My Greatest Leicester Goal: Lilian Nalis launches a rocket against Leeds (September 2003)
I've got to be honest: you could write what I remember about Lilian Nalis at Leicester on one of his skinny headbands. But good grief – even if it is just 'THAT LEEDS GOAL' written four times, I'm perfectly alright with that.
Suffice to say, these were different times for Leicester City; the sort of years when fans were still mourning the lost O'Neill years while knowing it could have been a lot worse.
One enjoyable season in Division One had been enough, not least coming as it did after administration, in a time before points deductions for such a thing. Given that we'd basically paid two first-teamers only their expenses to help the cause, it was pretty important that things ended up the way they did.
Looking back, it's a wonder that Micky Adams did such a decent job in the circumstances. By the summer of 2003, overseeing a newly promoted club with only dust and bits of Walkers crisps in the piggy bank, it was his job to build a team that could stay put this time. Or at least try to.
These days, promoted clubs can splurge £100m without so much as a batted eyelid (RIP Fulham 2018-19, we hardly knew ye). Back then, Adams had roughly one hundredth of that hilarious figure after the club's transfer embargo was lifted. One million pounds to do... something. Anything.
If you were going on a free transfer and counting down the days until you could nab your pension, it was good news: there was a fair chance that Leicester would have been interested in you that summer.
And so, in came Steve Howey (31), Ricky Scimeca (28), Paul Brooker (27), Danny Coyne (29), Keith Gillespie (a surprising 28), Les Ferdinand (36), Ben Thatcher (27), Craig Hignett (33) and a returning Steve Guppy (34). At 25, loanee Marcus Bent practically felt like a Football Manager wonderkid.
Also there, amid the geriatric tea party, was a 31-year-old Nalis. I remember reading about his signing in a tiny News of the World snippet – amid the other rumours and Honest As They Come profile of our arrivals up to that point, he was practically exotic. There was no photo; no scouting report. You just waited for the OS to unveil him and show us what you'd got.
Adams had bought a player from equally unfashionable Chievo (nicknamed the Flying Donkeys, for a laugh), but one he'd apparently wanted for over a year after seeing a few of his games for Bastia. At zero risk of overstating anything, his confidence-boosting report declared that, "He's not spectacular but he works hard."
Ahem. The hard work I do remember about Nalis, in fairness; that busy, shuffly, low gait he had going on. But the rest? Well, that was all of the spectacular. On one magical Walkers Stadium night in mid-September 2003, Lilian Nalis scored the greatest Leicester City goal I've ever seen in the flesh.
In the moment, it was as important as it was unimportant – we know that City would end up getting relegated after a painful death from the middle of December, but four games into the season we hadn't won at all.
Leeds weren't in any better shape. Drowning in debt, presumably alongside the expensive fish from Peter Risdale's office, they'd flirted with relegation the previous season and been forced to continue their fire sale by flogging Harry Kewell and Olivier Dacourt that summer. In their stead, the loan market brought Leeds a string of awful arrivals from Ligue 1, plus 2002 World Cup winner Roque Junior.
This game proved a sign of things to come – if not for Leicester, then their opposition. Reeling from a tricky start, we went for the jugular and could have been ahead before the opener arrived after 20 minutes. But while City going ahead might not have come as a surprise, the manner of it certainly did.
Watch Nalis' howitzer on YouTube again and it's even more spectacular than the memory. Volleys are usually instinctive; swift and wild acts of force – but when Didier Domi looped a header high into the night sky, Nalis had all the time in the world to think about what he'd do next from 25 yards.
He was moving all the time, and remarkably, not even towards goal – instead, the Frenchman hooked back his left boot to cradle the ball into orbit before unleashing a volley so vicious it required a simultaneous jump. Paul Robinson might as well have not bothered.
Nalis had peaked, of course – there was no chance of him emulating anything like that ever again. It was his only Premier League goal in fact, putting him in an illustrious club with Edgar Davids, Marco Materazzi and, er, Brad Friedel. It wasn't even his night in the end; not really. Nalis' wonderstrike merely lit the touchpaper for a blue fire that night, as Adams' side ran out 4-0 winners with a masterful display that offered genuine hope for days to come.
The emphasis, sadly, was on days. It didn't last, of course – this stonking victory was followed by five defeats on the spin. A brief November rush of three wins in four threatened some hope, followed as it was by a last-minute, Hignett-inspired draw against invincible Arsenal... but the single victory in 22 matches thereafter might have had just a little to do with the eventual drop. All three relegated sides – Leeds included – finished with 33 points and struggled to return.
Still: we’ll always have this belting bolt from a blue… and poor Whites crying into their Hovis.
Leicester City 4-0 Leeds United
Nalis (20), Dickov (23, 83), Scowcroft (90)
Leicester: Walker, Sinclair, Thatcher, Taggart, Curtis, Nalis, Hignett (Stewart 77), Izzet, Scowcroft, Dickov (Impey 86), Bent (Deane 75).
Subs not used: Coyne, Howey.
Leeds: Robinson, Kelly, Camara, Roque Junior (Radebe 81), Domi (Olembe 54), Pennant, Morris, Seth Johnson, Sakho (Lennon 69), Viduka, Smith.
Subs not used: Carson, Batty.
