While ruminating, as I so often do, on Ronaldinho jubilantly stealing Sergio Ramos’ soul at the Bernabéu, I found myself on the familiar beats: he’s my footballing superman, I don’t care that he flamed out, his highest heights are as high as anyone has heighted.
The extension of that thought tends to land near “best of” lists, and those so often use one of two parameters: “who was the most enduring/longest peak?” or “whose absolute peak was greater?”
In either instance the names we come up with have relatively long and effective careers.
But what about the short-lived GOATs? The guys who flew too close to the sun, won hearts and minds, impacted the beauty of the game in a more local sense, and through either injury, or by moving to a bigger pond, or some other variable… poof! It ended. Ignominiously.
Think Afonso Alves’s 48 goals in 48 games for Heerenveen capped by a delusional hat-trick against Citeh to announce himself to English football and then… and then… poof!
Perhaps its an old timer legend that imprinted on yer childhood. Or perhaps its a savvy loanee who arrived in a vein of form, crushed it, and… got sent home the next year to no further effect.
Who is yer flash-in-the-pan fave 🐐that you’ll always set the record straight on?
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