Goal
Anucci (2002)

Goal by Anucci (2002) is a strange little fragrance, from a strange little brand that had their fifteen minutes of fame over twenty years after I made this review. Some refer to Anucci as a mere "logo flip" of the much better-known and more-legitimate Italian fashion house Gucci, and that may very well be. Michael Khemlani was a busy man in the 1980's and 1990's, fronting several luxury goods upstart brands after his time with Sergio Valente. Anucci focused on Michael's personal love of golf, from the apparel and equipment Lacoste-style, down to the fragrances in the golf ball-shaped bottles when they launched in 1989. The brilliantly-quirky floral weirdness of Anucci Man (1989) carries over in part to Goal, although this time tempered more with aromatics, as this was a fragrance housed in a soccer ball to announce Anucci's sponsorship of the World Cup. Son Anup Khemlani had also partnered with Motorola for the world's first jewel-encrusted Anucci cell phone, so they were at the apex of their popularity by this time. Anucci fragrances were meant to be on the same level of luxury as Patou once was, or Creed still wished to be at that time, used only by movers and shakers of the world.

Goal has very little information about it online, with no note pyramids, no listed perfumers, nothing. Thus, I can really only go off of what I smell, and the few other people online who have reviewed this seem to only get part of the picture with Goal, as not everyone is super well-versed in recognizing materials or accords. So from my nose, I get a big fruity floral melange that like with the musky floral core of the OG Anucci Man, seems lifted from a feminine-market fragrance. This genderbend dandy feeling seems to be a house trait and not a one-off, after smelling Goal, with lemon, aldehydes, apple, pear, and honeysuckle all being huge in the beginning. Galbanum, cis-3-hexanol, and vetiver bring a grassy counterpart to Goal, and a smaller dose of the jasmine muguet white floral core of Anucci Man is here, compressed against the tart apple and pear notes, the green notes, cedarwood, oakmoss, and clean transparent musks. Anuci Goal feels like a stablemate to Quartz pour Homme by Molyneaux (1995), even though that fragrance is seven years Goal's senior. More "extra" in every way with the tart fruit and heady floral notes than Quartz pour Homme, Goal is certainly something.

On the distribution front, the fragrances are made inside the US as before and every example I've seen is only a three-list box, telling me these never made it past the stricter regulations of the EU if they continued to be manufactured past the 2002 changes for allergen listing requirements. Or, Goal was just never officially sold in the EU to begin with, which would seem odd given the importance of the World Cup there, or Goal just had a single run that still lingers in the aftermarket decades later, which is the more-likely answer. The brand is a more "if you know, you know" kind of label anyway, and it would make sense to have low volume for what was basically also meant to be high margin low demand luxury perfume. That Goal fell into discounter or reseller hands and sells for such low prices just means nobody really wanted it long term, which is unfortunate. Goal doesn't enjoy the cult following of the original Anucci Man, even if it is cut from similar cloth, and some of that may just come down to less time on the market to be discovered by accident, or less volume of leftover bottles to go make the rounds on eBay and such. Either way, this is an enjoyable quirky find. Thumbs up

A sharp, piercing, slightly bitter, herbal eau de cologne sort of smell, single-pointed, lacking any real development. To my nose, ordinary bordering on unpleasant. Perhaps I was expecting too much from the makers of the fastidious, dandyish Anucci Man.