ZZ’s top in battle with Super Mario

THE debate has raged long and hard since Saturday night — was Mario Mandzukic’s Champions League Final goal for Juventus against Real Madrid better than Zinedine Zidane’s for Real against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 final?

But it’s not even a contest, really, because if you’re looking at the execution then it has to be Zidane’s goal (right) all day long.

I invite you to go into your garden at some point today, throw a ball 15-feet in the air and, as it drops, try to make contact with it.

I’m not even asking you to hit a target, the top corner of a goal, in a Champions League Final either.

So I’d give Mandzukic’s goal an 8 out of 10 and say Zidane’s was 9.9 out of 10.

Just to give you an idea of the scale I’m working to, Marco van Basten’s volley for Holland against the Soviet Union in the 1988 Euros Final was an 11.