You may never have heard of Habib Habibou
That's okay. We had never heard of Habib Habibou before this weekend, but now we have and we're very happy that we have.
For the uninitiated out there, Habibou is a professional footballer who hails from Central African Republic. He is 31 years old and began his career as a youth footballer at Paris Saint-Germain before embarking on a journeyman career of sorts which has taken him to Romania, Belgium, France, Qatar, England (four games on loan at Leeds United) and now Israel.
He plays for Maccabi Petah Tikva in the Israeli Premier League, and on Saturday his side faced off against Maccabi Netanya.
The game appears to have been a hum-drum affair for the vast majority of proceedings, that is until Habibou gifted us one of the truly best goals of the season.
Attending to an injured teammate as his side attack the home late on, Habibou is ignored by absolutely everyone on the pitch - most notably the Netanya defenders - as the away team put a cross into the box.
This all seems fine, he is but a caring teammate checking on the well being of his colleague, he's not even involved in the pl.... oh shit, no he's scored. He's scored and there's not a single thing the home side can do now. They've been duped, they've fallen for it.
https://twitter.com/Yagon_Tugati/status/1061284790350032898
In Habibou's defence, he immediately returns to his injured teammate, save for a little extension of his arms in celebration on his way back, before once again calling for the attention of his team's medical staff to help the injured player.
This is all proof that by caring for those around you - and by using your injured teammate as a means to hiding in plain sight - one can achieve great things.
https://twitter.com/HabibHabibou7/status/1061352601588064262
