It seems like everyone who’s even mildly interested in Rocket League has seen this goal by now. The suspense of the clock winding down… …the London crowd screaming louder and louder… …the ball floating in the air for what seems like an eternity… …and the call from Mega Shogun that will not easily be forgotten by Rocket League players and fans from around the world. “THIS IS ROCKET LEAGUE!” But today, we’re going to go back and tell the story of this moment in Rocket League history in a way that hasn’t been done before, covering every detail from the storyline of this World Championship tournament leading up to the final series to the split-second decisions and razor-thin margins between success and failure in the story behind the best goal in Rocket League history. Our story really begins in the RLCS before this one: Season 4 in Washington, DC. NRG was comprised of GarrettG, Fireburner, and Jacob, and came into this tournament as the third seed from North America, coming out just above the middle of the pack by beating G2 in the Regional Championship third-place match. Unfortunately, their performance in this finals tournament in DC can really only be described as disappointing. After losing their first matchup against the eventual second place winner, Method, they immediately fell to the Chiefs from the OCE region in the losers’ bracket, which meant they finished dead last in the tournament. Despite the undeniable camaraderie and friendship on this team, NRG felt that change was needed, and fan favorite Jacob left NRG. His replacement is the main character in this story. Just 15 years old at the time, Justin was a mechanical god. But how would he perform on Rocket League’s biggest stage? NRG took a chance and picked him up. It was time for the RLCS Season 5 regular season, and NRG was ready to show off their new superstar. Rookie jitters? There were none, as NRG cruised through the first-ever undefeated regular season in RLCS. Justin wasn’t their lone superstar, though, as 17-year old GarrettG was in dominating form, taking home the Golden Striker award for the season, averaging an astounding 1.25 goals per game. It was time for the next step for NRG: London and the World Championship tournament. It was there that they’d meet the rest of the cast of this story: the unrelenting monoliths from Europe: Gale Force. …oh, wait, no: Team Dignitas. In the previous season, they were with Gale Force, and they won RLCS in dominating fashion. It was pretty clear that they were the favorites from Europe. Turbopolsa had already won an RLCS World Championship in Season 3 before joining this team of Violent Panda and Kaydop for Season 4. And now, in Season 5, it was just a question of whether or not they could defend their title in London. Both NRG and Dignitas came out hot, each winning their first series 3-to-1, which meant they were ready for their first clash in the tournament on day two. In this first meeting, NRG came out on top, sending Dignitas to the lower bracket. NRG continued dominating by sweeping Complexity — a team that was looking really good up till this meeting — which meant NRG was going to the grand finals. It was the last day of the tournament in London and Dignitas had a long road ahead of them through the losers’ bracket, but as the day went on, Dignitas just got better and better and better. As the final match drew near, you could feel the crowd in the arena sensing the impending clash of the two titans. And what a clash it was. Since NRG had yet to lose in this double-elimination tournament, Dignitas needed to win two series in a row against NRG in order to win the championship, and hot off their three victories that day, Dignitas beat NRG in a convincing fashion 3 games to 1 in that first series, which meant it would come down to that final series: the bracket reset. This last series saw some of the best goals in the tournament as these two elite teams traded shot after shot. Ultimately, of course, it came down to game 7. You couldn’t have written a better script. With less than a minute left, the game was tied. But with time ticking down, Turbopolsa found the back of the net. With goals being so hard to come by this entire series, it really seemed like this was the championship-winning goal. The crowd could sense it. It was all over. Or was it? And now, the moment we’ve seen a thousand times. But this time, let’s break down what caused everything to fall so perfectly into place to set up the goal of the tournament. In order to see how close the margins on this goal were, I’m going to be using the measurement used in the Rocket League world called Unreal Units, which is the size of a centimeter. For reference, the Octane is 144 Unreal Units long or 1.44 meters, which is about 4.7 feet for us Americans. Thankfully, we all use minutes and seconds to refer to time, so that’ll be easy enough. So, let’s discover what exactly happened on this play. The purpose of this portion of the video is not to deeply analyze the decisions of the players in this sequence but rather to take a closer look at the results of those decisions. We begin shortly after kickoff with the clock hitting zero seconds and the ball careening into the side wall toward NRG’s side. You see here the first event going in favor of NRG, mainly because of GarrettG’s positioning, which is allowing him to make a play on the ball before Kaydop can get there to block him. Garrett lofts the ball downfield, keeping it close to the side wall, where it has the best chance of staying alive. At this point, the players on the field are acting on pure instinct. We have the luxury of looking back and analyzing this play. Violent Panda may have been able to kill the ball with a soft touch toward the