Help me find youtube clips of moments in sports with intelligent plays
July 2, 2014 7:31 PM   Subscribe

I'd like to see youtube clips of sports moments that are of the variety "OMG, did he do that on PURPOSE?" for example nutmeg goal in soccer, something that requires great anticipation/awareness, on the intelligent side of sport. Moments where a player did something before the play had even developed to a point where one could realize what was going to happen
posted by lijiaxiaoniu to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (15 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
How about stealing home plate? Good base-stealers and base-runners in general are fun to watch. They're usually on another level. Although they say the smartest baserunners are the ones who know they're gonna get caught so never steal.
posted by carsonb at 8:00 PM on July 2, 2014


Jeter
posted by travis08 at 8:07 PM on July 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Another flip play
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:10 PM on July 2, 2014


San Antonio Spurs - the Beautiful Game (starts to pick up at 2:20 or so)
posted by acidic at 8:13 PM on July 2, 2014




You might want to trawl Youtube for video of Michael Laudrup's soccer genius (especially his trade-mark "no look" pass where he'd look in one direction and pass the ball in another, almost always tricking the defender). There are also countless examples of truly stunning genius plays by Diego Maradona.
posted by AwkwardPause at 9:48 PM on July 2, 2014


Here's one example of the hidden ball trick in baseball.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 10:34 PM on July 2, 2014




Possible evidence of precognition on the cricket field.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:06 AM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


I assumed when I saw your question it had been inspired by the Nick Krygios between-the-legs shot at Wimbledon the other day, but you don't mention it beneath the fold, so here it is. It's so fast I had to watch about three times to actually see what he'd done.
posted by penguin pie at 1:57 AM on July 3, 2014




Lyoto Machida's fake-to-front-kick knockout of Randy Couture. This, as well as his head-kick knockout of Mark Muñoz, are great examples of sublime set-ups utilizing diligent anticipation and awareness.

Frank Mir's come-from-behind humerus-snapping victory over the legendary Minotaura Nogueira ("Big Nog") is a good example of absolutely top-level Brazilian jiujitsu intelligence executed in the most jaw-dropping fashion. Note that Big Nog was one of the best fighters and best representatives of jiujitsu in MMA in the world for a long time. He was a paragon of jiujitsu. Amazingly, Mir set up the Kimura from one of Nog's best techniques, the underhook sweep from bottom, and thereby hoist Nog by his own petard.

"Did he do that on purpose?!" is fulfilled best by Anderson Silva's highlight reel: head movement excellence against the one-two-punching Forrest Griffin (really, every time Silva drops his hands it becomes an OMG moment fueled by fight IQ), or when he taunted (and then beat) Stephan Bonnar by giving him exactly what he wanted: Silva on the fence (at 5:30). These incredible inversions of orthodox strategy are understood by few until after the fact.

Then-unknown BJJ exemplar Marcelo Garcia's choke-out of top-level competitor Vitor "Shaolin" (video (1:10), read the story here, control-f "ribeiro") is a great example of a common occurrence in fight sport: a new technique or strategy is debuted and takes elite opponents by storm. In this case, Marcelo's seatbelt-first version of back control was unorthodox. In those days, the hooks (i.e. controlling the opponent's hips with your feet) was the top priority for rear mount. Marcelo showed in dramatic fashion just how powerful the alternative could be.

Another couple examples of combat sport evolution include Royce Gracie's matches in UFC 1 (where virtually no one in the US understood how he won) and Keenan Cornelius' recent introduction of the worm guard at the 2014 Worlds (which people are still working on reverse engineering a solution to).
posted by daveliepmann at 6:00 AM on July 3, 2014




Jadeveon Clowney was the #1 pick in the NFL draft in part because of plays like that one. Partly it's tremendous quickness, but also awareness of how the blocking scheme works and how running plays develop. Plus anticipating/figuring out the snap count.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:44 AM on July 3, 2014


One from American football: Ray Lewis anticipates a snap and finds a gap in the offensive line at exactly the right moment to tackle Darren Sproles immediately after he takes a handoff, ending San Diego's last attempt at a comeback.
posted by Aquinas at 7:55 AM on July 3, 2014


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