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With Oasis touring and Bill Clinton in the news you’d be forgiven for thinking the Long Nineties may never end and this week Toluca’s Eugénie Le Sommer added to that sense of déjà vu by channelling the spirit of compatriot Eric Cantona. An audacious effort complete with nonchalant celebration.

To round off the year on a positive note – let’s finish with the Puskás Award 2025 which has been handed to Independiente winger Santiago Montiel for a ludicrous overhead kick in the Argentinian Primera División against Independiente Rivadavia.

This week’s ICYMI brings you something of an unusual moment from last week’s DFB Pokal, with Hertha Berlin’s David Kownacki stealing the tactical plans of opponents Kaiserslauten from the hands of Marlon Ritter. It’s hard to say exactly what piece of intelligence or key strategy he intercepted, but given Hertha were running away with the game, leading 6-1 with only a handful of minutes to go, we doubt it would’ve had much impact on the outcome anyway…

Last week we asked you to vote in our Goal of the Year Award as we had candidates from (deep breath) – Sheffield Wednesday, Yeovil Town, Notts County, Manchester City Women, Brighton & Hove Albion, Hanworth Villa, as well as Spurs’ women’s and men’s team.

Former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino looks like he’s finally got a grip of the USA’s national men’s team, who are now unbeaten in five, and are looking forward to next summer’s World Cup on home soil. If they want to do anything more than make up the numbers, though, the likes of Ricardo Pepi will have to start taking their chances.

This week #ICYMI has been gearing up for winter by watching the Canadian Premier League final, which was played out in blizzard conditions in the capital city, between hosts Atletico Ottawa and Cavalry FC. Late in the first half Ottawa’s Mexican midfielder David Rodriguez produced a moment of magic – orange ball and all – to level the scores. He would go on to net the extra-time winner to give Ottawa their first title, too. Brrrriliant.

It’s been a bumper week for Goal of the Season contenders – from Barry Bannan’s blammer to Micky van de Ven’s legengary school-yard-style run – but we reckon Piotr Zielinski’s aesthetically pleasing volley for Inter away at Verona is also worthy of your consideration. A terrific effort all round.

With a €658m annual wage bill, PSG are extremely likely to win their fifth Ligue Un title in a row. Their competition in France shouldn’t be making things easy for them, but sadly Brest’s Romain Del Castillo let them off this week when he channeled his inner John Terry (never a good idea) by bodging a penalty en route to a 3-0 loss.

The Swiss Super League saw a lovely tribute to 90s cult-hero Jamie Pollock this week as Luzern’s Pius Dorn did his best to re-enact Pollock’s legendary own goal for Manchester City all the way back in 1998. Another sumptuous volley sent into the wrong net.

After 14 previous attempts, Japan finally beat Brazil for the first time in their history this week following a remarkable comeback at a packed Tokyo Stadium. Japan turned the game around in the second half, winning 3-2 having gone in at half-time 2-0 down. They were helped on their way by some oafish defending from Fabricio Bruno. No-one cares about international football though, eh?

Scotland haven’t qualified for a World Cup since 1998 but 2026 could be the year they finally return. The Scots are now second in their World Cup qualifying group with three games played and should they make it they’ll look back on Thursday’s unlikely 3-1 win over Greece at Hampden as a turning point. Greek goalie Konstantinos Tzolakis might want to move on very quickly after a late howler.

We don’t remember the part of the VAR sales pitch saying it would be an unpredictable overly fussy all-seeing-eye that would mean penalty kicks now take five minutes to resolve, but here we are. Roma conspired to miss three spot kicks in a row last night as they lost to Lille 1-0 at home while the officials channelled John Cleese’s High Priest from the opening scenes of Life of Brian. Ridiculous stuff.

The boffins that make the shortlist for the Puskás Award would have had a busy week, what with Brighton’s Diego Gomez scoring two worldies against Barnsley in the League Cup and Rayo Vallecano’s Pep Chavarría scoring this absolute screamer against Atletico Madrid. Some hit.

If you’re the enlightened “never leaves early” type than Swansea City vs Forest in the League Cup this week would have been right up your street. The Swans went from 2-0 down to 3-2 up with the equaliser and winner coming in the 93rd and 97th minutes respectively. Christian Burgess certainly seems to have enjoyed his winning strike.

Norway smashed Moldova 11-1 this week, the largest margin of victory in a European Championship qualifier since 1996. Moldova’s meagre consolation goal came courtesy of Norway defender Leo Østigård who made a right old mess of a hopeful punt down field. Luckily for him Norwegian Replicant-come-Terminator Erling Haaland scored five and assisted two more, rendering his blunder meaningless. Likely to be entirely forgotten by history.

#ICYMI veterans will have seen all sorts of OGs but we’re not sure we’ve ever seen one as spectacular and unexpected as this outrageous effort from Orange County’s Vuk Latinovich. It’s a Puskás Award OG. Watch for yourself…

The era of the irritating stuttering-slow-run-up-waiting-for-the-goalie-to-dive penalty is nearly over, thankfully, and Sydney FC’s Mathias Macallister might have just put the final nail in its coffin. His embarrassing effort from 12-yards contributed to his side’s downfall as they lost their penalty shoot-out in the quarter final of the Australia Cup against Auckland.

The European season and all of its associated tomfoolery is back underway, with Cagliari leading the way early on with this farcical passage of play against Entella in the Coppa Italia. Former-Everton defender Yerry Mina starts proceedings with a comically overhit penalty before the Sardinians get caught up in some chaotic defending seconds later.

England forward Marcus Rashford is off to Barcelona for a year-long loan at the Spanish champions and has been looking to make a difference as the Catalans’ title defence begins this weekend. He goes with our best wishes and will be remembered fondly for all his good off-the-pitch work here at home but he’ll need to dust the cobwebs off quickly if this pre-season miss is anything to go by.

Tottenham Hotspur legend Harry Kane came up against his old side in a pre-season friendly in Germany this week and made his mark on the fixture as Bayern Munich comfortably beat the Lilywhites 4-0. Despite scoring early on, Kane was unable to convert a penalty in the opening stages. It happens to the best of us.