Optical connections: The Estudiantes incident

The list of footballers who have scored the winning goal in the Intercontinental Cup (the forerunner of the FIFA World Club Cup) is relatively short; after all, it was only contested a total of 43 times between 1960 and 2004.

But to have done so while playing in spectacles puts the Dutch player, Joop van Daele, in a category of his own. And the fall-out from that goal and the ensuing controversy has given the spectacles that he wore in the match an iconic status unique in the world of football memorabilia.

Joop van Daele’s winning goal for Feyenoord against Estudiantes de La Plata of Argentina in the 1970 Intercontinental Cup earned a certain cult status for a player who would otherwise be considered more or less a journeyman, albeit he was selected for the preliminary Netherlands squad for the 1974 World Cup finals. Born in 1947, van Daele spent most of his career at the Rotterdam club that he joined as a teenager in 1964. He made his first team debut in 1968, and played 162 matches for the club over a span of nine years.