By Chris Wright
After saving himself for the right moment, Rory Delap scored his first goal for Southampton in just over two years when his spectacular bicycle kick – just let that sink in for a moment – bicycle kick (!) proved just enough for the Saints to sink the legendary Tottenham line-up of 2003/04 (Gary Doherty, Michael Brown, Anthony Gardner, Lars Hirschfeld, Helder Postiga, etc) at St Mary’s.
With the score deadlocked at 0-0 and both sides’ keepers putting in heroic shifts, Delap, Southampton’s record signing at the time (yep), acrobatically took to the skies to settle the tie with the only goal of the game in the 65th minute…
Breathtaking.
It was comfortably the best thing he was ever going to do on a football pitch and, to be fair, Delap certainly celebrated like he knew it…
Of course, Delap famously refused to play for any team who didn’t play in red and white stripes for the bulk of his career, gradually carving himself out a niche to prolong his top flight career as Stoke City’s in-house gibbon-armed throw-in trebuchet.
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