Nani’s bizarre Premier League goal for Man Utd v Tottenham in 2010 remembered | OneFootball

Highlights

Nani was a scintillating bag of tricks, flicks and goals during his peak at Manchester United. The Portuguese winger signed for the club in 2008 and was unfortunately always judged alongside Cristiano Ronaldo's exploits, making it very difficult for fans to appreciate just how good he was.

When at his best, Nani was unplayable and his goal and assist records reflected that. And how can we ever forget his iconic, acrobatic celebrations? The Premier League at its best. Never one to shy away from doing things the hard way, Nani was synonymous with only really scoring wonder goals, often from long distances or after a slaloming run of skills from out wide.

It's rather strange to know, then, that he scored the strangest goal in Premier League history, which had absolutely no regard for aesthetics and confuses anyone who watches it, even 12 years on. Seriously - we've got absolutely no idea how it stood, even in an era long before the grips of VAR.

Nani capitalised on a bizarre mix-up

Confusion why goal was allowed to stand

United hosted Tottenham at Old Trafford in 2010 and were already 1-0 up thanks to a header from Nemanja Vidic - assisted by Nani - but doubled their lead in extremely controversial circumstances shortly after through the Portugal international. Bursting through on goal, Nani appeared to be fouled in the box by Younes Kaboul who was pulling on his shirt, forcing him to the floor as a result.

Mark Clattenburg did not award a penalty though and allowed play to continue as normal, which is where things get rather weird. Take a look for yourself below.

After Nani is brought down and convinced he should be awarded a penalty, he stays down momentarily before getting back up to his feet, at which point Heurelho Gomes has put the ball on the floor to resume play. Nani creeps up from behind him, glances at Clattenburg, glances back at the empty goal and - unchallenged - taps the ball in, confusing just about everybody inside Old Trafford.

Spurs were furious Nani's goal stood

They had good reason to be

Understandably, Tottenham were fuming and United were elated. What happened is that Spurs and Gomes had assumed they had been awarded a free-kick as Nani clutched the ball with his hands when he went to the floor, assuming he'd won a penalty. He hadn't, though, so technically he had committed a handball offence. Clattenburg didn't pick up on this, though, and had not awarded a free-kick, which is why Nani crept back in around Gomes and cheekily tapped the ball in.

After deliberation with the linesman, the goal astoundingly stood. Replays show that Nani clearly handled the ball when going down, and so Spurs should've been awarded a free-kick from the moment a penalty wasn't given. But alas, a free-kick was not awarded and instead, we were greeted with what remains - in our humble opinion - the most bizarre goal to ever be scored in the Premier League.

Credit where it's due, though, Nani deserves his flowers for staying alert to the situation and bagging a sneaky goal which would ultimately secure three points for his side, and it was that sort of quick-thinking that helped him have the best season of his career that year.

Peak of Nani's United career

He was never better than in 2010-11

That season proved to be the best of Nani's time in England. His nine Premier League strikes were more than any other season at Old Trafford and more than any other season in his career aside from one campaign at Orlando City in 2019 when he bagged 12 goals for the MLS team.

Not only did he score at a strong rate, though. He was also at his creative best that year and managed to chalk up an impressive 20 assists throughout the season as United won the Premier League title, their penultimate league trophy under Sir Alex Ferguson. They also made it to the Champions League final, but came out on the losing end to Barcelona.

One year later, Nani maintained his strong form, but it nosedived after that and just a few years later, he was shipped out of Old Trafford, first on loan to Sporting CP and then to Fenerbahce a year later. His career in the years that followed has seen hints of success and hot streaks, but he never quite managed to return to the level of form that he showed during the 2010/11 season at United. It's pretty ironic that one of the moments remembered most during the peak of his career was his bizarre goal against Tottenham.