The Scorpion Kick - René Higuita

England vs. Columbia 1996

This was posted by Richie Brown on the Coach's E-Mail List:
   It was a friendly, England v Colombia at Wembley, early 1997 or late 1996, in a 0-0 tie game when the Colombian keeper, René Higuita, made an amazing save - via his Infamous Scorpion Kick. Rather than catch a goal-bound shot with his hands (which is perfectly legal for a goalkeeper), this chap makes a complicated turn and instead kicks the ball with this complicated scorpion move which is hard to put in words unless you see it. It was all the talk across England and the tabloids......the fans applauded it and TV commentators loved it.  One list member said, "When US played Colombia in the US Cup in 95 at Rutgers, Higuita was practicing the scorpion kick in warm-ups. I had never seen anyone do it before, and none of us who saw it believed he would actually do it in a match." "It's a stunning move with no recourse if you get it wrong because you're on the ground face down. In this case, if he'd missed, England scores, which the shooter must surely have thought was going to happen when Higuita started the dive. I can't imagine the impact in the stands or on the pitch. Hearts must have skipped beats, breathing stopped, and then all hell broke loose in admiration for such a magic moment. It's like when someone gets the rainbow move right at full speed, very, very rare but beautiful to behold."
     Higuita was known for being eccentric.  His most famous exploits included an overhead scorpion kick with which he saved a shot in a friendly against England at Wembley and the blunder which knocked Colombia out of the 1990 World Cup. On that occasion, he attempted to dribble past Cameroon striker Roger Milla, lost the ball and Milla went on to score to put the African side in the quarter-finals.

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