Its like had never been seen and such a clean manoeuvre has not been executed at an elite level since. But why were people shocked in the first place?

If Dennis Bergkamp was not a footballer, he would probably have been an architect, perhaps turning Amsterdam into a city renowned for modern design rather than canal houses and windmills. From a young age he was fascinated by dissecting angles, understanding shapes and, above all, how best to utilise space. He was also fascinated by movement: how balls bounce in certain ways when a particular spin is put on it and how to control every situation.



Outside his childhood home, just off the A10 motorway in the east Amsterdam suburbs, Bergkamp spent hours kicking a ball against a wall below his bedroom window. Understanding the physics, teaching himself. “Most of the time I was by myself, just kicking the ball against the wall, seeing how it bounces, how it comes back, just controlling it,” he recalls in Stillness and Speed. “I wasn’t obsessed, I was just very intrigued by how the ball moves, how the spin worked, what you could do with spin.” It is apt, then, that a spin – of both the ball and his body – is the lasting image of his career.



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Bergkamp, now an assistant coach at Ajax, has always said his last-minute wonder goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup was his best. It was an exceptional moment and he, albeit with a touch of reluctance, has previously described it as perfect. For a man whose career was spent striving for perfection and abided by a mantra of constant improvement, his use of that word says a lot. But for all the magnificence of those three touches it ultimately did not result in success for his team. Holland were beaten on penalties in the semi-final by Brazil, subsequently finishing fourth behind Croatia, and he probably should not have played against Argentina having escaped a sending off for a nasty stamp on Yugoslavia’s Sinisa Mihajlovic in the previous round.



That is why there is a case for his other piece of individual brilliance, the pirouette goal away to Newcastle in March 2002, to be considered his best. It spurred Arsenal on to two pieces of silverware. Newcastle were title challengers that season, spending Christmas on top of the table, but Arsenal’s 2-0 win – the second was scored by Sol Campbell, predictably assisted by Bergkamp – knocked the stuffing out of them and Bobby Robson’s team stuttered to the finishing line and dropped to fourth. The following weekend the sides met again in the FA Cup quarter-final and though it finished 1-1, Arsenal won the replay 3-0 at Highbury when Bergkamp scored again.



The league goal was the catalyst for a bulldozing end to the season and ensured both Tony Adams and Lee Dixon signed off with a double. “It was very important because Newcastle were doing well at that time,” Bergkamp said at the end of the season. “Nobody really expected us to take the points at that stage. To score the first goal, to me that was one of the most important goals.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bergkamp’s 1998 World Cup goal against Argentina, the brick-by-brick replay.

This was a man who changed a club and some might say English football. When Bergkamp arrived at Arsenal as a £7.5m club-record signing following a miserable two seasons at Internazionale in June 1995, some of his new team-mates bowed at his greatness and chanted only semi-sarcastically ‘We are not worthy’ at the training ground. However, it was not until Arsène Wenger replaced Bruce Rioch and they rapidly transferred from boring, boring Arsenal to an attacking machine that combined power with flair, that Bergkamp was fully appreciated. Together they formed a dream partnership. In Bergkamp, Wenger had a player with the quality to base a game-plan around and a platform to build on. Simultaneously in Wenger, Bergkamp had a manager who would allow him freedom to express himself



The galvanising effect Bergkamp had on a squad still stuck in the days of play hard, work hard when he arrived has lived long in the memory. “Dennis Bergkamp was a really big name, we couldn’t wait to see him,” Ray Parlour says in Football’s Greatest. It took a few games for Bergkamp to bed in but soon his class became apparent and with Wenger’s arrival the following season Arsenal were awoken from their slumber and embarked on the club’s most successful period.



Ian Wright, whose relationship with Rioch was so fractured the striker asked for a transfer but stayed and ended up becoming the club’s all-time top scorer in no part thanks to the Dutchman’s assists, says Bergkamp is the “best signing Arsenal have made and ever will make”. Wright used to refer to him as the “messiah who is going to save us”. Thierry Henry loved “every single thing” about Bergkamp and concurs with Wright by saying he is the greatest he has played with despite taking to the same pitch as Lionel Messi at Barcelona.



So to St James’ Park and a decisive Saturday evening meeting between title challengers. Newcastle started strongly but the Arsenal defence weathered the storm, fighting off a succession of early attacks. Then, with pretty much their first chance, Bergkamp strikes. The fervent home support were silenced, their team carved open by a move of such quality that even the world’s greatest defenders were never going to stop the juggernaut.



