International Dance Day: 5 memorable dance celebrations in football

The event takes place every year on 29 April, which is the anniversary of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of modern ballet.

As a result, we celebrate dance in football by bringing you five memorable goal celebrations that involved dances in no particular order.

Nigeria defeated Bulgaria 3-0 in the group stages at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States of America and Daniel Amokachi scored the second goal of the game.

What was particularly noteworthy about this goal was the celebration that followed, Dan aptly nicknamed “the bull” Amokachi wiggling his rear end in rather uncharacteristic fashion.

The first World Cup on African soil in 2010 was hosted by South Africa who played the opening game against Mexico as expected of host nations.

Bafana Bafana made history by taking the lead, Siphiwe Tshabalala with a thunderbolt strike to open the scoring and then proceeded to carry out one of the most memorable celebrations of all time.

Tshabalala collaborated with four of his teammates to carry out a simple but memorable dance routine in front of the home fans.

Jesse Lingard’s Manchester United career does not have a lot of highlights but fans will always remember he seemed to love scoring and dancing at the Emirates Stadium.

Lingard scored twice in Manchester United’s 3-1 win away at Arsenal in the 2017/18 Premier League season and celebrated his first goal with a neat ‘milly rock’ and was joined by some of hi teammates.

The midfielder scored at the same stadium again the following season in another 3-1 win this time in the FA Cup and he celebrated with a Michael Jackson-esque ‘moonwalk’ .

Legendary Ghanaian striker Asamoah Gyan was just as famous for his unique dance celebration as he was for scoring goals.

Trying to describe his dance would do it a massive disservice, just take a look at it yourself.

English striker Peter Crouch scored 205 career goals which means we got to see his trademark celebration many times fortunately or unfortunately depending on your taste in dance.

The lanky six feet seven inches tall striker often did the ‘robot’ celebration which is exactly as the name implied.