Ricky Villa is still revered at Tottenham 20 years after that final-winning goal
Jon Brodkin Ricky Villa is easing himself out of a sofa in the bar of a hotel in Cheshunt when a stranger strides purposefully towards him. Before the Argentine has time to think he is shaking hands. “Ricky,” the man says reverently, “thank you for the greatest night of my life.”
The stranger, needless to say, is a Tottenham fan. The night was the replay of the 100th FA Cup final, played in front of 92?000 people at Wembley. The memory may be painful for Manchester City supporters but, 20 years on, the mazy dribble and dreamy finish with which Villa won the Cup for Spurs is still fresh in the mind.
Certainly no one at White Hart Lane has forgotten. Villa marked his first trip to England for five years by walking on to the pitch when Newcastle visited recently and the reception made his knees, never mind Ossie Ardiles’s, go all trembly. “Twenty years ago I scored a goal and everyone remembers me,” he says. “It’s unbelievable.”
One might expect Villa to be tired of reliving that goal. His life, after all, has moved on. Yet mere mention of the game lights up his face, instantly recognisable even if the beard is greyer and the hair thinner. At his ranch back home the video must be wearing out.
“It is my son,” he stresses. “For every friend who comes into my house he puts on the video and says: ‘You see, this is my father who scored that goal at Wembley in the FA Cup final.’ I don’t do it often because I feel embarrassed and I know in my memory what I did. I don’t need to watch it as a reminder.”
He must have seen his magic a fortnight ago as it flashed on the big screens at Spurs, as before every match. To the right Steve Archibald is unmarked in front of goal, yet Villa goes on, past one, two, three defenders before slipping the ball under Joe Corrigan.
“I didn’t realise that goal was superb at the moment I scored,” he says. “In Argentina we try all the time to do something special and very often it does not come off. I tried at Wembley and it came off.” He points at his chest and laughs: “This is a lucky boy.”
Even in his homeland he is remembered for it. “Wembley is the home of football,” he explains. “Everyone in Argentina says: ‘You scored a goal at Wembley.’ I believe I have scored better goals but that was the right goal in the right place at the right time.”
A better goal is hard to imagine but Villa proceeds to demonstrate. It was against Norwich, he says, zig-zagging his hand before flashing it towards the ceiling. “I cut and cut and cut again,” he says, “and shot into the top of the goal.” Another broad smile.
Such reminiscences must have filled the air at Ardiles’s London home this week, where Villa stayed until his friend returned to Japan where he coaches Yokohama Marinos. Perhaps they recalled their home debuts in 1978, when an Argentine flag flew at White Hart Lane and the fans gave them a ticker-tape welcome.
“We talk all the time about the old years,” Villa says, “sometimes about the difficult time we had at first. We did not speak the language and the football was very different from in Argentina. Now we are looking to coach together and we have talked about the possibility of me joining Ossie in Japan.”
His dream is to manage “Tottingham” and two Spurs shirts are stuffed in his luggage for his teenage son. The 48-year-old follows the club via the Internet but things have changed. Then, with Villa, Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle in midfield, Tottenham oozed fantasy. “The style was different,” he says, “but it is not just Spurs who have lost that quality. It is the same for many teams. Everything now is about hard work and pace. It’s very difficult to have precision with that speed.
At Defensa y Justicia, a small second division club that went into the winter break in mid-table, Villa is preaching the beautiful game. There, 5?000 constitutes a big crowd and he drives around 150km to work every day from his ranch. “I enjoy that life,” he says. “I have goats and lambs and, when I walk around there, I feel great. I love the peace. I prefer that to the big cities.”
One magical moment has guaranteed him a place in Tottenham hearts. “I read in the programme that I played 223 games for Spurs and scored 41 goals [official club records show 167 and 25],” he says, “but nobody remembers another goal. I only scored one goal in England.”