“Leyton Orient’s Charlie Kelman was four yards offside when he scored against Stockport in the League One playoff semi-finals,” begins Jessica Hibbert. “What’s the furthest a player has been indisputably offside before going on to score?”
In the spirit of Annie Hall, let’s get Jeff Astle out the way so that we can relax and digest our offside goals better. His infamous tap-in at Elland Road in April 1971 isn’t relevant here because Jessica asked specifically about goal scorers who were offside. In that case the controversy – “And Leeds will go mad! And they’ve every right to go mad!” – was about the position of Colin Suggett and whether he was interfering with play.
Scoring a goal is possibly the ultimate interference with play, and there are plenty of goal scorers who look bang to rights through modern eyes. Let’s start with a couple from the World Cup.
Roberto Baggio (Italy 2-1 England, 1990, although he probably should have had a penalty seconds earlier, and don’t get us started on Nicola Berti’s disallowed goal in the same game)
Carlos Tevez (Argentina 3-1 Mexico, 2010)
From the World Cup to League One, where Steven Fletcher’s winner for Wrexham at Huddersfield this season had not so much a whiff of offside as a stench.
Hearts’ stirring Uefa Cup run in 1988-89 included a hard-fought 1-0 aggregate win over Austria Vienna, with Mike Galloway scoring the decisive goal in the away leg. We can’t be certain because of the camera angles, but both Galloway and the creator, Walter Kidd, look so far offside that they could have done with their passports just in case.
While Hearts lost to Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, Longford Town went all the way in the FAI Cup of 2003, beating St Patrick’s Athletic 2-0 in the final to win their first major trophy. They would have won anyway, as the second goal from Shane Barrett was the last action of the game, but it did not entirely satisfy the requirements of Law 11.1.
Thanks to Mike Slattery for explaining the context behind this. The St Pat’s keeper Chris Adamson had gone up for a corner, meaning Barrett was six or seven yards offside when he received the ball. “I can’t find a reference to any controversy about the goal,” writes Mike, “meaning that nobody (including the match officials, apparently) realised there was anything wrong.”
Barrett is clearest offside in terms of distance beyond the last defender, but our favourite – sent in by Pete Tomlin and others – is Joel Matip’s goal for Schalke against Basel in the 2013-14 Champions League. Basel’s offside trap worked perfectly – or it would have done had the assistant registered that four Schalke players were offside. Schalke 04 indeed.
One of them was Matip, who had time to go through the alphabet backwards before putting the ball into the net. Or, as the Uefa website said at the time, “The Basel defence mistimed their offside trap as the forward’s right-wing free-kick swung over, allowing Matip all the time and space he needed to chest down and plant past the stranded Sommer.”
Thank goodness we’ve got VAR now.
Champions v champions
“Last week you listed the worst European finals based on league position,” says Richie Farquhar. “What are the best? How many times have two champions of their country met in the final?”
Thanks to the netbusting adventures of Scott McTominay and Romelu Lukaku, Saturday’s Champions League final between Internazionale and Paris Saint-Germain will involve only the champions of France. Nothing new there: only 13 out of 70 European Cup and Champions League finals have been between teams who both won their domestic title the same season.
1964-65 Inter 1-0 Benfica
1972-73 Ajax 1-0 Juventus
1976-77 Liverpool 3-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach
1990-91 Red Star Belgrade 0-0 Marseille (5-3 pens)
1992-93 Marseille* 1-0 Milan
1993-94 Milan 4-0 Barcelona
1998-99 Man Utd 2-1 Bayern Munich
2008-09 Barcelona 2-0 Man Utd
2009-10 Inter 2-0 Bayern Munich
2010-11 Barcelona 3-1 Man Utd
2014-15 Barcelona 3-1 Juventus
2016-17 Real Madrid 4-1 Juventus
2019-20 Bayern Munich 1-0 Paris Saint-Germain
* Marseille were subsequently stripped of their French title but not the Champions League.
