Everyone loves a tasty bit of skill.
Goals are of course what matters in football, but often a singular moment of breathtaking skill can live longer in the memory that a match-winning finish. There is something about watching a professional footballer pull off a trick that is hard to fathom never mind replicate that sparks the imagination. It’s like real-life magic.
Who can forget the great Johan Cruyff’s famous turn, or Michael Laudrup’s effortless ‘La croqueta’? It is the kind of thing you’d do your very best to mimic in the school playground, only to fail miserably as you go arse over tit.
Of course in the Vine age, such moments can be watched over and over again, as the loop of the images hypnotises the eyes. Before you know it you’ve been sat there for minutes in open-gobbed disbelief. If such instances occur in the heat of a game then all the better, but even training ground tricks can render you joyfully gormless.
In Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Manchester United have recruited a genuine showman; someone who can produce wonderful artistry on the deck and even in mid-air. Seeing as the former PSG man had finally joined up with his Old Trafford colleagues for pre-season training, United were keen to share some of his moves with their fanbase.
So what elegant skills did they gift us with? A double-nutmeg perhaps? An acrobatic backheel perchance? No. They fed us this very basic shite…
Touch from Ibra! 😎 #ZlatanTime https://t.co/jIIRQXlDqj
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 29, 2016
That’s right. The kind of ‘skill’ you’d pull off to knock a rogue stone off the driveway. Even slowed down it looks a bit ‘so what’ – and everything looks impressive slowed down. We’re not sure whether the official Twitter account were expecting a string of awe-struck platitudes, but what they got was quite the opposite…
https://twitter.com/TipsterJimmy/status/759011364375453696
https://twitter.com/FaxingBudapest/status/759007515598135298
https://twitter.com/AdamMcKola/status/759005253870034947
@vine got any of him doing something my 4 year old daughter can't do?
— Hoddy (@redhod99) July 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/ffsDarmian/status/758980397929594880
https://twitter.com/Jordan_Meyer1/status/758981161292922880
https://twitter.com/DantePenz/status/758981266016382976
About as graceful as a 12y/o frank lampard with bumfloss dragging from his left boot
— Artful Dodger (@taff_89) July 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/steviemc007/status/759014529246240769
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