Welcome to MUNDIAL’s Goal of the Month. The rules are pretty simple. Every four weeks, we will be delving into the memory banks and picking our favourite goal scored during that month at any point in footballing history. We can pick from any league, from MLS to the Combined Counties. Any player, from Lionel Messi to those we play five-a-side with, and from any year. Got it? Good. Enjoy November’s edition.
The ordinary mind cannot comprehend how powerful footballers feel when they have irrational confidence. And when that confidence becomes rational … whew.
That first big break is the injection of the serum, the mutation of the DNA. For Dele Alli, the leap from boy wonder to superhero on the world stage came in the form of a scything thunderbolt for England against France in November 2015. Try not to think how long ago that was.
How fitting for Dele that this first Three Lions goal came from a pass inside from a culture-defining prodigy of a previous era in Wayne Rooney. Dele was still 30 yards out. The sensible thing to do would have been to make another pass, but watching it back now, it’s obvious what his plan was—absolutely fucking leather it past club teammate Hugo Lloris anyway, anyhow.
Boy, did that ball fly—via a nick off Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny, for added comedy—onwards and upwards, not just into the top corner, but the very inside of the net where the post meets polypropylene. Unless Lloris could quickly turn into Plastic Man, he was never getting to it. It was humanly impossible to keep out.
For me, a Spurs fan and agemate of Dele’s living vicariously through his experiences while enduring a turbulent first year as a student journalist, this felt like not only his goal but mine too. What left do we have to cling onto in this cruel world but the hope brought by an exciting new signing actually delivering? That’s the modern football love story right there.
Back at Wembley, Dele wheeled away, arms spread in flight, wrists circling as if awaiting takeoff, sliding into the muddied turf with chest puffed out to the world. Here’s your hero.
I quickly yet quietly raised both arms in wonder, hardly making a noise, partly out of wonder, partly out of not wanting to disturb my new flatmates, being the introvert I was. The typically tepid England home crowd sprung to their feet in almost delighted fright. What just happened? Who was this kid?
And then it was over. It had passed. One moment in time on this young man’s journey. And Dele’s as well, I guess.
