We’re used to seeing strikers like Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney scoring off bicycle kicks. You can even manage to see some particularly skillful or audacious midfielders scoring one. Defenders, though? Nah. No way. Doesn’t happen.
Defender Laurent Koscielny scores on audacious bicycle kick
Arsenal came away 2-1 winners over Southampton thanks in large part to this jaw-dropping goal.
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Except when it does.
That's Arsenal center back Laurent Koscielny going over for a bicycle kick to level their match against Southampton at 1-1, a game that they would go on to win 2-1 in stoppage time. That Koscielny can score a goal isn't a huge shock —he had scored 23 goals in his career before Saturday — but how he scored it is impressive. Not many defenders can execute a bicycle kick in-match, much less do it with a defender coming up from behind like that.
Even attacking players might have gone for something simpler, there. A quick step and letting it come down, or trying for a header. Koscielny, though, doesn’t have time to be boring or safe like that. No, Laurent Koscielny decided he had to go for the spectacular, and thanks to that we have a fantastic goal to watch over and over again. His penchant for going for the spectacular doesn’t always work well — just ask Arsenal fans about some of his defending mistakes —but there’s no denying that it’s great when it works.
Let’s just hope that he’s OK after that bad knock to the head he took at the end of the match.