ground here, but he doesn’t want to take the risk to set up an NRG attacker. So he sends the ball deep into NRG territory. Next, Justin makes a key heads-up play. His focus is to keep the ball alive, and he decides the best way to do that is to smash the ball onto the curvature of the wall rather than try to carry the ball along the wall towards a defender. It’s important to note that he also manages to collect a large boost pad in the process. This is what will fuel his impending cross-field aerial. The next key decision was made by Fireburner. Realizing he’s on the inside of the rotation with GarrettG, he knows he’s the one that needs to challenge the ball, and quickly, before a Dignitas player can kill it, ending the game. The Dignitas player that is challenging is Turbopolsa. He reacts to the bounce of the ball and flies in to challenge in less than 1.29 seconds. However, Fireburner has also reacted very quickly, as we see in real time. Justin has put the perfect amount of power on this bounce clear. Just a little more distance on this ball means Turbopolsa will get there first and has a huge advantage in this challenge. It’s important to note that he actually does have the high ground here. He tilts his car to the left to try to get as much vehicle surface area on the ball as possible. However, Fireburner is not known for his 50/50 challenges for nothing. His approach is perfect, angling his nose up under the ball as near to the center of it as possible. This means the path of least resistance is now heading in the direction Turbo has angled his car, off to his left — Fire’s right. It careens away from this challenge at speed of 148.3 km/h or 92 MPH toward the bottom of the right side wall. This is where, if there were such a thing as luck, it would be on NRG’s side in this moment. The ball strikes the curve of the wall perfectly, lofting it up towards Dignitas’s goal with enough arc to give a certain NRG superstar the little time he needs to react. If the ball hits any lower or higher, this angle becomes much more difficult to make a successful play on. Here, Justin has read the bounce of the ball, and in just 0.6 seconds of processing the projected path of the ball, he begins his flight across the field. Notice, he has 44 boost. Collecting that large boost pad earlier has allowed him to get into this attacking position so quickly with that amount of boost remaining. And, just before he takes off, he gathers this last small boost pad, giving him 56 boost to attempt his shot. His aerial flight to the ball lasts just 2.49 seconds, but it feels like an eternity with the clock sitting at 0:00 for about 11 seconds now. As he reaches the ball, he uses every last bit of his boost to alter the ball’s path severely, sending it down towards the goal at roughly a 54º angle. Kaydop does not predict this angle exactly, likely thinking Justin would hit it higher and to the left of the goal, based on his trajectory. But, because of that last little boost pad he collected, he’s able to send the ball down at a more severe angle and with more power, causing Kaydop to miss by a mere 41 Unreal Units. In its downward path, the ball also nearly hits the ground, coming within 77 Unreal Units of the floor before it completely crosses the goal line. Justin has just hit the biggest shot of his life. The rest of the story is a little anticlimactic. Dignitas are able to quickly regroup and capitalize on a critical defensive error from NRG. Even the best goal in Rocket League history to date does not faze this team of champions as they take home their second consecutive World Championship — and third for Turbopolsa. Hopefully, you enjoyed this Rocket League story. If you’d like to see more of this style of video, make sure to let me know in the comments, especially if there’s a specific moment or storyline you’d like to see me do a video on. The best thing you can do to support me is to like this video and subscribe to my channel. Thanks for watching, and good night.
Sunless is becoming one of the best content creators out there. I really enjoy his latest videos and appreciate the amount of work he puts into each one. Great video
Damn this video is amazing. Not only for rocket league players but for anyone that would like to watch some sport. A really good job at Presenting the best goal in rocket league history.
I'm half expecting one of these comments praising Sunless to be Sunless Kahn himself hoping that no one even notices.
This is yet another amazing piece to show people who don't play Rocket League and/or don't understand these plays. Definitely going to show this to friends!
Just seen this and for the first time realised my reaction was caught on camera. Can see myself in the crowd going mental after the dignitas winner still going crazy after the Jstn goal. Awesome vid
Gave me chills. Great video.
I would love to see one of these done for the Kyle Masc goal back when Kings of Urban battled Kro and company on Cosmic. That call was so iconic and not everyone knows about it. It was the very instant a lot of players fell in love with RLesports.
Paschys buzzer beaters vs F3. Overzer0s air dribble heard round the world. Some suggestions of moments that made me lose my flipping mind while watching live.
History of the game is amazing. And if we get enough of these videos...Psyonix should play them between matches at the LAN to hype things up between long breaks. This stuff gives goosebumps.
This is a great video and all, but I'd much prefer watching a 53 minute video of FluumP grinding for champ 3.
Sunless > FluuMP Sunsless’s videos are as long as the should be, and they are more entertaining
I've watched many of his videos, but I finally subscribed after this one. Excellent work!