Cometh the hour, cometh the… Harry Maguire? A bruising centre back, Maguire isn’t exactly the first player that comes to mind when chasing a game late on. But Erik ten Hag, whose tactical awareness has come under scrutiny in his time at Manchester United, must have spotted something in his side’s Europa League game with Porto in October.
With the score at 2-3 and with little over ten minutes remaining, Ten Hag took off his starting central defensive pair (Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez) and sent on Maguire and Jonny Evans instead. You could almost hear the howls of derision in Manchester wherever you were: what was the head coach thinking? But it’s possible that Ten Hag had noticed that Porto were vulnerable when defending set pieces, so Maguire – nearly 6ft 4in tall and with a burning desire to win every header – was sent on as a possible game-saver.
Lo and behold, the England international met Christian Eriksen’s injury-time corner to head home the equaliser; Ten Hag vindicated in his seemingly bizarre, but perhaps incredibly well thought-out, choice of substitutes. Some players have attained a cult status as super-subs over the years, and some have made creating an impact from the bench an art-form in itself.
Here’s an ode to football’s greatest super-subs… who knows, maybe Maguire will one day be added to the list.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
Through the sheer weight of goals he scored – and their importance – former Manchester United striker, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, deserves recognition as arguably football’s most effective super sub. The Norwegian netted 17 goals as a substitute in the Premier League, which is the competition’s joint-best tally for a player at a single club. However, it’s one special night in May 1999 that confirmed Solskjaer’s status as the most impactful sub in modern football.
The 1998/99 Champions League final was contested by Manchester United and Bayern Munich. And it was the German side who stole the advantage courtesy of an early Mario Basler goal. Although United pushed hard, they couldn’t find a way through the well-drilled Bayern defence, and so Sir Alex Ferguson turned to his substitutes bench: first bringing on Teddy Sheringham and then latterly Solskjaer. If only all subs made this level of impact.
Sheringham notched an injury time equaliser – an opportunist strike from a corner, to set up the likelihood of extra time and/or penalties. But that hadn’t reckoned with Solskjaer’s penchant for scoring from off the bench. In the 93rd minute, David Beckham swung over a corner, Sheringham won the first ball and there was Solskjaer, prowling at the far post, to prod home the latest of winning goals.
Not only did the strike win the Champions League for Manchester United, it also helped them to complete a historic treble of trophy triumphs in 1998/99. “So many people have congratulated me and talked to me about that night. They say ‘it was the best night of my life but don’t tell my wife’ – that kind of thing,” the Norwegian recalled. “The goal….I have probably seen a million times. I don’t mind being remembered for something like that.”
Olivier Giroud
It’s necessary to mention Olivier Giroud at this point for one simple reason: he is, alongside Solskjaer, the only other player to score 17 goals as a substitute for a single team in the Premier League. The former Arsenal and Chelsea striker equalled the record in December 2017; a suitably scruffy strike against Southampton for a player who, despite being known for his Gallic good lucks, hasn’t always been the most aesthetically-pleasing player on the pitch.
Indeed, it’s his strength, physicality and big leap from his 6ft 3in frame that has been Giroud used as an impact substitute for club and country; he is something of a battering ram with which to terrorise tiring defences.
Jermain Defoe
Giroud and Solskjaer hold that unique distinction of having scored the most goals as a substitute for a single club. But the honour of scoring the most Premier League goals as a sub? That accolade is bestowed upon former West Ham and Tottenham goal machine, Jermain Defoe.
The diminutive frontman would have no doubt loved to have started more games for his various EPL clubs, but even then he was able to score 162 Premier League goals – at the time of writing, that makes him the competition’s ninth all-time leading goalscorer.
That is a distinction for which he can always be proud, and yet Defoe also holds a record that may never be beaten: he scored 24 goals as a substitute in the Premier League, which is more than anybody else. Fittingly, his final EPL goal came from off the bench for Bournemouth in March 2018. All told, a considerable 15% of Defoe’s Premier League goals were scored as a substitute: he was the archetypal super sub!
Big Game, Huge Impact
So far we’ve concentrated on the players with a sizable quantity of substitute goals. But an impact sub only needs to score once in a major game to secure their place in their club or country’s footballing folklore.
Oliver Bierhoff
In the final of Euro ’96, Germany were on the ropes. They found themselves 0-1 down to the Czech Republic in the game played at Wembley Stadium, and in truth the favourites didn’t look like getting back into the game.
Head coach Berti Vogts sent on Oliver Bierhoff as a different option in attack, and the move would turn out to be a masterstroke. Not only did Bierhoff net the equaliser in the 73rd minute – just four minutes after entering the field as a substitute, he also went on to notch a famous golden goal in extra time to win the tournament for Germany. Talk about an impact sub!
David Trezeguet
Others have also found the net in major finals after coming on as a substitute. Four years after Bierhoff’s exploits, David Trezeguet also changed the course of a European Championship final as a substitute, netting the golden goal that won the day for France against Italy.
Mario Götze
The 2014 World Cup final between Germany and Argentina was deadlocked in a draw, so with extra time in mine German boss, Joachim Low, sent on young Mario Götze as a substitute. And it would be Götze that acquired a unique slice of football history: he’s the only sub to score a winning goal in a World Cup final. If you’re going to be remembered for anything in football, it might as well be that!
