Did we just see the best long range goal in Premier League history?

Pull up a stool. A man scored from the halfway line on Sunday, Manchester City have now won every league game they have played this season, and Manchester United still haven't won since August. Busy weekend at the bar. On tap today:

• 🎯 The most famous halfway-line goals ever

• ⚽ Man City go seven from seven

• 🍺 Grabbing a Stella with Sir David Beckham

Let’s tap in.

🥃 TOP SHELF

Why scoring from your own half is soccer's rarest shot

There's a trash can behind my bar about fifteen feet from the taps.

I have been throwing bottle caps at it for eleven years. I hit it maybe one time in six. And every single time I hit it, I look up to see who saw it, and every single time, nobody saw it.

Diego Gómez did a version of that on Sunday. Except his trash can was half a field away, 31,440 people were watching, and he had about a second and a half to decide whether to even take it on.

What happened

Seven minutes into Brighton's game against Crystal Palace, Gómez, a Paraguayan midfielder, picked the ball up just inside the opposition half. He glanced up, saw Palace goalkeeper Walter Benítez standing well off his goal line, and chipped him from 51.3 meters. Drink it in:

That's roughly 56 yards. Oh, and Brighton won 5-0.

How rare is this, really?

The Premier League has measured goal distances since the 2006-07 season. In twenty years, exactly seven goals have been scored from further out.

"Seven? In twenty years? You sure about that, Joe?"

Their numbers, not mine. And it gets better, because incredibly, THREE of those seven were GOALKEEPERS who hoofed it from inside their own penalty area and got a friendly bounce.

The record belongs to Stoke's Asmir Begović, who scored from 95.7 meters (105 yards) against Southampton in 2013. The field itself was only 115 yards long.

Take the goalkeepers out and Gómez is fifth on the all-time list of outfield players. Fifth. In twenty years. In a league that plays 380 games a season.

The man ahead of him at the top is Charlie Adam, who beat Thibaut Courtois from 63.9 meters (70 yards) at Stamford Bridge in 2015. Before Sunday, the most recent one of these was Wayne Rooney, from 57.7 meters (63 yards) for Everton against West Ham in 2017. Nine years ago.

"Fine. But it's still just a lucky punt, isn't it?"

Sit down. I'm getting to that.

The two everyone remembers

If you only know one of these, it's David Beckham's. Opening day of the 1996-97 season, a 21-year-old nobody at Manchester United, 57 yards over a stranded goalkeeper at Wimbledon. He was famous by dinnertime and it’s easy to see why.

But here's how hard these really are. The single most celebrated attempt in the history of the sport didn’t even go in.

1970 World Cup, Brazil against Czechoslovakia in Guadalajara. Pelé, 29 years old and arguably the best player who ever lived, collected the ball inside his own half, spotted goalkeeper Ivo Viktor drifting off his line, and lobbed him from the halfway line (note: it was 56 years ago, so you’ll have to excuse the grainy uploaded-13-years-ago YouTube video as it’s the best I could find).

As you can see, it missed. But not by much.

People have been talking about it for 5 decades anyway, because the nerve it took to try was the whole point. Brazil won that game 4-1 and went on to win the tournament. Guadalajara hosted World Cup games again this summer, and there's a statue of him outside the old stadium now.

🗣️ SOUND LIKE A REGULAR

"Have some of THAT!"

/hav sʌm əv ðat/ 🔊

exclamation · soccer

1. Definition: What a commentator or a supporter yells the instant a shot goes in from an improbable distance. Pure celebration aimed at nobody in particular, usually delivered at a volume that startles the dog.

2. Origin: British terrace slang that commentators picked up in the 1990s. It's less a sentence than a noise, a way of telling the opposition they have just been done, and done properly.

