NB: this list does not purport to be definitive. It is just a list of six solo goals we like. That's all. Then you can tell us the ones you like. The point of the Joy of Six is not to rank things, only to enjoy them.

During World Cups and the like, British commentators sometimes refer disparagingly to the fact the pictures come from the host broadcaster, smug in the knowledge that their channel would never miss a crucial goal because of a Tic Tac advert or miss the build-up to the third goal in an FA Cup final in 1994. Yet these silly foreigners occasionally get it right, and whoever directed the picture that went worldwide of Diego Maradona's second goal against England in 1986 was bang on top of his game.

There is a lovely moment in every great solo goal when you suddenly realise that what at first appeared to be just a nice little run could actually end in a goal you'll never forget. With Maradona, that exact moment is accentuated brilliantly by a hard cut of which Scorsese would have been proud. At first we see Maradona chugging down the right wing, with the ball bobbling horribly and poor old Peter Reid panting miserably in his slipstream. All very pleasant, but there is no sense of the bigger picture or the danger to England. Then, maybe a second after Maradona comes inside Terry Butcher, the picture snaps to a deeper shot and we realise that the only man between Maradona and Peter Shilton is Terry Fenwick.

Though Fenwick is dismally on his heels, the earliness of Maradona's touch past him is quite sublime: it takes Fenwick out of the game before he even knows he's in it. One of the best things about solo and team goals, as opposed to others in the genre, is that they split into a series of little parts, so each person will have his favourite. It might be that touch past Fenwick, the dainty pirouette to start things off, the way he has the courage to go round Peter Shilton – the product of a startling memory of a very similar incident at Wembley six years earlier – or the almost reckless determination to finish the job with his left foot, a decision which so nearly allowed Butcher to thwart him at the last.

The goal produced a perfectly judged commentary from the BBC's Barry Davies, who, in an endearing and thoroughly naïve appeal to the better nature of Joe Bloggs, said simply: "Och! You have to say that's magnificent." (Although interestingly, a few seconds later he would say that it was merely "one of the best goals we've seen in these championships".) Jorge Valdano, who ran most of the way with Maradona before realising there was no point wasting energy, described it beautifully as "Diego's personal journey". It was a once-in-a-lifetime goal. So he did it again four days later.

It's hard enough going past three or four defenders when the ball is rolling perfectly along the floor, never mind when it's in the air. For that reason, Davie Cooper's impromptu game of keepy-uppy against Celtic in 1979 – voted the greatest goal in Scottish football history – is quite unlike any other. It came in the final of Drybrough Cup, a short-lived pre-season competition for the four highest scorers in the league the previous season, and has acquired almost mythical status.

The fact that the only footage of it comes from such a dodgy angle has enhanced that status; it is football's answer to a bootleg of Spike Island or Hendrix at Woodstock. It was also a fitting legacy for the late Cooper, a humble genius – no hyperbole in the use of the word 'genius' here – who wowed Ruud Gullit, and who Graeme Souness thought was more naturally gifted than even Kenny Dalglish. Brian Clough famously noted that there was a reason why God didn't put grass in the sky. If he'd seen this goal, the great man – and God – might have had a different opinion.

Nobody scored solo goals quite like Roberto Baggio. Nobody floated towards goal with the same smooth languor. Nobody had quite the same combination of immaculate control and bigger-picture awareness. Nobody sliced through opponents with such forensic cleanliness that defenders could not lay a foot on him, never mind the ball.

We all know about his Italia 90 saunter against Czechoslovakia . There was also this gem against Udinese , when, with one gorgeous touch, he evoked Geoffrey Green's wonderful description of a defender rushing "like a fire engine going to the wrong fire" . But the best came against the champions-to-be Napoli in his final season with Fiorentina, when he moved (you can't really say he ran) 70 yards to score. Appropriately for a man who did things in his own time, it looks even better in slow motion .

When he scored that goal, in September 1989, Baggio was the next superstar of Italian football. There is a certain poignancy to seeing a prodigy score a goal of such individual brilliance as to apparently justify the hype in 10 seconds flat. Sometimes, as with Ryan Giggs at Tottenham in 1992 , it will be the prelude to so much more; other times, as with Michael Owen in 1998, it will be a career zenith. With Baggio, it was both.

