Here is the Chapman play <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mE5RGClCDp4"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mE5RGClCDp4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Diego Maradona's dribbled passing everybody and scored against England in 86 mexico world cup. That was the most amazing thing I had ever I seen and it stuck to me till this day. The 86 world cup was the greatest of all time in my mind ( I have watched since 82). The Brazil vs France match, and Agentina vs England. Soccer at national level is war in peace time. Nothing tops that. Not even NBA.
This one <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-rW-lK9F6TU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-rW-lK9F6TU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Yep. There is no way to script that play or try to repeat it. It wasn't a great pass by Bradshaw (though he did do a good job avoiding the sack) and Harris is largely in the right place at the right time, but that is probably the greatest play ever. Stanford vs Cal is my second favorite with the band coming out on the field. A few HRs stand out: Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone, Joe Carter, Kirk Gibson.
I guess I don't appreciate soccer, because, to me, that was completely unimpressive. How about Mario Elie's Kiss of Death? <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0ruyIFiawrU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0ruyIFiawrU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> Here's the clip of Ralph Sampson for two to eliminate the Lakers. ... I just love saying that - "eliminate the Lakers". Say it with me... ... "eliminate the Lakers".... <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/l97uj9Uvnvo"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l97uj9Uvnvo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Watching soccer and NBA are different experiences. Basketball is exciting in that it scores so much and close games are suspenseful. But soccer matches, when they matter to you like the world cup ones of your country, you feel the pressure when watching. Sometimes I cant even breathe, it is very very intense. Soccer plays can really bring you out of the chair literaly. I guess that's because soccer plays take more time to set up than basketball and it is very difficult to score. But the finish of soccer, the shooting, the header, the save, pure excitement.
When I was a kid, I stayed up late watching this game and happened to have recorded it on the VCR. I still have the tape and the fond memories of being a teenager jumping around my parents livingroom at almost one in the morning ecstatic that the Rockets won the game. This will always be one of my fondest Rockets moments.
I couldn't have said it any better. Good post, YallMean. And regarding the Maradona goal: I haven't seen anyone in a soccer game be able to do that, dribbling from the middle of the field to the goal passing by all of the defenders and scoring the goal. Pretty selfish but very impressive.
...okay... but take, for example, that clip that was posted. I saw a guy running with a soccer ball. He did nice little move and split two defenders while approaching the goal. The opponent goalie came out too far and didn't have a good angle to block the goal shot. It looked.... okay. But it didn't look like anything special. It looked like almost every other soccer goal I've seen. I don't watch that clip and wonder, "holy crap! how did that go in?!?!" Now, if the ball had been in the air and some guy smacked it with his head, it went over an opponent, bounced off some other guy and rolled into the goal, I might understand. For example: this is a much more impressive (to me) soccer goal: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ITpYnvMWKZY"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ITpYnvMWKZY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
That game was of significance on several counts. The most significant factor was that Argentina and UK just had the Falklands War, so the countries hated each other. Plus soccer are the biggest sports in both countries. The Argentina team was pretty talented with Maradonna and others. The English team wasnt too bad either, so they had high hopes too. So that was a clash waiting to happen. And Maradonna had two most talked about goals in that match, IIRC, the score was 2-1(Barnes scored for England, I loved liverpool in the 80s!). That crazy dribble passing 4 and 5 English defenders was even lauded the best goal of soccer by a lot of people. The English defenders were all pretty amazing players by themselves and Maradonna just took off like that, it was just amazing. You have to see how quick it was done and how fluid it is. It's magic. Maradonna is pretty short in size, but his legs were just amazing. I think he could use his legs better than his hands. I watched a lot of him in his Napoli days. He did it a lot, quick dribble out of a pocket of people. He is the Michael Jordan of Soccer. Now the other goal was the hand of god. Someone already posted it in the thread. He scored seemingly using his head, but the English protested. But at time there wasnt high speed camera to catch what exactly happened, it was just that fast. After the game when asked about it, Maradona told the reporters it was the hand of the god. Now think about it, that made the Brits made, as if he was implying the God is on the Argentina side for the justice, the war all that. Of course, years later with better technology, it was a hand ball. Anyways, National level soccer is very intense beyond the comptition among clubs of any sports.
