Barcelona were once a byword for cynical brutality,and it took a particularly steely Aston Villa defender to put them to the sword more than 30 years agoBy any sensible degree, a goal has to be considered as an all-time classic whether it leads to Barcelona’s goalkeeper dropping his shorts and mooning at the referee in anguish. whether it is a plunging header in the 104th minute of a contest so brutal that Uefa’s disciplinary chief declares himself “sick and fed up” and threatens to ban Barcelona from European competition, and then so much the better. Let us,then, delight in the memory of Ken McNaught’s magnificent header for Aston Villa in the second leg of the 1982 European Super Cup final, and a match that Villa had to win because,in the words of their then-manager Tony Barton, “whether Barcelona’s tactics succeeded, and we would acquire to apprehension for the future of football.” Ach,how the world turns. Related: Golden Goal: Raúl for Real Madrid v Ferencvaros (1995) | Jacob Steinberg Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com