Can you marry an assist?
For a minute or two, Borussia Mönchengladbach looked to have taken all three points against Inter Milan in the San Siro on Wednesday night.
Despite falling behind to a Romelu Lukaku opener early in the second half, Gladbach struck back from a Ramy Bensebaini penalty.
Then, with little over six minutes of regulation time to play, they took the lead through Jonas Hofmann.
Though his finish was tidy enough, in truth, the goal was more about the pass that made it possible.
The ball laid back into his path, just outside the centre circle, Florian Neuhaus slotted a first-time through-ball through a crowd of players, perfectly into Hofmann’s path.
Some of the comparisons with Kaka’s famous assist for Hernan Crespo in the 2005 Champions League final might have been a bit much, but this was without doubt one of the finest passes of a football you’ll have seen in a good while.
Is it too early to start calling this the assist of the season? Yeah, probably. But having watched it on loop several times already, we’re pretty confident it’ll be up there as a strong contender at the end of May.
The vision from Florian Neuhaus in the build-up to Gladbach's second goal at San Siro is outrageous 😯 pic.twitter.com/EOFEANUmmw
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 21, 2020
Unfortunately for Gladbach, this wasn’t enough for them to earn an important win in their Champions League opener.
After a lengthy VAR review to establish if the ball had taken an extra touch off Marcus Thuram on the way through (which would have ruled Hofmann offside), Lukaku was able to find an equaliser for Inter.
