Arsenal's magic goal dissected, and why it showed Mesut Ozil's worth
Eighty-nine minutes. Less than a full match. That was the amount of game time it took for Arsenal to follow up their goal of the season contender against Fulham with a new and improved version of pass-and-move dream-ball.
When Aaron Ramsey backheeled his trickling shot into the corner of the Craven Cottage net, in the 67th minute of Arsenal’s 5-1 thrashing of Fulham, it was almost immediately hailed as the best goal of the season so far. This, we all thought, would take some beating.
As it turns out, Ramsey’s goal was little more than a precursor for a move more slick, and a goal even more aesthetically pleasing. Ramsey’s flick was certainly special, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s second goal against Leicester City was a different breed of footballing beauty.
It was refined and smooth, fast and fluid. It was a Formula One car of a goal, the sort of passing move that leaves grown men weak at the knees, their mouths hanging open like goldfish. Watch it back, with the sound turned up, and you can hear the various groans of delight puncturing the air at the Emirates, each the louder than the last, as Mesut Ozil briefly entered a different realm of footballing existence.
The first collective grunt is more of an impressed ‘ooooh’, as Ozil backheels a first-time pass, on the half-volley, towards Matteo Guendouzi. The second is guttural and expectant, a deeper ‘owwww’ as Ozil lets Hector Bellerin’s pass run through his legs. Now it speeds up. Lacazette returns the ball to Ozil, breaking into the penalty area. Aaaaaaah. Ozil dinks it over Kasper Schmeichel. Aaarrggggh. Aubameyang taps it in. Bedlam.
Aubameyang and Ozil wheel right, with Ozil in a rare state of wide-eyed, screaming passion. Hector Bellerin joins them, a manic smile splatted across his face, and Alex Iwobi thuds into Aubameyang like a labrador running into a window.
Only if you look really closely, just after Aubameyang taps the ball into the net, can you see the reaction of Alexandre Lacazette. It’s worth looking for. The French striker is so caught up in the brilliance of it all that he instead turns left, away from his team-mates, and screeches towards the opposite corner flag in a fist-whirling frenzy.
It may sound glib, but this really was a goal worthy of any of the great Arsenal sides of the past. It was a goal worthy of the great Manchester City side of the present. And there was something doubly satisfying about the role of Captain Ozil within it. The German, in the space of approximately nine seconds, obliterated an entire midfield and defence with three moments of genuine genius.
If Ozil did this sort of thing all the time, it would lose some of its meaning. The consistent excellence of Lionel Messi, for example, is taken for granted to such an extent that a bunch of leading footballers and coaches accidentally forgot to award him with this year’s The Best FIFA Men’s Player trophy.
With Ozil, it’s different. You know he can do this, but you also know that it happens all too rarely. And so he has become this endless source of fascination and intrigue, of conjecture and division. It has reached a stage now where each match tends to begin with the same thought process: is today going to be one of those days when Mesut turns it on? No? Oh. Maybe next time. And on and on and on… until finally that day arrives, and Ozil blossoms and thrives and briefly becomes all that you know he can be.
The thrill is in the anticipation, the gradual building of Ozil-induced tension. Against Leicester, he was so fleetingly brilliant that it almost felt cathartic. And the most wonderfully Ozil part of it was that he did not even play very well aside from the three goals, which sounds like a ludicrous thing to say but is undeniably true. For the first 30 minutes it looked like the skipper had been lost at sea. But occasionally - even if it is just a single moment - he is capable of transcending a football match, of redefining the usual concepts of space and shape, and then skewering an opposition’s backline. It does not happen anywhere near as often as it should, but that only makes it all the more special when it does.