There is an understandable tendency to think that solo goals are based almost exclusively on skill, twisting the blood and frazzling the minds of defenders. Yet when Lothar Matthaus scored one of the most awesome solo goals of all, against Yugoslavia during Italia 90, he beat only one defender, and that by simply changing the direction of his run rather than through any sleight of foot.

As Sean Ingle pointed out the other day while proving that Jonathan Wilson isn't the only Rain Man in the Guardian sport team, this Sunday-night game was not live on TV in England. The BBC showed Brazil beating Sweden 2-1 and cut to highlights of this game at half-time and full-time. Yugoslavia were a fine side, who should have reached the semi-finals, but Germany trounced them 4-1. And worse still, we didn't see the mundane bits and the mortal bits. All we saw were the goals, the first three of which all possessed a startling majesty and suggested a soul-crushing omnipotence. They were goals that no other team could have scored. This one, Matthaus's second and West Germany's third, was comfortably the pick, In fact, it's hard to think of a goal which, at the time, was quite so terrifying.

At his absolute peak either side of Italia 90, Matthaus bore comparison to any powerhouse midfielder in the game's history – Cris Freddi, these islands' best football historian, puts him in his all-time World Cup XI – and this was zenith. It was the scene in the movie where the robotic monster eats a young baby whole and then starts cackling. Except for England fans, this film would not have a happy ending. Right there, right then, we all knew they were going to win the World Cup. So did they.

One particular sub-genre of the solo goal involves the scorer beating a number of defenders in a confined space the size of a phonebox. It's like a game of football Jenga: after each manoeuvre you think they have to shoot before it all falls down, but they keep adding layers of skill before they finally score. Famous examples include Zlatan Ibrahimovic , Alexandr Mostovoi and Jay-Jay Okocha , whose dance with Oliver Kahn is as much a Benny Hill sketch as a piece of football. But we've gone for a 35-year-old George Best's remarkable effort in the NASL, because Best actually predicted it a few seconds before it happened, and more importantly because we are tickled by the soccerball commentary ("That's the greatest soccer goal I've ever seen. Pow!") and orgy-at-a-keep-fit-class music that accompanies it.

The backstory is interesting, too. Anger is ostensibly more likely to motivate displays of aggression than skill, but the goal which Best describes as the greatest of his career came from a fit of pique. His side were 2-0 down, and he had just been booked for arguing with the referee when he was fouled during a counter-attack. "George said to the referee, 'I was going to score,'" said his team-mate Chris Dangerfield. "The ref said, 'No, you weren't,' and George said, 'Yes, I am.'" And after the goal, the product of Best's legendary balance as much as anything else, he broke away from his awestruck team-mates to seek out the referee and, presumably, prescribe an alternative use for that whistle.

Ray Hudson, a midfielder with Fort Lauderdale, said it was "like watching Fred Astaire on a surfboard, riding a wave, with a Turkish belly dancer thrown in there." We haven't got a clue what this means, but it's proof that even the opposition didn't begrudge this extraordinary goal.

This might not be as spectacular as many other solo goals, and we're extremely confident that we'll be slagged off for including it , but who needs to be spectacular when you can be as-near-as-damnit to perfection. Unlike almost all individual goals – whether it be George Weah and Saeed Al-Owairan getting the bounce of the ball or Lionel Messi's slightly heavy touch around the goalkeeper against Getafe – there is not even a hint of luck or imperfection involved here.

Romario's brain-speed is frightening: it's as if he has paused the game before each touch, so immaculate are the choices he makes and then executes through those jerky movements that leave viewers and defenders feeling seasick. It's hard to think of any striker who took more pleasure out of humiliating opponents, and here he treats them with the most delicious disdain. The dummy that leaves defender and goalkeeper sprawling pathetically at his feet is magisterial and even fools the cameraman, while the nonchalant sweep into an open net is memorably cocky. In many ways, this is the signature Romario goal.

The team context also adds significant clout to any appreciation. It was the culmination of a stunning European comeback: PSV, 1-0 down from the away leg, conceded early on in the second leg to a very good Steaua side (Hagi, Lacatus, Petrescu, Dumitrescu, Balint) and needed three to go through. They got five, three from Romario, who completed his hat-trick with this goal in the dying minutes. There is a charm all of its own surrounding the solo goal as emphatic denouement: the bit on top of the bit on top of the cherry on the icing on the cake. In scoring a goal of such flawless genius, Romario got to have his cake and eat it.