Top Tenner: Goalscoring keepers
As with many of these lists, it's best to start at the beginning. Williams is thought to be the very first goalkeeper to score in a competitive game, for Manchester City against Sunderland in 1900. Accounts differ as to whether the ball flew straight in from a goal kick, whether it was from a drop-kick or whether it went in via a dreadful rick by the opposition goalie, but what is certain is that Williams was credited with it. Meanwhile, fact fans, Williams was also the first-ever manager of the Danish national team. Write that one down, use it to break the ice at your next dinner party.
9 -- Johnny Vegas Fernandez
All you need to know is he's from Peru, scored 39 goals in 410 career games, mostly for Sport Boys of Callao, and he has an absolutely terrific name.
8 -- Rene Higuita
It often seemed that while in goal, Higuita was gazing up the pitch at his striking colleagues like a dog would gaze at a prime ham hanging just out of reach in a butcher's. His habit of dribbling the ball out of his area of course backfired spectacularly at the 1990 World Cup, when he was tackled by Roger Milla while trying to do a magnificently misjudged drag-back about 20 yards outside his own area. Higuita called it "a mistake as big as a house." His penchant for meandering was indulged by a series of clubs and his country, to the extent that he scored 41 goals over his career. After a spell in prison, he, along with Carlos Valderrama and Freddy Rincon, became the subject of a soap opera detailing the Colombian national side's golden age in the late 1980s and early 90s, called La Seleccion.
7 -- Jimmy Glass
If football is about the romantic, the unexpected, the extraordinary and the implausible, Jimmy Glass' goal to keep Carlisle in the Football League in 1999 might just be the best ever scored. "I always was a frustrated forward," he said on the 10th anniversary of his goal. "I always felt confident running around on the pitch, scoring goals -- probably more confident, if I'm honest, than I was playing in goal sometimes. After I quit the professional game, I played a bit of Sunday league football up front. I scored 24 goals in 10 games -- six goals two weeks running. One of them was straight from the kick-off. I lobbed the keeper."
6 -- Laurent Monde
Goals from keepers generally fall into one of three categories -- the set-piece/penalty specialist, the last-minute desperate pile into the penalty area or the freak, often wind-assisted punt up-field. Not this guy, who clearly decided that his strikers weren't doing a particularly good job, so took it upon himself to dribble up the pitch and deliver a thunderbolt shot past his opposite number. Full disclosure, though -- despite having a crack team of ESPNFC researchers on the case day and night, going through the files in the Library of Congress like a latter day Woodward and Bernstein (sort of), we can't be absolutely, 100% sure of the maverick's identity, but the best guess is Monde, playing for SC Kouroucien in French Guiana at some point in the late 80s. Still, what a strike, eh?
5 -- Saulo
Goalkeepers are often quite tragicomic figures, no more so than Saulo, playing for Sport in the Brazilian Campeonato Pernambucano in 2011. Needing a win, against Vitoria-PE, Saulo was sent into the opposition area for a free kick in injury time, and duly connected with the cross to secure the 2-1 victory. However, in the ensuing celebrations he tore his knee ligaments and was ruled out for six months. "Yesterday I was so happy, today I'm so sad," he said afterward. "But I'll recover." Note the opportunistic TV reporter sticking a microphone in his face as he lay on the ground waiting for treatment.
4 -- Hans-Jorg Butt
Asmir Begovic, as many other scoring keepers have in recent years, at least had the decency to look rather embarrassed by his wind-assisted punt. Hans-Jorg Butt, on the other hand, was caught out while milking the celebrations for one of his goals. Bayer Leverkeusen's designated penalty-taker, Butt found the net 32 times in his career, including three in the Champions League, which is a record for a keeper. Unfortunately, after scoring from 12 yards against Schalke in April 2004, Butt soaked up a little too much crowd adulation, refocusing just in time to see a shot from Mike Hanke sail over his head and into the net. It wasn't the end of the world, though -- Leverkeusen won that game 3-2.
3 -- Dimitar Ivankov
Bulgarian scoring goalie Ivankov had two great ambitions in life. One was to score in the Champions League, and the other? "Stepping out at The Den," he said in 2009. He may have played for Levski Sofia, for his country and at the World Cup, but his heart wanted Millwall. "I got caught up in the atmosphere from the crowd and intensity of the game. I saw the Millwall fans and thought: 'They are crazy -- I like that.' Every week, I look for their result. I know a lot of foreign players dream of appearing at Old Trafford or Anfield, but I would give anything to play at The Den." Tragically, he would achieve neither ambition, retiring in 2011 with 31 goals to his name, but none in the Champions League, and none at The Den.
2 -- Jose Luis Chilavert
While it's obviously wonderful that these days we can see any football from anywhere in the world of a reasonable standard if you know which shady corners of the Internet to peer in, there was something nice about the fleeting glances of players like Chilavert we were limited to a couple of decades ago. We saw snatches of this crazy free-kick-taking goalkeeper on Trans World Sport before Paraguay qualified for the World Cup in 1998, and those in the know told us to watch out for Chilavert. He didn't score in France, but he did become the first goalie in recorded history to score a hat trick, bagging all three penalties as Velez Sarsfield beat Ferro Carril Oeste in 1999. He also refused to take part in the 1999 Copa America, held in his homeland, because he thought the money should be spent on more important things, like education.
While it's obviously wonderful that these days we can see any football from anywhere in the world of a reasonable standard if you know which shady corners of the Internet to peer in, there was something nice about the fleeting glances of players like Chilavert we were limited to a couple of decades ago. We saw snatches of this crazy free-kick-taking goalkeeper on Trans World Sport before Paraguay qualified for the World Cup in 1998, and those in the know told us to watch out for Chilavert. He didn't score in France, but he did become the first goalie in recorded history to score a hat trick, bagging all three penalties as Velez Sarsfield beat Ferro Carril Oeste in 1999. He also refused to take part in the 1999 Copa America, held in his homeland, because he thought the money should be spent on more important things, like education.
1 -- Rogerio Ceni
The daddy, the don, the king, the toppest of the goalscoring keeper dogs, it really couldn't be anyone else at Number 1. Since making his debut in 1993, Ceni has (note the present tense, more of which later) scored 112 goals in his career. One hundred and twelve. That's more (in admittedly a longer time period) than Kaka. Ceni once scored twice in a game and saved a penalty. Ceni, of course, is so prolific because he not only takes spot-kicks, but free kicks, too -- and bloody good ones. Look at his 100th career goal, but perhaps more important, look how excited the Sao Paulo fans were before he took his free kick. And you know what the most remarkable thing is? Aged 40, he's still going, still playing for Sao Paulo and as recently as July this season, still scoring goals.
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