Introducing: The Lo'eau LaBonta NWSL Goal Celebration Index.
The NWSL season is upon us, let's celebrate the ways we celebrate.
We love a sport that, by its very nature, is earth shatteringly frustrating and bubbling with magic at the same time.
Because in a game where ninety minutes can yield nothing but a pair of frustrated, sneering zeroes on a scoreboard, a goal can be everything. In a sport where a miss will haunt you, and a save can crumble you, a goal can steal all the air from your lungs and launch it into outer space in a fit of joy that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
So we might as well make it count.
A goal celebration is equal parts magic, worship, and relief. It truly is a celebration. Not only of a goal, but the work and preparation that brought it to life. See, a goal is one of the rarest things in sports, and what a gift that, unlike other sports who turn up their nose at pure, unbridled joy, the football world has stacked hands and said, "let’s party."
There’s no unwritten rules, no exhausting, old-fashioned etiquette. Just human beings at the absolute top of their profession soaking in every drop of one of sports most special and joyful moments.
No two celebrations are alike, a celebration can be a team effort or a solo act, a response or a message. They peak when a player scores, and for a period of twenty sacred seconds, they’re invincible, untouchable, dancing on air.
The NWSL has proven to have some of the best goal celebrators in the game, and I’m here ready to put them all on paper.
That’s why, this season, we are going to rank goal celebrations on a unique, proprietary scale.
For ten of the best goals every week, we will rank 3 things:
the goals quality (how good was it) (5 points)
importance (how BIG was it) (5 points)
the goal celebration itself. (10 points)
We will take that final number out of 20, multiply it by 5, and we will have that goal’s Celebration Index score.
I will then compile my thoughts, and then send out a post for the most dedicated of you to participate in, to score each goal on those 3 criteria, because who am I to judge such an important and groundbreaking award by myself.
The leaderboard will continue to update week by week. And by the end, we’ll have a singular Two Head Honchos of Happiness, one Two Singular Sheriffs of Celebration City.
The player with the best goal celebration of the season, and the player with the best combined goal celebration scores of the season.
And then I’m going to try to mail a trophy to the winners. I hope we can find a way to get it to them.
Watch this space on Monday, I can’t wait for the season to start.