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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Van Persie: One of the best goals ever scored in the World Cup

Photo credit: ESPN

What a great goal by Robin Van Persie yesterday. Few goals deserve further analysis since few goals are as impressive as the one scored yesterday. So let's look at what happened

First, Spain was actually holding a fairly good line, trying to work the offsie by maintaining a pretty straight line. This is what makes it such a good goal since van Persie had to work for it. 

Daley Blind takes part of the credit for his incredible center. He lobs the ball in nearly from the half line, as can be seen in the graphic below. It's a fairly blind center, hoping that an attacker can cradle the ball and create a chance.

The bulk of the credit goes to Van Persie. He looks up at the ball, runs diagonally with his eyes on the ball into the center of the 18 yard box, around 17 yards. He is not looking at Casillas, however, which makes the play that much more interesting. His header lobs the ball over Casillas with just enough curve to get it over the Real Madrid goalkeeper and below the cross bar. Pure class. The truth is few goals in past World Cups are better than this one.

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