Destiny Udogie’s reaction said it all.
When a footballer scores a wonder goal and a team-mate raises both hands to their head in disbelief, it’s normally done after the goal. Udogie did it when his fellow Tottenham Hotspur defender Micky van de Ven was still 40 yards from his target and with the goalkeeper still to beat against Copenhagen in the Champions League.
Yes, the Dutch international defender did something absolutely incredible on Tuesday night. And possibly unprecedented.
It’s easy to recall a solo goal being scored in that manner. Heck, Tottenham’s South Korean international Son Heung-min — now with Los Angeles FC — scored an eerily similar goal in the same stadium, from the same side of the pitch to the other, against Burnley a few years ago, That stunning solo goal in 2019 won the Puskas Award, given by FIFA, world football’s governing body, to the scorer of the best goal of the year.
It’s also easy to recall special goals being scored by centre-backs. In English football, Vincent Kompany’s long-range beauty for Manchester City against Leicester City, Phil Jagielka’s thunderbolt for Everton in the Merseyside derby at Anfield, and Philippe Albert’s exquisite dink over Peter Schmeichel for Newcastle United in the mid-1990s all spring to mind.
But a solo goal being scored by a centre-back? One that involved beating four players with an electric combination of pace, power, control, strength, brute force, elegance and a finish to match, having run from one penalty area to the other in the space of 10 utterly unforgettable seconds?
Nope. No way.
“It was like Lionel Messi transformed into a centreback,” as his head coach Thomas Frank put it.
UK readers watch here:
OH MY WORD MICKY VAN DE VEN 🤯
Incredible goal by the Spurs centre half, as he runs the full length of the pitch before a fantastic finish past Kotarsi – INCREDIBLE GOAL!
Watch live on @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/txG6v8s8jH
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 4, 2025
U.S. readers watch here:
Micky van de Ven runs the length of the pitch with a sensational solo run and goal that leaves Copenhagen’s defenders in the dust! 🤯💨 pic.twitter.com/NASPHGlhiA
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 4, 2025
But how, exactly, did he do it?
It was Tottenham substitute Joao Palhinha who won the ball for Van de Ven and became the answer to a future quiz question: who provided the assist for one of the greatest goals ever scored by a centre-back?
I mean, come on, it defies logic, science and common sense. This is where the goal starts from.
This is like the famous picture of Diego Maradona against Belgium from the 1982 World Cup: surrounded by players, with seemingly no path to pick through.
Van de Ven’s answer was simply to put his head down and steam forward at an absurd pace.
Yep, he’ll just take two touches, stride forward with the balance of a trapeze artist and just keep on running.
In fact, his balance through the 10-second 80-yard dash is probably the most impressive trait… to utilise that brawn, while running at that pace, and to just keep ploughing through like a graceful bulldozer, is otherworldly.
Udogie (top left) now knows what’s coming; he’s probably seen it happen in training.
Randal Kolo Muani (to Van de Ven’s right) is surely not expecting a pass, although he does have a previous for mad solo assists, like the one he provided for Brennan Johnson at Manchester United after a 50-yard dash down the left flank.
But no, of course he goes for goal. It would have been a crime against football not to.
The finish, considering he’s just run 80 yards at full tilt, is remarkably composed, spotting a gap at the keeper’s near post and placing it with gusto, rather than crashing his laces through it.
Throughout the 10 seconds, the cries from the Tottenham crowd sound like roars of encouragement and celebration, but from the tempo and pitch they basically read like subtitles: “Go on Micky, go on lad, yeah, oh that’s ridiculous, he can’t, surely not… GO ON MICKY ohhhhhhh my goodness!!”
Slack-jawed disbelief, writ large across 50,000 people.
Van de Ven had been cast as a villain for his petulant reaction to Frank following last Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by Chelsea, which he apologised for. Well, all is forgiven now.
“I started dribbling and thought I thought that I would see if they would catch up and they didn’t,” he told TNT Sports. “I saw the space more and more, and then at one point I thought: ‘OK I’m through now, I’ll go for goal now’.
“Probably they were (worried about my hamstrings). I’m feeling good. I felt amazing in the sprint. I felt like I could keep going and going, and I did.”
Who’d have thought Spurs versus Copenhagen would have yielded a true ‘I was there’ moment?
A unique goal from a unique footballer.