Alexandre Hleb.

Unlike you (boy have you made yourself clear, btw), i have many good memories of Hleb.

Bold Tone wrote:

Unlike you (boy have you made yourself clear, btw), i have many good memories of Hleb.

How does that clip not include his goal vs River Plate in the CL? Actually it's a good thing they didn't include it as that shitty song would've ruined it, here's the original recording. When the commentator starts losing his shit in unison with the roar of the fans it still gets the hair on the back of my neck up

Proper madman Rene was. Got caught playing coked up in a league match and was incarcerated for a year for being a paid ransom money carrier for Pablo Escobar. He also had major cosmetic surgery done on him because "I'm fed up with being ugly Rene. I want to be sexy Rene."

On a related note, as much of a fan I was of Higuita in my childhood the best goalscoring goalie still is Chilavert imo.

That's a fucking insane free kick to score for anyone, nevermind a goalkeeper.

You will not believe it but i was at Wembley when he did the scorpion kick and missed it as i shifted my gaze thinking the ball in was "shit effort".
As for Chilavert, i remember him well as, through the nineties especially, i watched Italian football on channel 4 and South American football on channel 5 to add to my already deep following of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and European football. These were pre-internet days so i bought and read all sorts of football magazines and articles so could have qualified as a football hipster

Bold Tone wrote:

You will not believe it but i was at Wembley when he did the scorpion kick and missed it as i shifted my gaze thinking the ball in was "shit effort".

That's pretty incredible.

Not nearly as obscure as per thread title but somewhat related as it's also a pretty notable football moment in history that I "narrowly" missed out on (my father was in the stadium that day but didn't take me with him as I was too young):

Not a very high standard to be fair but the commentary on this is probably the best I've ever heard in German, "the time for my report is already over but I don't care if they fire me, I'll show you this scene again and again" "Beckenbauer, Baresi etc he'd have danced through all of them" "I don't know about you but my knees are still shaking"

Danny Welbeck.

Neil fucking Mellor, I'll never forget that wonder goal he scored against us for Liverpool.

jones wrote:

Not nearly as obscure as per thread title but somewhat related as it's also a pretty notable football moment in history that I "narrowly" missed out on (my father was in the stadium that day but didn't take me with him as I was too young):

Not a very high standard to be fair but the commentary on this is probably the best I've ever heard in German, "the time for my report is already over but I don't care if they fire me, I'll show you this scene again and again" "Beckenbauer, Baresi etc he'd have danced through all of them" "I don't know about you but my knees are still shaking"

Jay Jay Okocha (so good them named him twice) is not obscure!
I saw him score at France 98 for Nigeria.

You want to know something else- He's Alex Iwobi's uncle. 8)

BTW

Jay Jay Okocha (so good them named him twice)

How come they don't say that about Eric Djemba Djemba?

There can be only one winner of this thread Gaz, a completely forgettable footballer with an unforgeable name.
The one and only-

BONGO CHRIST!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Nunes

For whatever reason, I couldn't cop this bloke whenever I saw him play.

Biggus wrote:

jones wrote:

Not nearly as obscure as per thread title but somewhat related as it's also a pretty notable football moment in history that I "narrowly" missed out on (my father was in the stadium that day but didn't take me with him as I was too young):

Not a very high standard to be fair but the commentary on this is probably the best I've ever heard in German, "the time for my report is already over but I don't care if they fire me, I'll show you this scene again and again" "Beckenbauer, Baresi etc he'd have danced through all of them" "I don't know about you but my knees are still shaking"

Jay Jay Okocha (so good them named him twice) is not obscure!

That's literally my first sentence in the post

Jebus why is everyone so touchy?
I'm just joining the Jay Jay love.....

Not touchy, just correcting you since you quoted me.
Okocha is my home club's first real superstar, one of the first football shirts my parents bought me has his name on it.

If we had a thread of players who never played for Arsenal but you wished they did, he'd be in it.

I suppose Wenger coulda signed him, but y'know.....His club wanted money....

