by Ruud Gullit
The opposing side’s manager might try to prevent an attack by using a left-footed defender in the right-back position and vice versa. But I’ve never seen that done, since managers don’t think about their backs from a defensive perspective, more for their attacking qualities, so that a right-footed player on the right and a left-footed player on the left makes more sense. Their job is to push forward when they can and to make well-timed runs behind (so as not to close up space for the forwards) as the attacking players, such as Robben, Ribéry and Messi, move in.
Steve McManaman was a technical dribbler along the right. He could pass on the outside just as easily as the inside, and could cross the ball. Sometimes players manage to get past an opponent beautifully, only to stumble. Some do the first thing that comes into their head: they cross, or take a shot at goal. Players who behave unpredictably cause problems for the rest of the team, since they have no automatic responses.
Ryan Giggs was a left half and a false outside left. Giggs had speed, and he could pass his opponents—it was almost serpentine the way he wound his way around them—with a good run toward goal as he moved inside. If he moved outside, nine times out of ten he would send in an accurate cross. No surprise that he was known as one of Britain’s finest players. Unfortunately, he never qualified with Wales for a major international tournament.
My position in AC Milan’s 4-4-2 system was half right midfielder and half outside right. I hated playing a pure outside right in a 4-3-3 formation, if only because it makes you rely on others and you’re left waiting for the ball if the other players forget about you or can’t reach you, generally through no fault of your own. An outside right in a 4-3-3 formation in those days—today only Ajax play this system—was not allowed to roam about; you were completely dependent, which is a horrible feeling, especially for someone like me who likes to be in control.
Sometimes when no one gives you the ball it’s as if you’re standing on an island. When that happened I never enjoyed the game. I remember the group match against West Germany at the 1992 European Championship. The coach, Rinus Michels, posted me as an outside right. We won 3–1 and went on to face the Danes in the semifinal. I was glad we won, but the game had been awful. For an hour and a half I had chased after Michael Frontzeck, their left back. His assignment had been to keep me as far away from goal as possible. When he had the ball, he was practically an outside left and me a right back.
I felt more at ease on the right in a 4-4-2 formation. From there I could happily create my own space, because I wasn’t the sort of player who could take on two opponents in limited space. I didn’t need to be that deep. I could go inside or outside, I could use my energy and exploit my pace. Perfect.
Strikers
Whole books have been written about strikers. They come in all shapes and sizes, yet in the end the common denominator is: a striker needs to score, has to score. Strikers live to score goals. Even the forwards whose job is to help others score—even they want a goal or two as well, to restore their confidence.
The Brazilian Ronaldo was a phenomenon because he could run at full speed—he was amazingly fast—and still have total control of his body and the ball: a rare combination. He could conjure up a surprise move to force a goal from nothing. It was all about speed and control for him. He was no goal-getter.
Paolo Rossi or Romário or Ruud van Nistelrooy were. They lived in the penalty box, constantly focused on the goal. Romário hated running, whether on the pitch or off, whether in training or in a game. Romário was always tired. At the same time, he had an assassin’s mentality, like a feline predator lying in wait and all of a sudden pouncing. That was Romário. Paolo Rossi too.
Romário’s and Rossi’s goals helped their countries win the world title: Brazil in 1994 in the USA, and Italy in 1982 in Spain. Players like these need a team that plays in the opponents’ half. Then the goal-getter doesn’t need to do so much work, or to run as much.
Dennis Bergkamp’s managers always gave him free rein. You don’t put a player like Bergkamp in defense and you don’t tell him to make sliding tackles—you can’t expect that of him. Anyway, he never played like that: Dennis always came off the pitch without a mark on his shorts. Arsène Wenger and the rest of the Arsenal squad gave him the opportunity to show what he could do: exploiting his individual class to make a difference with goals and assists.
