Football’s Greatest Goals No.21
This week’s ‘Greatest Goal’ comes from Manchester City’s Georgian play-maker Georgi Kinkladze.
The Georgian had been one of Alan Ball’s first signings when he replaced Brian Horton in the summer of 1995. He joined City a couple of weeks after Dennis Bergkamp, another foreign forward had signed for Premier League side Arsenal.
Ball decided to build his team around Georgi Kinkladze and this was detrimental to the cause. He would often overlook Kinkladze not pulling his weight for the team, ignoring the fact that the Georgian very rarely ran back to defend. This caused resentment from his team mates who would have to work harder to cover for him.
On 16th March 1996, Southampton came to Maine Road with relegation being a very real threat for both sides. Manchester City sat in 17th position, one place above the visitors and with a two point advantage. The Saints did however have three games in hand over City.
After 33 minutes, Kinkladze opened the scoring with a tap-in from close range. Four minutes later, he scored a goal that would put his name firmly in Manchester City folklore and drew attention from all over the football world.
Collecting a ball wide on the right wing, Kinkladze began his run about ten yards inside Southampton’s half before turning and running full-pelt towards the Southampton goal.
Southampton’s Simon Charlton tried to show Kinkladze out wide towards the touchline but he failed as Kinkladze sold him a quick dummy, dropped his shoulder and cut inside.
Kinkladze’s pace took him away from Charlton and space opened up in front of him. As he reached the edge of the box, Charlton tried to pull Kinkladze down by pulling at his shirt, but his pace took him out of the Southampton midfielder’s clutches.
Ken Monkou was stood at the edge of the box and stuck a foot out to try and intercept the ball. Kinkladze went past him with ease and almost like two villains chasing a superhero in a cartoon, Charlton and Monkou collided into each other and stumbled over!
A third Southampton defender slid in to try and win the ball but there was no chance of getting near the ball and it was left to veteran goalkeeper Dave Beasant to prevent Southampton going 2-0 down.
Kinkladze got to around ten yards away from goal and Beasant was stood at the edge of his six yard box. The Georgian swiveled his hips, feigning to shoot and Beasant fell for the dummy, dropped to his knees and the City man simply scooped the ball over the stricken Southampton goalkeeper.
The goal was awarded the ‘Goal of the Month’ award for March on BBC’s Match of the Day, but finished second behind Leeds United’s Tony Yeboah in the award for ‘Goal of the Season’.
The game ended 2-1 after Paul Tisdale halved the scores midway through the second half. Incidentally, it was Manchester City who would go down at the end of the season instead of their opponents on that March afternoon. Both sides ended the season with 38 points but City’s goal difference was -25 compared with Southampton’s -18.
About Author
