Apr 28th, 2018

Apr 28th, 2018

Riley McGree is The Scorpion King.

And he will claim his near-implausible A-League goal was deliberate.

As Melbourne City coach Warren Joyce noted after the 19-year-old's stunning scorpion kick inspired a 2-1 Newcastle Jets semi-final win, "he'll never score another goal like it" in his career.

Most players, though, will never get one anywhere near it, and the A-League will be incredibly lucky to see one quite in that class ever again.

For a moment, McGree's improvised slice of sorcery from the edge of the box made time stand still.

Then the realisation of what he'd just done - a reverse bicycle kick lob volley against his body's own momentum that somehow arced perfectly over Dean Bouzanis' head - sunk in.

As McGree's disbelieving Jets teammates converged to celebrate with the on loan teenager, social media went into a meltdown of incomprehension.

(AAP)

Within minutes his worldy had gone global, picked up by news outlets across the UK, US and beyond, and briefly even earned him a Wikipedia name change to Riley 'Rene Higuita' McGree, a hat-tip to the Colombia goalkeeper's famous scorpion kick against England at Wembley in 1995.

Calls for it to win FIFA's Puskas Award for the world's "most beautiful" goal of the year were only fuelled when FIFA tweeted a video of the goal along with a 'brain explosion' emoji.

In truth it rivalled even last year's winner, a spectacular scorpion kick by then Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud against Crystal Palace.

"It's hard to describe," McGree said.

(Fox Sports)

"I just had forward momentum and tried to get the ball going forward and swung my leg out.

"I don't think the ball has ever popped up to me that well.

"I wouldn't say it was 100 per cent meant but I'm going to claim it every day of the week.

"I didn't really know what to do, then it kind of hit me that I scored so I celebrated."

The only Jets supporter not celebrating among the 19,000 at McDonald Jones Stadium was coach Ernie Merrick, who sat motionless and unsmiling in the dugout.

Afterwards he was full of praise.

"I have never seen a goal like that and I don't think the 'keeper has either," Merrick said.

"Riley told me he has been practising that for the last two or three weeks, and it came off for him."

McGree was quick to re-divert credit to Merrick and his team, who surged into the grand final courtesy of Jason Hoffman's 75th-minute winner.

"It was a good goal but credit to the team ... it was a great performance by the team and we got the result we wanted and a grand final," McGree said.

"When we conceded the first goal we never dropped our heads; we wanted to score one, to score two, and we came out firing.

"Ernie gives his players a lot of freedom. He believes in all players."

©AAP2018