On Friday, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani became the first player to hit three home runs and throw 10 strikeouts in a game, and took his team to the World Series. There’s an argument to be made “it was the best individual performance the sport has ever seen,” apparently.
But just how good was Ohtani’s display? And do you have to excel at every aspect of a team game to justify genuine greatness? Furthermore, can you have a great individual performance and be on the losing side?
We thought we’d have a bit of fun and ask some of our staff to tell us about the great individual displays that have stood out for them. We would love to hear what you think, too, using the form or the comments section below…
Diego Maradona, Argentina (vs Belgium, World Cup semi-final, June 25, 1986)
Thirty-nine years have passed, but I don’t think any footballer — not even Lionel Messi — has captivated me as much as Maradona did during the 1986 World Cup. His career was pockmarked by ups and downs and personal difficulties, but the heights he scaled at the peak of his powers, at Napoli and during that World Cup in Mexico, were truly extraordinary.
His exploits in the quarter-final are more famous — certainly in England — but his performance in the semi-final against Belgium three days later was even more spectacular. He scored two brilliant goals, but the whole performance was majestic. It was like he was from another planet.
I remember videoing it and watching it the next morning before school, utterly entranced, constantly stopping to rewind the footage to try to work out what he had just done. After he died in 2020, I sought out the highlights of that game and found someone had done a nine-minute YouTube video of his performance. Once again, I was utterly entranced.
Oliver Kay
Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe (Argentina vs France, World Cup final, December 18, 2022)
Scrapping back-to-back in the biggest game in soccer, arguably in all of sports, pushed two greats to new heights.
Mbappe got a hat-trick while Messi scored twice as both players tried to drag their teams to glory. On the biggest stage, with the weight of two nations on their shoulders, they left it all on the line.
When France went 2-0 down, Mbappe scored twice to bring them level. When the game went to extra time, Messi thought he had won it, pouncing on a rebounded Lautaro Martinez shot before Mbappe sealed his hat-trick, converting a second penalty.
Sure, two of Mbappe’s goals came from the penalty spot, but this was against Emiliano Martinez, a master spoiler when great attackers take spot kicks.
Messi’s Argentina triumphed in a penalty shootout to win the prize, achieving the one thing he hadn’t in his illustrious footballing career.
Eduardo Tansley
Marta, Brazil (vs USWNT, World Cup semi-final, September 27, 2007)
“There are no words to describe Marta’s goal!”
To be fair to commentator Luciano do Valle, after nearly two decades of human technological advancement, there is still no set of words available to describe Marta’s spiritual assault on the United States women’s national team, ending their 51-game unbeaten run.
Her performance in Brazil’s 2007 World Cup semi-final 4-0 win — including two goals, which included the greatest goal ever scored (come at me) — would have been violent had it not been so beautiful, a sensation that, as an 11-year-old, I’d experienced only once before when I watched the family toaster oven explode with the three strawberry sprinkle Pop Tarts I’d stuffed into it.
So seminal was Marta’s performance that it’s often forgotten that her missed penalty in the final saw Germany, not Brazil, crowned champions. But no one talks about that. Only the semi-final, a distillation of Marta and football at their very best.
Megan Feringa
Tom Brady, New England Patriots (vs Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl XLIX, February 1, 2015)
Yeah, yeah. 28-3 and all that jazz. But Brady was picked off by Robert Alford and that victory doesn’t happen without Dont’a Hightower’s strip sack and Kyle Shanahan abandoning the run.
In a cacophonous din in the desert, Brady was in a heavyweight bout against the Legion of Boom, with a rampaging Beast Mode and a freakish Jermaine Kearse catch added to the mix for good measure.
On the back of two Super Bowl defeats against the New York Giants and in the same arena that witnessed David Tyree’s improbable Helmet Catch, Brady’s legacy was on the line.
