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By Rasaq Oboirien
Former Super Eagles captain and now legend, Vincent Enyeama has had his 13-years record in the UEFA Champions League broken on Tuesday night by Ivan Provedel.
According to Spanish sports tabloid AS, Enyeama was a semi-regular penalty talker for Enyimba in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) and Israeli side, Hapoel Tel Aviv, for whom he scored his sole Champions League goal.
His strike came in the group stage, this time against French club Lyon in September 2010.
Almost 13 years later, the wait is over and it was well worth it.
Spanish LaLiga club, Atlético Madrid looked all set to get its 2023-24 UEFA Champions League campaign off to a winning start with a hard-fought victory over Lazio in Rome, only for goalkeeper Ivan Provedel to have other ideas.
On the face of things, there’s nothing especially unusual about a team scoring, or conceding, an injury-time equalizer, until you realise Provedel is the Serie A club’s goalkeeper.
There are few less sophisticated tactics in soccer than sending your goalkeeper into the opposition penalty area when your team is chasing the game and wins a late free-kick or corner.
It’s a strategy, which has a low success rate but paid off handsomely for the Italians, with Provedel heading Luis Alberto’s cross beyond Atletico goalkeeper, Jan Oblak to clinch a point for his team with the very last touch of the game. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than that.
