#77 // Duda → Grujić Hertha BSC 1 – 1 Schalke 04

The AssistBundesliga

The best backheel of 2019, from Ondrej Duda—at the Olympiastadion Berlin.

Instinctual, confident, perfect.

 

 

 

Hertha steal the ball back from Schalke, start the counter attack with five men running on into the attacking third—and the 20-year-old Arne Maier feeds Duda with a pass a step behind him.

As if he knew to pass it just there, a yard behind…

To set up the most glorious Bundesliga assist of the week.

 

 

Duda came over to Hertha BSC from Legia Warsaw in 2016, plays for Slovakia internationally, 24 years old, nine goals on the season, and won a Rolex last week from Salomon Kalou:

 

 

But he’s not quite made a name for himself yet, in the soccer world.

Hertha are seventh in the Bundesliga table.

Slovakia haven’t made a World Cup since 2010.

Duda scored against Wales in the Euro 2016 tournament, but they went on to lose that game, then failing to advance out of the group stage.

But tonight, if he’s got this in him?

 

That pass looks like a vintage bit of Arsenal playmaking.

 

 

 

Here it is from another angle:

 

 

 

So maybe he’s on his way up, and if he keeps making passes like that…

He’ll soon approach the throne of one majorly important world title:

 

Top Duda

 

Only need to knock off him (same first name, too?):

 

 

And him:

 

 

And him:

 

 

 

Already, there’s a decent chance he’s achieved Top Duda by name recognition around the world—but that can be hard to say, without any such metrics yet developed.

But make a few more backheel assists like that?

We’ll have ourselves a Top Duda locked down with certainty.

 

So for now, after today, remember the name:

Ondrej Duda, of Hertha BSC.

 

 

And as for a nickname?

 

Ondrej 3000.