With the Patriots trailing by 10 points going into the fourth quarter against one of the NFL’s all-time great defensive units, Brady was bewitching and unflappable.
He went 13 of 15 in that spell, conjuring drives of 68 and 64 yards. Julian Edelman’s touchdown pass completed a perfect drive, going 8-for-8 and without so much as a third down. This was Brady going against the best and showing he was better.
Peter Carline
Usain Bolt (9.58 seconds — 100m world record, World Athletics Championships, August 16, 2009)
Who else for sport’s greatest individual performance than the fastest man on the planet?
Usain St Leo Bolt, lightning in his feet, captivated the world in the 100-meter final in Berlin 16 years ago.
The 6ft 5in (195cm) Jamaican, a famously slow starter, was a nose in front on halfway, but by 80m, he had surged ahead.
Bolt was so comfortable he had time to ease up, look left and right, and still smash his own world record by the biggest margin in the 100m since electronic timing began.
Rival Tyson Gay set a U.S. national record of 9.71, then the fourth fastest of all time, and was almost in a different time zone.
Under 10 seconds of action to write his name in history. It’s still unbeaten, obviously. Maybe unbeatable. To think, Bolt could have gone 9.4 if he had pushed himself the whole way…
Max Mathews
Reece Walsh, Brisbane Broncos (vs Melbourne Storm, NRL Grand Final, October 5, 2025)
Before you all start moaning about recency bias in the comments section, hear me out. I love my rugby league in England and Down Under, but this was a different level from Walsh — he dragged his team back into this final and then kept them in front with a tackle for the ages.
The Broncos had not been champions in 19 years and it looked set to become a two-decade wait when the Storm took a 16-6 lead. But Walsh, the 23-year-old full-back who is part of the Australia squad touring England this autumn, had other ideas.
Walsh lived up to his ‘Reece Lightning’ nickname with a stunning solo try 10 minutes before halftime. He had no right to score.
Reece Walsh lit up Accor Stadium with this incredible solo try in the #NRLGF! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/YmFmllg7M2
— NRL (@NRL) October 5, 2025
It was a performance full of swagger and bravery as he made 176 meters, broke 14 tackles, and laid on three tries before he topped it all in the closing minutes with a game-clinching tackle on opposite number Ryan Papenhuyzen.
WALSH SAVED THE GAME 🤯
Telstra Moment of the Match pic.twitter.com/fPIu4R15Rf
— NRL (@NRL) October 5, 2025
Walsh was a fitting winner of the Clive Churchill Medal for player of the match and topped other great performances from Johnathan Thurston, Sam Burgess, and Billy Slater in the past two decades.
Craig Chisnall
Ben Stokes, England (vs Australia, third Ashes Test, August 2019)
Skill, grit, audacity, drama and a dash of luck, Stokes showed it all to salvage victory against the great rivals of English cricket.
Entering the week 1-0 down in the five-match series, England knew a defeat would see Australia retain the Ashes. Over the first three days in Leeds, Australia had taken control, setting the home side a record target of 359 runs.
England responded well, but by the time the final batter joined Stokes at the crease, 73 runs were still needed to keep their series hopes alive.
Then, Stokes entered hero mode.
He dug in, then let loose. He picked gaps in the field before running hard. He boldly lofted deliveries back over bowlers’ headers. He hogged the strike and took control. There was even a flamboyant reverse-sweep into the crowd. With one run required to win, Stokes slammed the ball through for four and sank to his knees.
Important contributions were made with the ball, too, bowling himself to exhaustion in the third innings when Jofra Archer had cramped up.
“Incredible,” bowler Stuart Broad told Sky Sports moments after England had won. “The bloke has the heart of a lion. He didn’t celebrate his 50, his hundred. It was just all about winning this Test match.”
There were dropped catches, heart-in-the-mouth moments, and final batter Jack Leach surviving 17 deliveries, but Stokes somehow made the impossible feel inevitable.
Justin Guthrie
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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