The Joy of Six: World Cup goal celebrations

From Roger Milla’s hips to a human Slinky, half a dozen joyful celebrations from the festival of football

Want to feel old? Bebeto’s third son Mattheus Oliviera, the celebration’s subject, recently turned 23, and has signed for Sporting Lisbon. Back to 1994, an hour gone, and from a wayward header Bebeto embarrassed the entire Dutch back-four, caught waiting for an offside flag that never came. Running unimpeded through on goal, he rounded Ed de Goey with a touch both deft and impetuous, before slotting into the empty net. Like your dad at a family barbecue, Bebeto started to laugh at his own joke before the punchline, heading towards the corner flag with a giddy grin plastered on his face. Shaping his arms into a cradle, he began to rock the proverbial baby, before being joined by team-mates Mazinho and Romário in a tableau of parental bliss. Hopefully this will have assuaged the anger of his other half; the Brazilian sheepishly explained this was the only child whose birth he wasn’t present for. Perhaps a touch hubristically, he added: “When I made that celebration maybe it was like Mattheus was baptised by God.” At the least it christened a celebration copied in recent years by a succession of happy parents.

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