The art of the dummy in football and how Thiago Almada produced magic without touching the ball
AnalysisThe art of the dummy in football and how Thiago Almada produced magic without touching the ball
By Stuart JamesJune 23, 2026 6:00 am EDT Updated There will be no assist for Thiago Almada. When they look back in years to come and wonder who set up Lionel Messi to break Miroslav Klose’s World Cup goalscoring record against Austria in 2026, it’s the name of Facundo Medina who will be the answer to the quiz question.
Almada? Pfft. What did he do?
The dummy for a team-mate to score is one of football’s most enjoyable and beguiling acts. Full of deception and artistry, it’s also utterly selfless in a way that performing a trick to go past an opponent isn’t. The dummy isn’t for your benefit, either now or later on.
Metrics have got no time for this sort of behaviour. Letting a ball run between your legs doesn’t appear on a spreadsheet, no matter how deliberate or cunning it is as a piece of skill. There’s no touch of the ball that registers with the analysts. Move on. Nothing to see here.
Yet the truth is that there’s plenty to see here, and plenty to remember too. In the 2002 World Cup final, Ronaldo’s second goal for Brazil arrived after a beautiful feint from Rivaldo. Go back 20 years earlier and Eder scored one of the greatest goals in World Cup history, for Brazil against the USSR, after a sublime dummy that was talked about every bit as much as the wonder strike that followed.
This isn’t forgotten at all. I remember watching this game as a 7 year old and falling in love with this team. Eder scores an incredible winner for Brazil against the USSR on this date at Spain ‘82 pic.twitter.com/AqytPx7zLp
— @forgottengoals (@forgottengoals) June 14, 2020
“Corta-luz” is the expression that they use in Brazil for allowing a pass to sneakily run by in that way, fooling an opponent into closing down the wrong player and leaving another, Messi in the case of the Argentina game against Austria, with the time and space to not just shoot but to calmly pick their spot.
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Did Almada see Messi out of the corner of his eye moments before?
It’s clear from watching the replays that the midfielder scanned to his right shortly after nudging the ball out wide to Medina and at a time when Messi was coming up behind him.
In the end, though, was Almada’s decision to let the ball pass between his legs more down to Messi shouting something as Medina shaped to cross?
“Jack’s” was used for years in that scenario in English football — not exactly a top secret codeword that was going to perplex opponents up and down the country and, it’s safe to say, unlikely to be part of Argentina’s football lexicon.
In a good way, there are more questions than answers when it comes to analysing a passage of play that is instinctive rather than scripted.
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“The move was very fast. There wasn’t even time to yell ‘leave it’ or anything else,” Eder said in an interview many years later, when Brazilians were still drooling over his goal against the USSR and the way in which Falcao, who opened his legs in such a nonchalant way that he could easily have been dragging on a cigarette at the time, seemed to know that his team-mate was coming.
“We understood each other just by looking; that was the dynamic of that 1982 midfield,” Eder explained.
And that, essentially, is the beauty of the dummy — it can feel as though there’s a relationship between footballers that’s almost telepathic at times as they talk to a team-mate with their eyes and play the game with their mind.
In 1998, Manchester United scored an iconic goal against Barcelona that perfectly fits that description. Dwight Yorke, aware that Andy Cole was directly behind him, allowed a pass from Roy Keane to go through his legs. With the Barcelona defence bamboozled, Cole and Yorke traded passes and the former converted. Yorke’s brilliant dummy was the making of that goal.
⏪ Manchester United + Barcelona = 🔥🔥🔥
😮 Dwight Yorke & Andy Cole at the Camp Nou 👏#UCL @ManUtd pic.twitter.com/MyOH262BHD
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) March 26, 2019
In an interview with the Guardian in 2019, Luis Suarez talked about playing alongside Messi at Barcelona, in particular the way in which he would start running as a centre-forward, look down and suddenly see the ball at his feet moments later. “And you think: ‘How did he put it there?’” Suarez said, sounding like a child trying to make sense of the presents that Father Christmas has left under the tree.
That wasn’t a one-way relationship by any stretch with Messi and Suarez, though. Suarez was a master of his craft when it came to making fools out of opponents, and the dummy, much like the nutmeg, became a go-to move for him, leading to opportunities for Messi and others.