I always wondered why he didn't move to a bigger club after a fantastic WC performance in 94 and only ended up at Fenerbahce after a great performance in the 96 Olympics. I don't have any evidence apart from chit-chat from some Nigerian friend of mine who said he was ill-advised by a greedy agent who over priced him.
Would have achieved so much more at a bigger club as he wasted his prime at Fenerbahce and PSG.

What about our very own not-so-super sub Perry Groves.

I remember George Graham always bringing him on, in desperation, for the last five minutes when we were losing but i don't think he ever saved a match.

Ruel Fox

Gazza M wrote:

Julius Aghahowa

Failed prodigy/mediocre winger. Had a stint at Wigan where he didn't score for almost 2 years. Best known for backflips and being the only player with 99 pace on the old Pro Evos. Currently 30 years old and kicking about with Shakhtar Donetsk

That blows my mind he is only 30 years old. He was a beast way back on CM 01/02.

Also Denilson, I remember when he broke the world transfer record ahead of the 1998 World Cup the commentators and pundits wouldn't shut up about it. I remember vividly a guy on the telly saying this guy is Pelé reborn only Denilson is coming to Europe and he's gonna set the continent on fire. Went on to have probably one of the most underwhelming careers in history.

I really liked watching Ivan de la Pena play.

Rex wrote:

I really liked watching Ivan de la Pena play.

So did I but it was telling that after being billed as a future worldbeater coming up through the ranks at Barcelona they were happy letting him go to Espanyol.

De la Pena was supposed to be Guardiola's successor at Barcelona, right? I actually enjoyed him more at Espanyol tbh.

Laurent Robert

For a while back then Newcastle were actually a good team and with Robert, Shearer, Bellamy and Solano all in form actually pretty good to watch at times. 

Loved that team Bobby Robson built. They were spectacular in Europe. Bernard used to be one of the best attacking full backs in the league those times.

Lee Hendrie:

He was inconsistent, poorly disciplined, frustrating, and absolutely genius in his best moments. I wanted us to sign him around 2002 or so. I still can't believe how badly his career tanked. Talent wise he was top drawer. Ambidextrous little fekker too. I think he scored half of the goals in the clip above with his right and the other half with his left, and most of those weren't tap-ins.

Big Willie wrote:

Laurent Robert

For a while back then Newcastle were actually a good team and with Robert, Shearer, Bellamy and Solano all in form actually pretty good to watch at times. 

Clrnc wrote:

Loved that team Bobby Robson built. They were spectacular in Europe. Bernard used to be one of the best attacking full backs in the league those times.

To link both of these players further, does anyone else remember the time a Robert clearance caught Bernard square in the face and knocked him out

Yeah, that stumble was hilarious. Looked like he took a hit in the ring.

Think I remember Philippe Albert better than Laurent Robert. The 5-0 Newcastle got against United has to have been one of the best moments for a neutral in the 90s.

Anyone remember Mendieta?

Oh yeah he was awesome. Can't believe how quickly he turned from one of the best midfielders in the world to complete averageness.

Ze Roberto anyone? Loved watching him play.

How did Boro manage to sign Mendieta and Juninho those days.

Mendieta was class. La Liga back then was something. The likes of Mendieta and Aimar at Valencia, Valeron, Tristan and Makaay at Depor, Rivaldo and then Ronaldinho at Barca and the Galacticos of Madrid. So much flair.

In fact thinking back now I realise how much I miss the football from those days. Notwithstanding the fact we had a top quality team and were winning things back then, football just seemed more... authentic, for lack of a better word. Feels like the spark that used to be there is missing from the game. Everything about the game, even celebrations and press conferences and interviews feels sterilised and watered down nowadays.

You saw hints of it creeping in back then when they banned lifting the shirt and those funny messages players like Thierry used to have under their shirts but it's on another level now. You have players nowadays who have been coached in PR training so much that they sound like cloned drones of each other saying the same thing over and over again making it hard to form a connection with them. Guess the globalisation and win at all costs evolution of football is the price we all have to pay for the vast amounts of money that have flowed into clubs.

Yeah completely agree.

They were able to sign Mendieta because he came off of an awful time in Italy and his stock was low. Voted worst ever signing or something like that.

Absolutely deadly back in those days