Ask yourself an honest question. How many times have you watched Geovanni Deiberson Maurício Gómez’s goal vs Arsenal from the 27th September 2008? I’d say I must have seen in one hundred times by the end of that season and since then I’ve averaged watching it once a month. So all in all… as a rough estimate.. .somewhere in the 300 range.. in reality.. probably more.
It’s everything about it that I never get bored of, it’s the way he ghosts inside the Arsenal defender, effortlessly with the shimmy inside a backtracking defender that suggests he has eyes in the back of his head, it’s about the timing and the movement that creates the space to wind up, and then that shot, that just bends and twists away from the keeper, who at every step must imagine he’ll get there but like a cartoon chase from Looney Tunes, the ball just continues to swoop towards where he isn’t and can’t be. It’s almost as if the shot was hit by Roadrunner and the keeper is Wile.E.Coyote.
Then there’s the gravity of the moment, in reality to that point Arsenal had encamped themselves in our half. We’d bravely repelled them, but it seemed inevitable we’d get swamped and this was only underlined when Paul McShane turned the ball into his own net under pressure at the start of the second half. The game if we’re honest had 4-0 written all over it. But then, like a swooping sword of justice, the most annoying southern fanbase on the face of the planet were sliced in two by the Brazilian genius that was Geo. The energy of the game in such a moment changes and it did. The previously sure footed Arsenal suddenly seemed fallible, the roar from the away end more raucous, the entire dynamic of a game can change (and did) by such a strike of utter genius and so it would prove.
You have a small window as a new Premier League team to get that promotion uplift. Now in 2024 (as I write no promoted team has won) it seems less likely than ever, but sixteen years earlier, with a solid foundation, loud support, a bit of luck and some bravery, it seemed sides could catch the big boys out early doors. Geo was the factor that made that happen back in 2008, whilst we had good players all over the park, Andy Dawson, Michael Turner, Nicky Barmby, Sam Ricketts, Bo Myhill… we had only one that could do the most unlikely, the most other worldly things that the good people who’d stood on the terraces at Boothferry Park could have ever imagined.
Timing, timing, timing. On the first day of the season, against an established Premier League force in Fulham, we’d found ourselves 1-0 down in what was arguably the biggest regular season league game in the club’s history to that point. Geo bursts through the midfield, and hits an arrowing, bullet like strike into the bottom corner that again changes the entire direction and dynamic of a game. If Geo had a gimmick, it would be a script ripper because coaches well established like Hodgson and Wenger did everything right, they planned right, they were on top of and in control of the game, only for it all to tits up because of a five foot eight rocket footed genius, that did not respect their plans one little bit.
I think of the times I’ve supported this club and the players we’ve been lucky enough to see. As a kid, then a young person, you’d never imagine that after Dave Bamber, would come Jay Jay Okocha, or after John Moore would come Geo. I remember trying to actively soak it in, to tell myself to keep these experiences clear in my mind. When Geo scores (I think) the third at West Brom as we pagger them 3-0 away, the players and the fans, and Geo himself all seemed simultaneously as delirious as each other. We know in reality days like this can’t last forever but whilst they are here, there just isn’t any better feeling in football, and perhaps never will be.
Both my old man and my cousin insist the free-kick at Spurs that same autumn was even better. They were there in the flesh that day (I was coaching, something I find myself doing again in the last two years) and on first look, you question the Tottenham keeper to get beat from range at his near post, but it’s the final angle from behind him that really reveals it’s freakish trajectory. Fully 35 yards out, the ball seems to incredibly swerve almost unnaturally away from fellow Brazilian Heurelho Gomes, he just watches, as sure as you can imagine that this ball wasn’t about to do the conga past him from another post code, but that’s exactly what it does.
Geo was the top goal scorer that season and the team would survive a very tricky end sending known cry babies and incomprehensible language spoilers Newcastle United down. A feat that I still don’t think gets enough credit. We did what FFP seemingly can’t and dealt a killer blow to a club whose most notable achievements in modern football for me are 1. Manager rants on interview about fellow manager and 2. Fans take tops off to show their basic stupidity in winter. Perhaps nobody bar Mike Ashley ever did quite so much short term damage to the topless simpletons, and we did it on purpose.
Season two would see glimpses of the same, but never as often. He was still a joy to watch on the ball, but he picked up injuries and at times I think Phil Brown’s eye was caught by other riches. Geo would quietly leave that summer, when it became apparent we couldn’t afford a pair of sports direct socks (double Mike Ashley reference for the win) and would finish his career in the MLS and back home in Brazil.
He’s been back at the club before, you’d imagine it would be an excellent call to make that annually. But I’ll leave you with a slightly different story that underlines why the man was so damned lovable.
Phil Brown’s last game was the 2-1 loss to Arsenal, in which somehow your blog author had got tickets for the players lounge. It’s always interesting to see players off the camera and it tells you a lot about them. Anthony Gardener read the programme nagged by an extremely expensive looking girlfriend and other players mooched about. A young Tom Cairney was left out of the squad that day, despite bursting onto the scene and scoring a great goal at Everton days before. He did look somewhat crestfallen, as you’d expect. Enter Geo, with translator, who didn’t appear to speak more that the odd word of the Queens. He worked the room beautifully having pictures with fans and winding up the two young mascots like a playful Uncle. However then Geo saw Tom Cairney stood by the bar looking glum. He walked over, tapped him on the shoulder, and as Tom turned, put him in a headlock, so he could mess up his very two thousands hair with his other arm. Cairney laughed, Geo stood with him for another two minutes, the whole time with his arm around him, his translator enthusiastically passing to the young player his thoughts and support.
Not only an absolute genius, but clearly a warm and unselfish man.
Geo was the most larker like of any larker that’s played for this club, and maybe ever will. We all should consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have witness him live and that’s something nobody can ever take from us.
UTT.