Heskey & Mills debate whether Ronaldinho REALLY meant his iconic lob over Seaman

Even after all these years, the argument still rumbles on. Did he mean it? Was it a fluke? Could Ronaldinho possibly have spotted David Seaman off his line and popped the ball over his head and into the top corner from 40 yards away on purpose?

It was the goal that broke England hearts as Brazil knocked Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side out of the World Cup quarter-final in 2002 and one that every fan remembers where they were when they saw it float over Seaman.

More than two decades later, as those two countries meet again at Wembley on Saturday, the question remains contested.

‘There’s no way he meant it,’ Danny Mills, England’s right-back that day, tells Mail Sport. ‘As much as he can say that he did. I know he’s done some spectacular things in his career but the way he runs up to it, that’s not the body position of someone who’s going to do that.

‘I used to share a room with Nigel Martyn and he spent hours analysing David Beckham’s free-kicks. He’d watch his hand positions, his body positions, and pick on all those tiny cues. Looking at Ronaldinho’s body shape, he didn’t mean it.’

‘I think he did mean it,’ contests Emile Heskey, who set up Michael Owen for England’s opening goal at the Shizuoka Stadium in Japan 22 years ago. ‘…but I don’t think it was actually meant for that corner. I think it was meant for the near post. It was more open there.’

At the time, Heskey didn’t even realise it had gone in. ‘I was marking my player so intently, that I turned around and thought “hang on, aren’t I supposed to be heading the ball now?”,’ he tells Mail Sport.

And so it goes on. Over the years, Teddy Sheringham called it a ‘mis-hit’. David Beckham said it was a cross. Sol Campbell was firmly in the ‘fluky’ camp.

Another theory, as the story