In a Champions League game between Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley in 2018, Suarez ‘set up’ two goals for Messi by faking to receive a pass and letting it run, with the first bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Argentinian’s strike against Austria. The second, which tied Davinson Sanchez in knots and left Messi with the freedom of the Spurs penalty area, was even better.
It goes against a striker’s natural instinct to dummy a ball that they could easily hit themselves — picture that moment in Portugal’s opening game of the World Cup against DR Congo when Cristiano Ronaldo opted to take on a shot at the near post with Bruno Fernandes waiting — and cursing — behind him.
Romelu Lukaku could have done the same in an epic last-16 tie against Japan at the 2018 World Cup. Instead, the Belgium striker had the presence of mind to recognise when he was sprinting towards the penalty area that Nacer Chadli, slightly behind him, was in a much better position to convert Thomas Meunier’s cross at the end of a thrilling counter-attack.
🇧🇪⏰ When Belgium needed a goal, Chadli was there! #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/zfzwfBZfsL
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) August 2, 2025
“When I ran to the ball, when the defender was coming for me, I said, ‘If I shoot myself, it will be a bigger chance that I miss, because (the defender) might get a block,’” Lukaku told Business Insider. “So if I let it run, it’s an open tap-in (for Chadli).”
Almada’s decision was easier still, bearing in mind that he had Messi, the greatest player in the world, breathing down his neck and poised to create history.
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Badenoch blasts 'moaning' female Labour MPs over Burnham jobs 'quota'
Kemi Badenoch has told Labour women to earn a job in Andy Burnham's Cabinet instead of demanding they are handed jobs because of their gender.
The Tory leader lashed out today amid reports that female MPs are demanding the de-facto new prime minister introduce a 50:50 gender split 'quota' in his government.
Amid reports that former foreign secretary David Miliband is being lined up to return to the role, possibly with his brother Ed as Chancellor, one female minister also complained that Burnham could not have 'more Milibands than women' in the top posts.
But in a scathing article in the Times today Mrs Badenoch told them to 'stop moaning' and get chosen on merit instead of retreating into 'more of the failed identity politics that is holding back our country'.
'There are many, many reasons why you shouldn't have any Milibands in the cabinet,' she said.
'But complaining that the boys haven't given them the right jobs or that the boys are taking all the jobs, just shows that Labour's women still don't get it.'
The idea of quotas was also attacked by Baroness Jacqui Smith, Labour's Skills Minister.
Asked by Times Radio if Mr Burnham should reserve jobs for women, she said: 'No, I think what Andy Burnham should be doing is building the very best team around him to change this country.'
A letter written by the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party has called on Mr Burnham to ensure a 50:50 split between men and women in government jobs
Amid reports that former foreign secretary David Miliband (above, right, in 2010) is being lined up to return to the role, possibly with his brother Ed as Chancellor, one female minister complained that Burnham could not have 'more Milibands than women' in the top posts
But Mrs Badenoch told them to pipe down and get chosen on merit instead of retreating into 'more of the failed identity politics that is holding back our country'
A letter written by the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party and seen by the BBC has called on Mr Burnham to ensure a 50:50 split between men and women in government jobs after he succeeds Sir Keir Starmer.
'We are asking you to demonstrate this change from day one and address the toxicity and misogyny within our own party and government,' it said.
Labour has never had a female leader, while the Conservatives have had three, and Mrs Badenoch urged the government to follow its meritocratic example.
'If you run a meritocracy, then you do not have to worry about jobs for the boys,' she wrote.
'Every woman who is a Conservative MP, every woman who has ever won the leadership, has had to fight to get where she is.
'By contrast, Labour women are demanding guarantees from Burnham. But the truth is he doesn't have to give any guarantees.
'If none of Labour's women are prepared to get their hands dirty and challenge him for the leadership, their demands are toothless.'
'In fact, it's quite revealing that the women's parliamentary Labour Party has written to Burnham asking him to commit himself to at least 50 per cent female ministers.
'This has nothing to do with meritocracy. It is yet more of the failed identity politics that is holding back our country.'
