John Barnes - England's Greatest Goal?

John Barnes vs. Brazil in the maracana, 1984

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[Robson1898vascao]

Just another kid that never touched a ball, spend all day in video games and thinks that know something about futebol.

Son, that is John Barnes. He was like Messi, he make things look easy.

[thrillamf]

John Barnes was just as good if not better than Paul Gascoigne, but didn't get the same praise, I wonder why.....

[dedman1998]

yeah why not, just blame everything on racism!

NO! Fact is Gazza was better, deal with it

[TheFawly84]

The English clubs have been amazing for the last 8 years but we've done poor internationally.

[TerritorialPissings7]

Englands best, someone would have to be off their rocker to say he was on par with the Worlds!

[KaitainCPS]

Oh, and the 1986 side was solid, as well. Great midfield and strikers. Defensively perhaps not that great. And only knocked out by the most blatant handball goal of all time. England have a history of getting fucked over at World Cups. (Lampard's disallowed equalizer against Germany was just ATROCIOUS decision-making, and completely changed the game.)

[KaitainCPS]

The England teams in 1982 and 1990 were both very good. The '90 side was very unlucky against Germany: outplayed them in regulation time, only drew thanks to a fluke deflected goal. The 1982 team were one of the only world cup teams to be eliminated without losing a single game, because of the weird 'four groups of three' second stage (never repeated subsequently). They beat France easily, and France were an amazing side at the time.

[KaitainCPS]

Yeah, look at the great Liverpool teams of the early 80s. Half their key players were Scottish.

[KaitainCPS]

It's certainly lazy defending. Plus I think they simply weren't expecting the direct run at goal.

[KaitainCPS]

I think in the case of the Maradona goal the England defenders were so shell-shocked by the handball goal two minutes before that their minds were barely on the game. He's hardly challenged as he runs from the halfway line.

[KaitainCPS]

Very few people have dubbed Beckham as 'the best'. Most people realize he's a good-looking, hard-working but slightly slow player with amazing dead ball skills and excellent distribution. And a nice bloke to boot. Nobody confuses him with Messi or Zidane.

Gascoigne on form was a fabulous player. It was the combination of great dribbling skills, body strength, an eye for goal and excellent vision. He became a total fucking liability later, though.

[KaitainCPS]

I don't honestly agree with that. I remember all the little kids at school pretending to be John Barnes in the playground And Des Walker was regarded as our best defender.