By Chris Wright
They showed this on Revista over the weekend and Pies have been manfully trying to track it down since: The late Tito Vilanova scoring an unorthodox free-kick for UE Lleida against the club where he’d later make his name as a coach, Barcelona, in the Copa Catalunya back in 1998.
Louis van Gaal was in charge of Barca at the time but had let his assistant, a young buck by the name of Jose Mourinho, take over first-team duties especially for the game, which saw both Carles Puyol and Xavi make their debuts for the club’s senior string.
Vilanova became the first ever player to score against a side managed by Mourinho when he launched a direct free-kick up from inside the box up, over the wall and in off the underside of the crossbar.
And, just to add to the general air of nostalgic coincidence, Tito’s future boss, Pep Guardiola, was also one of the men in the Barcelona wall he so emphatically managed to navigate his shot past…
GIF version…
RIP Tito.
Many thanks to Pies fan Edwin who assisted in our search for the footage.
(GIF via Reddit)