22 Goals
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The Legend of Pelé, the Brazilian Boy Who Remade Soccer in His Image
A 17-year-old Brazilian became a global sensation at the World Cup in 1958 and changed the tournament—and the sport—forever
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Brazil, 1970, and the Captivating Mythology of the ‘Beautiful Game’
Can one passage of play express the beauty of a sport so eloquently that it changes the way that sport is imagined around the world? If it is possible, it happened in the World Cup final in 1970.
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Michael Owen’s Moment of Magic, Followed by England Heartbreak in 1998
The apex and the nadir of England’s "Golden Generation" in one game. This is the story of an era of astonishing optimism followed by breathtaking failure, all set to the soundtrack a toxic sports-media culture.
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Ronaldo, Messi, and the World Cup As a Bad Barometer for Evaluating Legacy
The two defining players of their generation are still making headlines. Neither has won a World Cup. Does it matter?
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Landon Donovan, 2010, and a Breakthrough Moment for American Soccer
Did one goal change the sport in the United States?
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Giovanni van Bronckhorst and the Irresistible Allure of the Long-Range Goal
The audacity, the randomness, the sheer chaos and confusion: These are the things we celebrate when a player decides to put their foot through a ball and take their chances
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Lucien Laurent, the Unlikely Protagonist in the World Cup’s Origin Story
The story of a French factory worker who embarked on a transatlantic voyage to South America to score the very first World Cup goal
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The Exhilarating, Confounding Genius of Johan Cruyff
Even though he never won a World Cup, Cruyff introduced a playing style that said more, and spoke to people more directly, than soccer ever had before
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Two World Cup Goals, and the Question of the Individual Versus the Collective
Which do you choose: a moment of extravagant individual brilliance or a feat of impossibly excellent teamwork?
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Andrés Escobar, an Own Goal, and Tragedy at the 1994 World Cup
The story of Escobar’s death is tragic and violent. His life was anything but.
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Joe Gaetjens, and America’s Accidental Emergence on the World Cup Stage
The ninth installment in ‘22 Goals’ involves an assembly of amateur American players who secured a shocking upset in 1950
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The Inscrutable Intensity of Zinedine Zidane’s Glare
The eighth installment in ‘22 Goals’ involves the 2006 World Cup final and a genius neatly skipping out of all the boxes we’d put him in
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Geoff Hurst, a Dog Named Pickles, and the Curious Case of the Missing World Cup Trophy
The seventh installment in ‘22 Goals’ involves a 1966 crime caper featuring a host-nation champion and a heroic canine
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Marco Tardelli, and the Grandeur and Glory of a Goal Celebration
The sixth installment in ‘22 Goals’ features joy personified at the 1982 World Cup in Spain
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Roger Milla, the Indomitable Lion Who Changed World Cup History
The fifth installment in ‘22 Goals’ features the Cameroonian forward whose goal-scoring feats at the 1990 World Cup in Italy changed the perception of African soccer
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Dennis Bergkamp, the Non-Flying Dutchman Who Reimagined Space and Time
The fourth installment in ‘22 Goals’ features the Holland forward who had a fear of flying and a habit of scoring impossibly lovely goals, including one at the 1998 World Cup in France
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‘22 Goals’: Kylian Mbappé, 2018 World Cup in Russia
Brian Phillips’s third installment in his series chronicling the most iconic goals in the history of the men’s World Cup belongs to France’s teenage phenom
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‘22 Goals’: Ronaldo, 2002 World Cup Final in Japan
The second installment in Brian Phillips’s series chronicling the most iconic goals in the history of the World Cup belongs to soccer’s "original" Ronaldo
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‘22 Goals’: Diego Maradona, 1986 World Cup in Mexico
Brian Phillips’s first installment in his series chronicling the most iconic goals in the history of the World Cup belongs to soccer’s most talented and destructive genius
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Introducing ‘22 Goals’
Listen as The Ringer’s Brian Phillips leads you on a breathless tour of nearly a century of World Cup history through the lens of 22 of the most iconic goals ever scored