is easy to see why!
I wasn't a fan of the man myself when I was younger. I have a bit of a soft spot for Newcastle United and Tiss seemed to have an annoying habit of scoring wonder goals after waltzing through the Toon's defence. But now I only feel admiration for Le Tissier and his goal scoring exploits during his career. I think it is those goals I will start off with here as well. Now we all see those videos on Youtube these days of a footballer and their top ten or so goals. Any footballer who has at least scored ten goals in the Premiership will have a little video dedicated to them, there's even a few for Shola Ameobi. Yes, really! But you will not find any better compilations than the ones dedicated to Le Tissier. Here is an example -

Did the guy ever score any tap ins? Who in their right mind would even try some of these shots!? Schmeichel was considered by many to be the best goalkeeper in the world at the time and Le Tissier just made him look like an amateur. 

Yet a lot of people outside of the UK have never heard of Matt Le Tissier. If Messi or Rooney scored the type of goals that Le Tissier did they would be seen in every corner of the globe and talked about incessantly. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Le Tissier was fiercely loyal towards Southampton. They were the only team for Le Tissier who turned down advances from Spurs, Chelsea and even Milan. You have to admire him for that and the Southampton fans certainly do. He scored 162 goals in 443 matches for Southampton, quite a record for a midfielder. He was the first midfielder to scorer 100 goals in the Premier League and had an amazing penalty record. 48 successfully converted spot kicks out of 49 is not something to be sniffed at. Sadly Southampton were usually stuck at the lower end of the league and Le Tissier did not get the coverage he deserved and no trophies ever came his way.

The second reason is his international career. Surely such a player would be a leading player for England and soon become a global star. But for some reason he only accumulated 8 England caps. During the build up to the 98 World Cup Glenn Hoddle gave players a chance to stake a claim for themselves in a England B game against Russia B. Le Tissier on form netted a superb hat trick (check out his second goal!) yes was not picked for the final squad. Southampton fans have never really forgiven Hoddle. And who knows what would have happened if we had Le Tissier taking a penalty during the shoot out losses during Euro 96 or the aforementioned 98 World Cup.

A true legend of the 90's and I think this little bit nicely sums up Le Tissier. Barcelona and Spain playmaker Xavi recently commented that Le Tissier was his idol when he was a child. If a player as good as Xavi is amazed by the skills of Le Tissier then I think that says everything we need to know about the Channel Islander.