If you had to show one football match to make somebody fall in love with football, what would it be?

Werder Bremen 4-4 FC Valencia from 2009 Europa League round of 16 second leg.

An all time classic game that could've ended 8-8 in all honesty.

Legendary line ups as well with players like:

Tim Wiese
Mertesacker
Naldo
Frings
Borowski
Özil
Marin
Pizarro

Maduro
Jordi Alba
Baraja
Marchena
David Silva
Juan Mata
Joaquin
David Villa
 
My personal favourite. One of my first memories of watching United at 1:30 AM (India time) and just jumping in joy with the quality of the comeback.

It began in feisty fashion with Keane and Vieira in the tunnel. And it looked like Vieira may have the upper hand in the beginning. But what a comeback it was. We’re down 1-0 and then 2-1. The Ronaldo brace with the shush to the Highbury crowd just filled me with adrenaline. And then when we’re a goal up but a man down, Heinze and Scholes created a wonderful chance and O’shea came up with the finish of his life, providing the best Neville Longbottom at the end of book 1 impression.

The match made me fall in love with United.

 
Arsenal 2-2 Man Utd 2003
Liverpool 4-4 Arsenal 2009
Belgium 2-1 USA World Cup 2014
 


Remember watching this at daft o'clock and loving the rollercoaster of it and the fact it was basically a minnow against a top side.
 
Man Utd vs Arsenal FA Cup semi final 99
 
Slops said:
Been said a couple of times but the 4-3 win over City with the late, late Owen goal had everything for me. Taking the lead 3 times only to get pegged back (relatively) quickly each time, and one of the best moments of late drama I was ever there for.
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This is the one
 
Maybe you have to be Dutch but after losing the final to Spain in 2010 in the dying seconds of extra time, the 5-1 spanking in the opening game of the 2014 WC still gives me wood.
 
Fobal said:
So many of the WC 82 and 86 are classics, my favorite WCs
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Red the Bear said:
To add to that it's probably one of the few games where the defensive outlook of the other major team didn't lead to a rather drab game as is mostly the case( Barcelona inter comes to mind).

All in all a historic game for all the right reasons.
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doubleohseven said:
You can get comprehensive highlights of all matches of both 82 and 86 WCs on dailymotion.

Original commentary, too.

There seems to be a consensus at fifa that all football nerds need constant graphics, music, adverts and retroactive commentary on youtube.

I'll imagine, one day, they'll release all WC matches in their entirety with the likes of David fecking Baddiel talking utter smack over them.

It's endemic. The bbc's classic Euros had more contemporary analysis than actual football on its iplayer. It's interesting how uninteresting Alan Hansen actually was.

It's great therefore to see unmolested highlights, but I'd go quick, as fifa will eventually find and remove them.

The giant B-words.
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To this day, I still watch the 1982 World Cup documentary - "G'olé!" - at least a couple of times a year.

That was a world cup filled with quality, drama, beauty and excitement...And to top it all off, it has Sean Connery as the narrator. The way he describes the defensive measures that teams like Italy (Gentile fouled him 11 times in the first half alone, 23 times total - a foul every 4 minutes!) and Belgium took against Maradona is legendary IMO. And I don't use that word often.

To quote 007:
"While the Belgians had stifled Maradona with numbers, the Italians marked him with a one man crowd called Gentile. Gentile is the sort of guy who tries to swap shirts during the match. There are flashes of invention (by Maradona). But wherever Maradona turns, he finds Gentile at his shoulder...at his ankles...at his knees... With little protection from the referee, Maradona becomes a human pinball, while the executioner, playing the innocent, simply has his wrists slapped."

If you haven't watched it, I would highly recommend it. I believe it is available to stream for free on the FIFA website.
 
HaliRed said:
To this day, I still watch the 1982 World Cup documentary - "G'olé!" - at least a couple of times a year.

That was a world cup filled with quality, drama, beauty and excitement...And to top it all off, it has Sean Connery as the narrator. The way he describes the defensive measures that teams like Italy (Gentile fouled him 11 times in the first half alone, 23 times total - a foul every 4 minutes!) and Belgium took against Maradona is legendary IMO. And I don't use that word often.

To quote 007:
"While the Belgians had stifled Maradona with numbers, the Italians marked him with a one man crowd called Gentile. Gentile is the sort of guy who tries to swap shirts during the match. There are flashes of invention (by Maradona). But wherever Maradona turns, he finds Gentile at his shoulder...at his ankles...at his knees... With little protection from the referee, Maradona becomes a human pinball, while the executioner, playing the innocent, simply has his wrists slapped."

If you haven't watched it, I would highly recommend it. I believe it is available to stream for free on the FIFA website.
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Leaving that match in particular aside, Gentile was an excellent defender and man marker. Some of the marking was excellent, but indeed it was way way over the top and systematic, yet it's not his fault, it was the Ref allowing him. And this trend continued in the 86 Cup.

The worse about that period it's that when Zico, Diego, Platini or whomever of them protested, they received an instant yellow, Diego had a yellow prior of Gentile's one in that match.
In the past at least they could actually retalliate, in those days it was the worse combination ever regarding that stuff.

In the Brazil vs Argentina 82 match, the way Zico and Diego were hacked, was also quite over the top, there was one against Zico that was horrible.
The fouling It wasn't as systematic and cynic as the Italians did, but there were some very rough tackles. That is one of the reaosons why Diego lost his head and retalliate while end being sent off, also the ref didn't call a very clear penalty against him.
It's a pity and incredible at the same time that such an entertaining and full of marvellous midfielders the Cup was still that great, FIFA should have been way more lenniant againt constanst fouling, it could have been an even better WC.
 
For a left field couple of games I took my nephew see Middlesbrough when they played the 2nd legs of both the quarter final and semi final at home. Both matches they were down and out on aggregate and away goals but they came back with a flurry of late goals in both games.

Helps when you can throw on a forward line of Viduka, Hasselbaink, Yakubu and Maccarone to chase the game.

I’d actually kill to have that forward line at United now
 
United 5-3 Spurs, 2001
United 4-2 Arsenal, 2005
United 4-3 Madrid, 2003, can be used to demonstrate naive defending and shit goalkeeping against a great striker. Barthez always getting caught out off his line.
 
Bayern 1 - 2 Manchester United in the holy year of 1999

The game that made me fall in love with the Red Devils
 
I feel you can randomly draw any five out of Flick's Bayern and Barca games and end up with more than one very good candidate for this topic.
 
Brazil v France 06, I'll tell them to just watch Zidane.
 
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