Your stopper for 10
“My son is a goalkeeper and he wondered if there has ever been a professional goalkeeper in top-tier football who has worn No 10?” asks Dave Sturges.
A number of you mentioned the bald maverick Cristiano Lupatelli, who wore No 10 when he played in Serie A with Chievo from 2001 to 2003. The shirt was vacant after Raffaele Cerbone left the club, which gave Lupatelli an idea. “According to an interview with Italian goalkeeping website Il Numero 1 he said that it came about because of a bet with friends,” writes Pete Tomlin. “He said: ‘It all started as a joke, and it became a reality. I think it is a funny and nice thing.’”
Jim Hearson tells us that, when Lupatelli rejoined Roma in the summer of 2003, he took the No 3 shirt. The No 10 wasn’t available, alas, due to some clingy killjoy called Francesco Totti.
“Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Gonzáles did it for Argentina in the 1997 Copa América,” writes Pablo Zadunaisky. And here’s the proof.
European trophies salvaging seasons
“Spurs finished 17th in the Premier League,” notes Paul Savage. “Has a team ever finished lower while winning a European trophy in the same season?”
The short answer is: nope. There have been finalists who finished lower than 17th – see last week’s Knowledge – but, excluding the Intertoto Cup for obvious reasons, Spurs are the lowest of the low in this particular sphere. We think only eight teams have won a European trophy while finishing outside the top 10 of their domestic league. And here they are:
17 Tottenham Hotspur (Europa League, 2024-25)
14 West Ham (Conference League, 2022-23)
13 Internazionale (Uefa Cup, 1993-94)
12 Arsenal (Fairs Cup 1969-70), Schalke (Uefa Cup, 1996-97), Sevilla (Europa League 2022-23)
11 Aston Villa (European Cup 1981-82), Eintracht Frankfurt (Europa League 2021-22)
Knowledge archive
“Luis Suárez picked up a championship winner’s medal for Ajax while playing for Liverpool against Spurs,” wrote Nick Young in 2011 and yes we did pluck this from the archive because of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia winning the title with Paris Saint-Germain and Napoli. “Has a player ever won two championship winner’s medals in the same season by playing for two different clubs in two different countries?”
“When Suárez was transferred from Ajax to Liverpool last winter, Urby Emanuelson also left Ajax for Milan. Unlike Liverpool, Milan did grab the title, so Urby won two championship titles this season,” writes Stephan Wijnen, who is clearly prepared to overlook the fact that Emanuelson has made only eight appearances for Milan, which wouldn’t qualify him for a medal under Premier League rules.
“Wolves striker Kevin Doyle won a League of Ireland medal in November 2005, when my beloved Cork City clinched the title on the final day,” suggests Colin Owens. “Doyler had left for Reading the previous June for a measly €117,000, where he would go on the fire the Royals into the Premier League, pocketing a Championship medal in the process.”
Richard Bald would like to nominate Crawley Town’s Scottish midfielder Willie Gibson as another player that fits the bill. “He picked up winners’ medals for Dunfermline in the Scottish First Division and for Crawley Town in the Conference,” he writes, but fails to mention which of the two titles Willie considers more prestigious.
Can you help?
“Sheffield United have lost their last eight games at Wembley,” weeps Darren White. “Does anyone have a worse streak on that ground?”
“Billy Gilmour, who almost gave Napoli the lead in their title-winning victory on Friday night, has made 146 club appearances in his career without scoring a goal. Are there are any other midfielders with a similarly long drought?” wonders Rob McCluskey.
“The success of Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Harry Kane and Eric Dier means that British players have won three of the big five leagues this season. Has that happened before? And have any countries managed five out of five?” wonders Philipp Lohan.
“Royal Union Saint-Gilloise have just won the title in Belgium – 90 years after their last championship in 1935. Are there any longer gaps between two national titles for any team?” asks Holger Seiffert.
Mail us with your questions and answers
