The move of the goal: from 2:40 in the summary in the video player above
We like big goals. Every goal is a celebration on a certain level, and beautiful goals or important goals are the kind that can kick us off the couch or seat even if we are not fans of the team itself. Arling Holland’s winning goal for Manchester City in the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund was like that.
It’s a big goal also in terms of the move itself (which starts at 2:40 in the summary). Julián Álvarez passed to Rodri, Mats Hummels hit and kept away. The ball reached Nathan Ake, he found Joao Cancelo and Manchester City’s number 7 lifted into the box. It looked like an impossible ball, but Holland managed to pass between the defenders, jump to an impossible height and, with his foot, put the ball into the net of the former.
Holland with 13 goals in 8 games at City. It is perhaps the most beautiful of all, and a comprehensive look at it can actually show us how City reached these numbers after a year in which they did not play with a dominant striker, and perhaps why they are the best team in the world right now.
Building the move
Manchester City is a team that presses high, probably in a 1:1 situation at home. In this it is no different from other teams, but the biggest thing is the identity of the players who are there. At the time of Cancelo’s lift there are 6 City players close to the goal, while all Dortmund players are in the area. The Schwartzglen bus makes it very difficult, as you can see in the picture from the moment the ball reached Cancelo.
It feels as if all the outfield players at Manchester City, and maybe even goalkeeper Ederson, are capable of picking up a ball from this position. Part of the greatness of the Citizens and of Pep Guardiola’s football as a coach is exactly that, the technical talent of each of his players that can allow them to create situations.
This is particularly evident in the case of Cancelo, a left-back who is not quite a left-back. He can play both defensive positions, but last year his heatmap showed he spent significantly more time on offense than defense. Cancelo is one of the best situation creators in the English league and in general, and this brings us to the degree of difficulty of his delivery.
The Portuguese performed a “triple”, a lift with the outside of the leg. This pass, which perhaps characterizes Portuguese and Brazilian football, came from the left back of the English champions. Not many players can do it as well as Cancelo, and the high level of difficulty makes it a rare pass. Luka Modric and Ricardo Quasarma, for example, specialize in such dedications.
When it comes from a defender it’s different, and that’s part of City’s greatness. The combination between playmakers like Cancelo, perhaps the best picker in the world today, and players who excel on the ground like Kevin de Bruyne. They have many ways to score, many ways to cook and they will take advantage of every mistake of the defense for a free moment and such a pass. A team that plays with both, with Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez, Jack Grealish, Julian Alvarez and Rudy is just too dangerous.
This is how City reached 93 points, 99 goals and the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, without a significant striker. The ability of all these players to dribble, pass and mislead the defense turned every mistake into half a goal. Holland’s arrival in the summer has, at least for the moment, made City a team that scores even without the opponent’s mistakes.
the performance
I would be happy if you return to the video at the top of the article and the title, which as mentioned starts at 2:40. There are two people who personally guard Holland, even when the ball is in the air. Both he and they, his teammates until a few months ago, responded well to an impossible lift.
Above all, this is an amazing athletic move. Holland ran a distance of about 8 meters, jumped and managed to put the ball with the flash, also here the outside part of the leg, into the net. His leg reached a height of about 1.90 m, in a sprint that started in a standing position and lasted two seconds.
How many footballers, physically, are able to do that today? Probably one. It is no coincidence that Guardiola said that it reminds him of Zlatan Ibrahimovic (who scored similar goals in his prime) and Johan Cruyff, one of the footballers who played the most beautiful football in the history of the game. Zlatan, by the way, survived only one season with Pep.
Pep did not use to play with a “classic” striker in the first years at City or during his time in Barcelona, while at Bayern he did so with Robert Lewandowski and with unimpressive results in Europe. The combination between moving the ball and the tendency of classic strikers not to be involved too much in the game did not connect with the Catalan coach’s perception of reality.
In Holland’s case, however, it works for now. The Norwegian touches the ball 22 times a game and kicks 4.5 times. 20.5% of his touches on the ball were goal kicks, an unimaginable figure. 22 touches of the ball in a game for an attacking player is few (Kevin de Bruyne with 66.3, three times higher amount). Much more convenient, for all involved, when they look like this:
If Pep is a football poet, then Holland is the exclamation point. The combination of all the creators of Manchester City and the best finisher in the world, a player who scored 13 goals in 8 games and can reach every ball before anyone else, makes them an almost unstoppable team.
It is too early to know if this will be enough for the Champions League, or if this time too we will see Guardiola’s team score a lot of goals in a short time and get eliminated at the end of a game in which they were the better team. What’s more, this is perhaps the best team in the world thanks to this combination: creative players who can try any impossible pass, and a huge striker who will reach each and every one of them. The machine dance.
