Why Real Madrid's UCL hero and Liverpool's villain weren't so different after all

In the arid heat of the sweltering Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv, a ball drifted from left to right and into the penalty area, the glow of the floodlights bouncing off its surface and into the night sky.

Gareth Bale swivelled rearward, dropped his shoulder blades back as if settling into an invisible hammock inside the box, propelled his left leg at a right-angle towards the heavens, and hit a shot into the top corner so unerring, so perfectly timed, so wrought with wrath, that it could have burnt a searing hole through a literal iron curtain if one had stood in its in way that night in Ukraine.

As football analysis and punditry have evolved in the information age, elite-level players are increasingly judged on their data, the numbers they produce both in front of goal and in their season-long all-around play, rather than on their moments of brilliance.

That is of course a much more efficient and downright useful way of appraising a player’s efficacy and efficiency. But raw numbers are not why anybody loves football, nor why the greatest players are remembered long after they have finished playing.

Moments where a footballer produces a morsel of talent so unquantifiable, so incomprehensible to a mere mortal, are the reason they are so adored and why their legacies outlast not just their sporting careers but their time on this Earth.

Diego Maradona has passed away but will live forever because of his spectacular solo goal against England and the handball which followed it. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo may have competed with one another for goalscoring records throughout their careers, but the Argentinian’s goal against Bayern Munich which left Jerome Boateng sprawled on the floor and the Portuguese’s free-kick