FA Cup final: Who scored the best goal?
· Yahoo Sports
There's something magical about those seconds before the FA Cup final kicks off. Trumpets and tin-foil trophies, players as tense as the travelling fans, gaffers pacing the dugout in full club suits. The anticipation of a new hero emerging.
Some goals, though, are written in FA Cup folklore, rolled out for every cup final montage - they're the belters, the moments of individual magic, the strikes that sealed shock wins.
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I've chosen 10 that make an all-time list and here are a couple of them. See where they ranked by accessing the full article below these extracts.
Michael Owen - Liverpool v Arsenal 2001
A young Michael Owen was electrifying. By the 2001 FA Cup final some of his early hamstring problems had already begun, but this was a 21-year-old on his way to winning the Ballon d'Or.
Even then, the diminutive forward looked like a schoolkid thrust into an adult's game and forced to wear a shirt several sizes too big.
Liverpool trailed Arsenal 1-0 in the Cardiff sunshine when Owen levelled with a smartly taken half-volley in the 83rd minute. His winner five minutes later, though, was straight out of the Chester-born striker's playbook.
With Liverpool under pressure, Patrik Berger looped a clearance into the channel. Owen gave Lee Dixon a head start but scorched across the turf to get there before him.
His first touch took the ball away from the covering Tony Adams, his second fired a left-footed shot a fraction inside David Seaman's far post.
"If I could have one day back, I would rewind to that day," Owen later said.
Steven Gerrard - Liverpool v West Ham 2006
This is like that Top of the Pops moment where you're waiting to find out who's number one. There'll be groans from Merseyside as Steven Gerrard's name is read out, cheers in north London as they know what's coming up.
Gerrard was renowned for his belters, but he's arguably never hit one as sweet as this.
Hobbling around with cramp as Liverpool trailed West Ham 3-2 in added time, lactic acid coursing through his thighs, the midfielder swung a right boot at a bobbling ball 40 yards out and it fizzed just above the turf until hitting the back of Shaka Hislop's net.
"I saw him coming on to it but there were a lot of players between him and me, and he hit it so well it was in the back of the net almost before I could react," Hislop told 5 Live.
Liverpool went on to win on penalties, Gerrard also netting from the spot.
"When that went in I felt like the most special and important player in the world," he said about his wonder strike.