Elrich humbled as wonder goal goes viral

Adelaide United defender Tarek Elrich has been blown away by the amount of attention his Round 27 goal against Melbourne City has received, telling The World Game he is just relieved to have broken his personal A-League scoring drought.

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Tarek Elrich celebrates his memorable solo goal for Adelaide United against Melbourne City last season. (AAP) Source: AAP

Elrich's piece of brilliance that went viral:



Reacting to an article in British publication Metro, which , the modest 28-year-old revealed the full extent of his strike's reach.
"I've been tagged in quite a few posts on my Twitter page," Elrich said. "Ex team-mates and players living in other countries, like Eugene Dadi and Jeronimo Nueman, have been telling me the goal is getting coverage in places like France and Argentina."
Elrich moved to play down the hysteria, insisting he was just glad to break an A-League goal drought extending back to the 2008/2009 season, when he was at Newcastle Jets.



"Yesterday we had a fan day and people were coming up to me saying it's the best goal they have ever seen," he said. "I was thinking, 'Look you can't compare my goal to ones that have been scored by the likes of Diego Maradona and Ryan Giggs'.

"With all due respect to the A-League, it wasn't a World Cup-winning goal or a cup final goal or anything like that.

"I'm just humbled to get a goal for the first time in three years. I felt more relief at scoring then anything else.
My battery is dying every three hours I've been watching the goal so much and I'm not joking about that.
More than global plaudits, Elrich, whose stellar season at the Reds resulted in a call up to the Socceroos squad for the March internationals against Germany and Macedonia, insisted the bragging rights among his Adelaide team-mates were the most rewarding aspect of the goal.

"I've over-used the Socceroos debut thing in training so much I'd run out of ammo with the boys," he said. "So to have this goal now I can use it in the dreesing room banter. That's the most important thing for me. 

"I never thought I'd do anything that would receive so much attention. I'm very humbled." 

The World Game asked Elrich to talk us through the goal and what went though his mind as he dribbled his way from deep in his own half to the byline, before threading a well-taken shot past Tando Velaphi and into the season's end-of-year highlight reels.

"Sometimes in the style we play we are encouraged to take the player on and normally when I try that I get fouled in midfield," Elrich said. "This time I stayed on my feet and drifted in to set up a shot to the right.

"When I got to the edge of the box I could see that Connor Chapman was closing down the angle for the shot.

"I went to shoot and miss, he committed, and I chopped back inside off my right foot to find myself in the box. Josep Gombau says to always shoot in the box rather than trying to cross or play someone else in. 

"I'm definitely not a hog. I'm not about the glory, and if I've got a striker inside of me I will play him in. 

"This one was one of those that fell my way and when I got to the last defender, the ball bobbled a little as I reached him.

"I got to it quicker and knocked it past him. Then it was then Velaphi facing me and I managed to finish it off.

"As soon as I scored it I didn't know what to do. Josep likes us to dribble if the time is right. We were playing with three at the back, rather than four, so the time probably wasn't right.

"Afterwards he said, 'Why did you try that when we only had three at the back, not four?. I said I had to try it, it was on. All the boys were really pleased for me and urging me to shoot."


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4 min read
Published 27 April 2015 12:30pm
Updated 27 April 2015 2:54pm
By Tom Findlay

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