Brian Laudrup may have been starring at the greatest football tournament on earth, but his nine-year-old son still wasn\u2019t totally satisfied with his efforts.<\/p>\n
Denmark had advanced to the quarter-finals of the 1998 FIFA World Cup France\u2122 \u2013 the best campaign in their history \u2013 with Laudrup scoring in their 4-1 demolition of Nigeria in the last 16. That victory set up a last-eight showdown against Brazil and, on the eve of that clash with the reigning champions, young Nicolai made a special request to his father.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the game, my son told me, \u2018Dad, you\u2019re so boring when you celebrate after the goals \u2013 come out with something,\u2019\u201d Laudrup later revealed.<\/p>\n
The great Dane alighted on an idea \u2013 and went on to deliver in an exhilarating contest at Nantes\u2019 Stade de la Beaujoire.<\/p>\n
A Sele\u00e7\u00e3o had come from behind to lead a breathless encounter 2-1 at half-time, with Bebeto and Rivaldo on target after Denmark had hit the front through Martin Jorgensen.<\/p>\n
Five minutes after the break, Laudrup had his moment. The forward, who was renowned for his supreme technically quality, expertly chested a ball down inside the area before powering a rising drive beyond Brazil goalkeeper Taffarel.<\/p>\n
Laudrup\u2019s immediate reaction was to sprint towards his team-mates, clenching his fists and screaming with joy. Then came his iconic pose. Laudrup lay down on his side and nonchalantly rested his head in his left hand, as if he was settling down for a night in front of the television rather than celebrating a goal in a World Cup knockout tie.
\n\u201cI was a little inspired by Roberto Di Matteo,\u201d explained Laudrup. \u201cI remembered watching Chelsea\u2019s games, he scored and he lay down more or less in the same way. So, I said, \u2018OK, if I score against Brazil, I will do something similar.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I didn\u2019t tell anybody! I kept it to myself. And I scored, it was a pretty nice goal. So that\u2019s why I did such a strange thing!\u201d<\/p>\n
Laudrup\u2019s superbly-taken strike brought the sides level, but the legendary Rivaldo swiftly netted his second goal of the game to give Brazil a 3-2 advantage they would not relinquish.<\/p>\n
Soon after the match, Laudrup \u2013 then aged just 29 \u2013 stunned Danish football by announcing his international retirement. He had gone out in some style, however, and surely made son Nicolai beam with admiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brian Laudrup may have been starring at the greatest football tournament on earth, but his nine-year-old son still wasn\u2019t totally satisfied with his efforts. Denmark had advanced to the quarter-finals of the 1998 FIFA World Cup France\u2122 \u2013 the best campaign in their history \u2013 with Laudrup scoring in their 4-1 demolition of Nigeria in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1051229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-1051226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1051226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051230,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051226\/revisions\/1051230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1051229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1051226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1051226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1051226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}