USED IN A SENTENCE

“Thirty yards out, no angle, no support, no business shooting. Top corner. HAVE SOME OF THAT”

🗞️ THE WEEKLY TAP-IN…

Premier League roundup

Three games worth pouring over from Matchweek 7:

• Man City 3-2 Ipswich: Phil Foden opened it, Erling Haaland scored twice, and City made it seven wins from seven. Their new manager Enzo Maresca, who replaced Pep Guardiola in June, is now the first manager in Premier League history to win his first seven games at a club. Arsenal are three points back.

• Nottingham Forest 0-1 Arsenal: The champions managed one shot on target all afternoon and it went in, Noni Madueke doing the honors late on. Forest, meanwhile, have not scored in any of their four home league games this season. Yikes.

• Leeds 1-1 Man United: Bryan Mbeumo put United ahead before Dominic Calvert-Lewin headed Leeds level six minutes into the second half. Michael Carrick's United have now gone five league games without a win and sit 13th with seven points. Also yikes.

Elsewhere, Liverpool won 2-1 at Brentford, Chelsea won 2-0 at Everton, Aston Villa won 1-0 at Newcastle, Bournemouth beat Sunderland 2-0 to end a six-game winless run, and Fulham edged Hull 1-0. Tottenham host Coventry today to close out the round, still chasing a first win of the season.

The Champions League returns tomorrow

Europe's biggest club competition plays Matchday 3 on Tuesday and Wednesday, 18 games across two nights. Quick primer: 36 clubs each play eight different opponents, and the table they build decides who goes through. Think of it as one giant group rather than lots of small ones.

Four to put in your calendar:

• PSG vs Barcelona (Tue): The pick of the round. PSG have won the last two editions of this competition and are favorites again.

• Man City vs AEK Athens (Tue): City have never conceded to a Greek side in this competition. Make of that what you will.

• Bayern Munich vs Arsenal (Wed): Arsenal lost last season's final to PSG on penalties and have had almost five months to think about it. Munich is a proper test of where they are.

• Como vs Man United (Wed): United have not won since August. A trip to Italy is not the gentle fixture they were hoping for.

• The Champions League explained

• Why soccer teams play in so many competitions

🍻 HAVE A BEER WITH…

Sir David Beckham

Club and country: Manchester United, Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain. 115 caps for England, 59 of them as captain.

What to watch for this weekend: He's 51 and retired in 2013. But he's co-owner and president of Inter Miami, so he'll be at their game, in the good seats, watching his own team work toward the playoffs.

Fun fact: He was knighted at Windsor Castle in November 2025 for services to sport and charity, making him one of only 16 former players to get there. He also co-owns Salford City in England's fourth tier, so he goes from a billion-dollar club in Miami to a ground that holds 5,000, which I find quite reassuring.

Toast: A Stella Artois, on the grounds that he has been in their ads for so long it would feel rude to hand him anything else.

Follow him here: @davidbeckham

🔥 HOUSE SPECIALS

⚽ Goal of the week: Diego Gómez's 56-yard strike from the halfway line for Brighton, the longest-range Premier League goal in nine years.

🎉 Fanzone: Mesut Özil's 2016 chip over the Ludogorets goalkeeper has been reborn as an AI meme, with fans dropping everyone from Stephen Hawking to Shrek and Walter White into the goal in his place. Hilarious.

📅 On this day: October 19, 2002, a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney scored a last-minute winner for Everton against champions Arsenal, ending their 30-game unbeaten run. "Remember the name."

🏆 Underdog corner: Paris FC, the other club in Paris, are joint top of Ligue 1 and level on points with PSG and Lyon, in only their second season back in the top flight after a 46-year absence.

👕 Wardrobe watch: Liverpool debuted their 26-27 third kit at Brentford, a tribute to Anfield's Kop stand, and won 2-1 in it.

📊 Most clicked from Friday: Look away now, goalkeepers. Maghnes Akliouche scored one of the most peculiar goals you'll ever see in PSG's 4-2 win at Man City.

That’s all, folks. Sláinte.