If you were casually paying attention to weekend Philly sports highlights, you probably saw the goal Jakob Glesnes scored for the Union in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon.

It was stoppage time, with the U down 2-1, when the Norwegian center back stepped into space about 34 yards from goal and just unleashed a fireball into the top left corner of the net:

The crazy thing is that he did this last year. Scored a similar goal.

And it got us wondering which one was better.

In the play above, it’s a live ball, it’s rolling on the turf, and he uncorks the rocket into the upper 90. It’s insanely hard to strike a moving ball and hit it flush like that from a distance of 30+.

For comparison, the goal he scored last season came off a free kick, so he was hitting a static ball and had to beat a two-man wall, but the distance was slightly greater:

I asked Union head coach Jim Curtin, a former center back himself, which goal was more impressive based on the above criteria that was laid out:

“Yeah personal opinion for me, it’s the second one in Atlanta, and it’s not even close. I actually would argue the dead ball, where it hits in the net, should be saved. Maybe that’s being harsh, but at the same time, a free kick from that far out, with a wall, and everybody expecting it… well, I shouldn’t say expecting it, but once he runs up that hard you can tell he’s going to shoot at goal. That one certainly is not as good as in the run of play now, where things are going 100 miles an hour, you receive a square ball from ‘Miro (Jamiro Monteiro), you’ve made forward runs all game and your legs have to be exhausted. So all of the elements that go into it, and to have the guts to shoot from that distance, on the move, on turf especially, and to where it hit the goal, I think it’s no comparison.

It’s a ball that literally hits the post, the bar, goes down and hits the crossbar again, three times, it just shows you how hard he hit it and how well it was struck. (Goalkeeper Brad) Guzan had no chance on that. You can’t say how he could have been cheating to this side or whatever. That one was no chance. The other one, it’s a great strike, but I think most goalkeepers would tell you that from that distance you should never get beat. Just personal opinion. I would stick with choice number two not because it’s fresh in my head, but because it’s a different level.”

Good quote. Always good quotes from Jim.

I’d have to agree with him, too. The free kick goal was earlier in the game, fresh legs, maybe a shot that could have been saved. But the Atlanta goal was stoppage time, moving ball on turf, and he blasted it off the crossbar. Nobody in the world is stopping that. An agile octopus couldn’t even stop it.

Que golazo, Jakob Glesnes. Take a bow, son.