10 Games We All Used To Play In IT Class

The name of Roberto (or Roby) Baggio’s Magical Kicks is indicative of its age – Roberto Baggio retired from professional football in 2004, but the peak of his career was in the mid-'90s, during which he infamously blazed Italy’s final penalty of the 1994 World Cup final over the bar. This was a blip in what was otherwise a sublime footballing career that saw him become one of Italy and Serie A’s all-time top goal scorers.

Securing the name of the ‘Divine Ponytail’ for a game was therefore something of a coup for the creators of Magical Kicks, even if everybody from Chris Kamara to David O’Leary was getting a game named after them at the time – an era before FIFA and PES were the only players in town. Remarkably simple in its execution, the game put players in a number of free kick and penalty scenarios, tasking them to score a goal (directly or through Baggio’s fictionalised teammate Astrosolid) with well-placed clicks to determine power, direction and curl.

Scoring an obscene number of goals and winning ‘Passion Cups’ (the ultimate prize for those who could pass four stages) could make one a minor celebrity on campus for a few hours, or at least until the record was supposedly usurped by somebody else in a different lesson with no proof…