By Chris Wright
With a nod to this Sunday’s biggie at Anfield, we thought we’d make our ‘Random Great Goal’ selection a little less random today.
From an era when top flight footballers still just used to look like Gary the pipe fitter who lived a couple of doors down, here’s moustachioed maverick Ian Rush’s slick pot-shot volley against Manchester United in March, 1993 – a consolation strike in a 2-1 away win for United.
Eyes down for a young Jamie Redknapp providing the assist…
Despite being positively middle-aged – well, 32 – Rush went on to finish the inaugural 1992/93 Premier League season as Liverpool’s top scorer with 14 goals to his name.
Don’t worry. In the interest of avoiding any undue prominence, we’ll have an equally nifty goal scored by United against Liverpool from the same era featured on Pies tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
Incidentally, the aforementioned game at Anfield also featured a miraculous reaction save from Peter Schmeichel to deny Liverpool midfielder Don Hutchison from point-blank range…
So good was Schmeichel’s save that it was later nominated for “Save of the Decade” in the Premier League’s 10-year anniversary poll, but sadly the Dane eventually lost out – to himself.
Yep, Schmeichel instead picked up the award for his (slightly inferior, if you ask us) reaching stop to deny Stuart Pearce’s goal-bound header in a game against Newcastle at St James’ Park in 1997…
A selection of other random great goals on Pies…
Patrick M’Boma (Gamba Osaka) vs Shonan Bellmare
Roberto Cabanas (New York Cosmos) vs Tulsa Roughnecks
Thierry Henry (Arsenal) vs SC Wiez
Juan Roman Riquelme (Boca Juniors) vs Corinthians
Hugo Almeida (Porto) vs Inter Milan
Paulo Wanchope (Costa Rica) vs Uruguay
Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus) vs Fiorentina
Dimitar Berbatov (Leverkusen) vs Roma
Jari Litmanen (Finland) vs Norway
Keisuke Honda (Japan) vs Hong Kong
Robin van Persie (Arsenal) vs Blackburn
Ray Wilkins (England) vs Belgium
David Beckham (Man Utd) vs Birmingham
Marco Perez (Liechtenstein) vs Germany