Due to the individual brilliance of the goal, the buildup play is often under-appreciated. Or at least, it is not given the praise it deserves. It was a quintessential mid-Wenger era counterattack: blisteringly incisive, 15 seconds after Newcastle lose possession 10 yards from the Arsenal box, the ball is in the net. It begins with Patrick Vieira gaining possession in midfield and gliding forward, his long legs galloping ahead with that familiar deceptive grace. Vieira gives it to Bergkamp who, after a cursory glance around picks out Robert Pires on the left wing near the halfway line.



Pires dribbles forward menacingly while Newcastle, who had committed too many forward in search of a deadlock breaker, desperately retreat. At the bottom of the screen, you can see the top half of Bergkamp’s body as he charges forward, right arm raised, bellowing at Pires, who by now had lured two barcoded shirts, to give a return pass. The Frenchman looks up and spots his team-mate reaching the edge of the area with only Nikos Dabizas as protection for Shay Given in the Newcastle goal. He plays an exquisite 30-yard pass straight to Bergkamp, whose back is to goal when he receives it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nikos Dabizas can only watch on as Bergkamp gives Arsenal the lead. Photograph: Reuters

At this point the magic happens. Look at the positioning of his body: he anticipates Dabizas’s movement as Pires dispatches. Bergkamp has previously stated the goal had an element of luck on account of Dabizas standing a yard off him and because of that some, bafflingly, argue that it was not deliberate. “Ten yards before the ball arrived, I made my decision to turn the defender,” Bergkamp said in an interview with Four Four Two in 2011. He puts his left boot out and manipulates the ball in a way that it spins in a perfect arc around Dabizas’s right as Bergkamp turns on his left.



Martin Keown, the defender who Bergkamp regularly took great pleasure in winding up in the changing room, describes him as a ballet dancer due to his balance and flexibility. “I remember playing against Dennis [for England] in 1992 at Wembley against Holland and he scored an amazing goal and I thought he surely didn’t meant that, it was a bit flukey. But then when I got to work with him every day I realised he meant every bit of it.”



“I thought the ball was a little too much behind me so I had to turn to control it,” Bergkamp says of Pires’ pass. “The quickest way to turn the ball was going that way. It looked a bit special or strange or nice but for me it was the quickest way to the goal. The finish: it was just trying to get it past the goalkeeper in such a way he cannot reach it.”



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Bergkamp’s insouciance only adds to its legendary status. Few would have pulled off such a nonchalant finish after producing a breathtaking piece of skill. Many would have fluffed their lines but not Bergkamp. He steadies himself after spinning the ball, displaying impressive strength to hold off Dabizas after turning, before coolly side-footing past a helpless Given. “Usually when you do something amazing you get carried away,” Henry said. “How many times did you see a guy do a great control and then rush the finish? Dennis did something amazing but then stayed composed. That’s the difference between great players and normal players.”



Some of those sat inside the ground did not fully appreciate it. The move was so rapid, so instinctive that it was not until replays were shown that the beauty was fully appreciated. There was a whiff of disbelief in Martin Tyler’s commentary until he was given a second chance to look at it. “It’s Bergkamp, it’s magnificent,” he says, before finally getting a fuller sense of how unique the move it was. “The move, then this,” he adds, placing quite a significant emphasis on the this, almost flabbergasted by the audacity of the first touch.



It is like he had never been seen and while imitations have been plentiful, such a clean manoeuvre has not been executed at an elite level since. It was voted Arsenal’s greatest goal in 2009 and considering some of those scored by Henry, not least the Frenchman’s turn and volley against Manchester United in October 2000, that is quite the feat.



But why were people shocked in the first place? That Bergkamp was able to improvise in such a manner should have been no surprise. He had a long history of producing unexpected, daring moments in games. There was the drag back and outside of the boot flick to Freddie Ljungberg against Juventus in the 2001 Champions League, coming from another counterattack started by Vieira. There were many deft lobs to leave goalkeepers looking foolish and the dream-like assists are countless.



Yet the statue of Bergkamp outside the Emirates depicts his first touch for Holland against Argentina rather than him spinning Dabizas. There had been attempts to model the pirouette but the designers said it was too complicated to replicate. “The whole move was inch perfect. It could have gone completely wrong but that time it worked,” Bergkamp said the following summer.



Amazingly Bergkamp says when he watched the footage of the goal it was unlike how he had remembered it at the time. “It looks quite different to what was in my mind. On TV you see the defender. I knew he was there, but I never saw him. I felt him a little bit, his presence, and I knew he was on this side,” he recalls in Stillness and Speed. “Generally, though, I don’t like tricks … it’s really not something on my mind.” Quite the self-effacing statement from a man whose trick remains, possibly, the most memorable in Premier League history.