All right, guys... I present to you... without question... THE VERY GREATEST SPORTS PLAY OF ALL TIME <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OrjASG1rJ3U"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OrjASG1rJ3U" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> Jake Porter is 17, but he can't read, can barely scrawl his first name and often mixes up the letters at that. So how come we're all learning something from him? In three years on the Northwest High football team, in McDermott, Ohio, Jake had never run with the ball. Or made a tackle. He'd barely ever stepped on the field. That's about right for a kid with chromosomal fragile X syndrome, a disorder that is a common cause of mental r****dation. But every day after school Jake, who attends special-ed classes, races to Northwest team practices: football, basketball, track. Never plays, but seldom misses one. That's why it seemed crazy when, with five seconds left in a recent game that Northwest was losing 42-0, Jake trotted out to the huddle. The plan was for him to get the handoff and take a knee. Northwest's coach and Jake's best friend, Dave Frantz, called a timeout to talk about it with the opposing coach, Waverly's Derek Dewitt. Fans could see there was a disagreement. Dewitt was shaking his head and waving his arms. After a ref stepped in, play resumed and Jake got the ball. He started to genuflect, as he'd practiced all week. Teammates stopped him and told him to run, but Jake started going in the wrong direction. The back judge rerouted him toward the line of scrimmage. Suddenly, the Waverly defense parted like peasants for the king and urged him to go on his grinning sprint to the end zone. Imagine having 21 teammates on the field. In the stands mothers cried and fathers roared. Players on both sidelines held their helmets to the sky and whooped. In the red-cheeked glee afterward, Jake's mom, Liz, a single parent and a waitress at a coffee shop, ran up to the 295-pound Dewitt to thank him. But she was so emotional, no words would come. Turns out that before the play Dewitt had called his defense over and said, "They're going to give the ball to number 45. Do not touch him! Open up a hole and let him score! Understand?" It's not the kind of thing you expect to come out of a football coach's mouth, but then Derek Dewitt is not your typical coach. Originally from the Los Angeles area, he's the first black coach in the 57-year history of a conference made up of schools along the Ohio-Kentucky border. He'd already heard the n word at two road games this season, once through the windows of a locker room. Yet he was willing to give up his first shutout for a white kid he'd met only two hours earlier. "I told Derek before the play, 'This is the young man we talked about on the phone,'" Frantz recalled. "'He's just going to get the ball and take a knee.' But Derek kept saying, 'No, I want him to score.' I couldn't talk him out of it!" "I met Jake before the game, and I was so impressed," Dewitt said. "All my players knew him from track. So, when the time came, touching the ball just didn't seem good enough." (By the way, Dewitt and his team got their shutout the next week, 7-0 against Cincinnati Mariemont.) Into every parade a few stink bombs must fall. Mark Madden of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette grumbled that if the mentally challenged want to participate in sports, "let them do it at the Special Olympics. Leave high school football alone, and for heaven's sake, don't put the fix in." A few overtestosteroned Neanderthals on an Internet site complained, "That isn't football." No, it became bigger than football. Since it happened, people in the two towns just seem to be treating one another better. Kids in the two schools walk around beaming. "I have this bully in one of my [phys-ed] classes," says Dewitt. "He's a rough, out-for-himself type kid. The other day I saw him helping a couple of special-needs kids play basketball. I about fell over." Jake is no different, though. Still happy as a frog in a bog. Still signs the teachers' register in the principal's office every morning, ready to "work." Still gets sent on errands, forgets where he's going and ends up in Frantz's office. Still talks all the time, only now it's to NBC, ESPN and affiliates from CBS and Fox about his touchdown that won the game. Yeah, Jake Porter thinks his 49-yard run made for a comeback victory. He thinks he was the hero. He thinks that's why there were so many grins and streaks down people's faces. Smart kid. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/rick_reilly/news/2002/11/12/life_of_reilly/
Not the greatest but watching him run is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Couldn't find the run where he literally knocks a guy on his ass and procedes to rumble into the endzone with a defender literally ripping the jersey off his back. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tdvVaTbwMrE"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tdvVaTbwMrE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
I've been trying to find the highlights of the CLASSIC Houston/Miami Monday Night Football game, where Earl had arguably his best game as a pro, running for over 200 yards in one of the greatest games in NFL, and certainly Monday Night Football, history. If anyone can find it, that game has a play where Earl runs through the Dolphin defense for a TD, a long run, and he runs over people, knocking them around like bowling pins. I remember watching that game. Simply incredible!
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1HfSgw0IgT4"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1HfSgw0IgT4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> How he juke the whole squad. And watch how he turn the last 2 dudes around like barber chairs
Here's a 6 minute highlight clip of his college and professional career. The 5 minute mark is my favorite highlight of the bunch. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0yRA6sAO8xs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0yRA6sAO8xs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
That was pure luck...much like the JR Rider "shot". As someone who probably hasn't played the game, the run that Maradona made in that video is incredibly difficut. What you can't gauge from it is the speed at which he is moving with the ball at his feet. He was faster with the ball than many were without it. That takes amazing touch. When you have it and the defenders know, it doesn't take a very dramatic move to get them moving the wrong way. Just a little shoulder/hip move one way or the other and the defender is toast. That goal is considered one of the greatest in history because of its importance and because of it's difficulty.
