We’ve just found the most satisfying and ridiculous tackle of 2025
Jogo Bonito? Sod that. We’re delighted to announce that the spirit of Phil Jones is well and truly alive in Brazilian football.
It’s little over two months into 2025 but we can safely declare that Juventude centre-back Ewerton has pulled off the most satisfying tackle of 2025. Definitely the most ridiculous.
It’s about a decade since Jones pulled off his crowning glory, an outrageously daft head tackle to hook the ball away from Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud. Undoubtedly one of the best moments of the Premier League’s late Barclays era.
“It was one of those things,” Jones recalled. “I misjudged the ball from a goal kick. The ball bounced, I slipped. I tried to get up, I slipped again.
“The only thing I could do was improvise and try to head the ball away, because Giroud was through on goal. It looked silly at the time, but it did the job.
“Looking back on it, it was the slipping and trying to get up stage – that was the funny part. All my mates take the mick out of me for it!
“It was just improvisation. You do what you have to do as a defender. You have to put your neck on the line.”
“He’s doing breaststroke, front crawl – the lot,” Gary Neville, reduced to a fit of giggles, narrated from the commentary box as a super slo-mo showed the Manchester United defender in all his glory, pulling off a manoeuvre that was as inspired as it was ungainly.
It’s been a long wait but we might’ve found a piece of defending that matches it.
The viral clip doing the rounds on Reddit is pure chaos. At first we’re left a little underwhelmed as one defender goes sliding out of shot with a committed, misfired tackle. That can’t be it, can it?
Nah. Much better is yet to come. With former Argentina international Cristian Pavon bearing down on goal, having already beaten one man, Ewerton comes gloriously bundling into the picture. Bundling the only verb applicable.
Somehow, not only does Ewerton win the ball, but he does it wonderfully cleanly, pinching the ball perfectly by making solid contact with his head. Jones would be proud.
Ewerton (Juventude) great tackle on Cristian Pavón (Grêmio)
byu/brunopcosta1 insoccer
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The best thing about the clip is the camera work. Pause it at 00:05 and Pavon looks like he’s completely free. A shimmy away and he’s in.
Ewerton appears out of frame, as if quite literally appearing from nowhere. Even in a slow-motion replay, within two seconds Pavon’s lost the ball. By 00:08 it’s been cleared away to safety, allowing for us to see Ewerton passionately celebrating the ridiculousness he’s just pulled off.
Thirteen seconds. There’s more action and emotion in this brief clip than some three-and-a-half Oscar-nominated epics.
Phil Jones, eat your heart out.