Legendary former Crystal Palace skipper Geoff Thomas is more like Pele than you might think...
Thomas captained Palace to the 1990 FA Cup final, before winning nine caps for England at the beginning of the following decade.
And it was while wearing the Three Lions on his chest that he produced one of the more, er, significant moments of his career.
Thomas' comical failed chip in a friendly against France at Wembley in 1992 is still replayed more than three decades later – but, as he points out to FourFourTwo, it puts him in good company.
"I was so gutted at the time," he reflects. "If I’d scored, it would have been a worldie, never forgotten, but that’s the kind of fine margins between failure and success. If you get into the top flight, you’re playing on a bigger stage and everything is magnified. If I’d scored, I’d probably have gone to the European Championship, but I’m satisfied by never having played in a losing England team.
"I suppose that miss put me on a par, arguably, with Pele and that World Cup miss in 1970 [a chipped effort from the halfway line against Czechoslovakia]. But it did teach me a valuable lesson. That’s what I always tried to do in football: learn and take the positives. I assure you that, from that miss onwards, I never tried to chip a 'keeper again whenever I had a one-on-one. I enjoyed more success either hoisting it over him or running around him. Unfortunately, I chose the biggest stage on which to attempt something I never did before or since."
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