How about a soccer highlight to help you get your life back together on this lovely post-4th Monday? As you sit at your desk, shaking from booze withdrawal and sleep deprivation, just know that it could be worse. You could be United captain Harry Maguire, watching himself charge towards woeful Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas on the endline, only to have him toe-poke the ball through your legs like you’re a toddler at YMCA soccer camp. Shinguards up to your knees, shorts down to your ankles, the standard-issue t-shirt looking like a dress, and everyone crowding around the ball and kicking it like a piñata in a circle until an adult comes in and boots it elsewhere, and the chase resumes.
Credit to Junior Stanislas though—the audacity to even attempt a nutmeg on the endline, only a few yards from the goal, is beyond what my puny soccer brain could dream up. Great finish too, over the shoulder of the once-almighty David de Gea. It wasn’t enough to stop United as they went on to win 5-2, and Bournemouth is looking like they’ll be dropping down to the Championship next season. But given that nobody really seems to be following the premier league anymore, it’s still fun to see some great goals—artificial crowd noise be damned.
PS- as endline escapes go, this Berbatov turn still stands up as my favorite of all time.