CREDIT: TOTALSOCCERSHOW.COM
Is this the best goal ever? Depends on who you ask.

If there is one complaint that I hear more often than any other when I tell other people that football is my sport of choice, it is that there are not enough goals in a particular game. While this isn't exactly a valid argument (I've seen plenty of hockey games finish with only one goal having found the net), the different style to the sport admittedly does create an illusion that things are moving far slower than they would be on an NHL rink.

Scoring a goal in football is not easy; there is a lot of ground to cover, the weather can change your play style at the drop of a hat, and there are hostile fans shouting down at the opposition, not to mention the players standing in the way of the scorer. The key to a football goal isn't power, but proper strategizing, skill and the always necessary dash of luck, yet these elements have so often combined to create something special.

There are some goals — Diego Maradona dribbling through the entire England team at the 1986 World Cup, for example — that have earned undisputed spots in the history of the game as some of the finest examples of footballing talent that will ever be likely to be seen. Yet in the minds of some, one man faking out five players does not sit in their memory as something that makes the “beautiful game” what it is (and that's not just the bitter English). Another analyst might point you toward one of Roberto Carlos' physics defying free kicks, or something from the boots of modern-day wizards like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Ask me and I might say that the best goal ever was Steven Gerrard's first time shot in the 2006 FA Cup final, a demonstration of power and control that belies the need for any intricate trickery.

It is this varied nature of a goal that makes it impossible to define what makes one truly beautiful, like a piece of art any two people will appreciate something different about what made the goal special, because they appreciate different facets of the game over others. People can choose to sit down and analyze the number of passes that came before the ball found the net, laying praise on the poise and control of the team, or they can choose to focus on a 35-yard rocket that flew into the top corner and know that it will be on fans' highlight reels for years to come.

The football world is a source of endless debates, some of them far more concrete than others, and while you may never convince your friends that they're in the wrong about which club they support, the argument around the perfect goal is one that will rage on for years to come.