Thierry Henry was also a player who needed space to excel. While he was officially a striker, he invariably dropped back to the left, somewhere between left half and outside left. That forced the rest of the team to adjust. Arsenal’s other players understood that they needed to keep that position free for Henry while the attack started on the other flank—the right—aiming eventually to get the ball to where Henry would arrive to finish with a shot at goal. Perfecting this involved hours of training, and even then there was no telling how Arsenal’s opponents would respond. What would the central defenders do when they saw Henry pull away from the center and move into a left-half position? If they stayed put, which most usually did, then Arsenal would have to find some other way to tear the two of them apart and create gaps to pass and dribble through toward goal. Variation was essential, otherwise they would be too easy to defend against. An attack must contain an element of surprise.
Barcelona’s style of play gave Henry less time and space and made life difficult for him when he first arrived. After Arsenal’s vertical soccer, he had to adjust to Catalan combination soccer, the tiki-taka style of Pep Guardiola’s team. With Lionel Messi in the lineup, Henry was no longer the undisputed star of the side. Moreover, the team’s performance was more important in Catalonia than individual talent. That was Guardiola’s philosophy. Even Messi had to shift back into position after the six-second scramble for the ball, according to Guardiola’s six-second rule.
At Barcelona, Henry had to remain on the wing, which reduced his room for maneuver even more. At first he found it difficult to adjust, but fortunately he was surrounded by an amazing amount of talent. Many of his teammates knew how to send a ball inside through the defense so that all Henry had to do was run on to it.
Eventually, Henry mastered the Barcelona style of playing. Quite an achievement if you consider his specific qualities and you compare those to Barça’s style of soccer. It was not without reason that many thought Henry would fail in Catalonia. It didn’t happen, thanks to his intelligence. He had to give up some of his status, to think a little about how he could adjust, but he managed to change as a player—remarkable at his age. In Catalonia it was not about Henry, but about Messi, Samuel Eto’o and others.
Yet I preferred Thierry Henry in his dominant role, with those fantastic runs at Arsenal.
Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo like to roam: they are strikers who step away from the spearhead of the attack, only to reemerge again suddenly; players who have learned to drop back to create space for themselves, because their body and technique prevent them playing at their best in the crowded penalty area.
Once they accelerate they have enough control over their body and sufficient ball technique to get past opponents without any trouble as they head toward goal. And they can round off a run themselves because they always have just enough time to get past the keeper with a premeditated plan. To describe how it happens takes a hundred times longer.
Messi drops just as quickly from his striker position, although he does so mainly as a tactical move to make space for other players to come in. There is no one better than Messi in crowded spaces, and no better finisher, though he can also score at speed, because he has total control over his body. Specifically, he has an especially low center of gravity, allowing him to keep his balance more easily.
By contrast, the classic finisher hangs around the box. Strikers such as Didier Drogba, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Luis Suárez and Pippo Inzaghi like to pop up behind the defense. That rips the opposing team apart lengthwise. That is the kind of striker needed by tea
ms that want to retain possession. The opposing defense has to give up space at some point, and then the striker’s job is to penetrate deep and to be ready for the pass at exactly the right moment. These players are often offside, but if the interaction with the rest of the team is good, the pass comes through just in time. Then the striker can make a run and score.
Gary Lineker was a thoroughbred finisher. He always gave the impression that he didn’t really like playing soccer, he just had this thing about scoring goals. It made him a unique phenomenon. He scored with such ease. He was lightning quick as he began his run, impossible to catch. He also had a low center of gravity, so that he always kept his balance as he turned. The strong, massive English central defenders found him difficult to handle. Lineker spun around them.
While Ronaldinho was a striker at Paris Saint-Germain, at Barcelona he played as an outside left. As a relative novice in that position he gave the term an entirely new meaning. He interpreted the position in the way Cristiano Ronaldo plays at Real Madrid today. With his runs and goals, Ronaldinho became a sensation.
The Mexican player Hugo Sánchez formed a deadly striker duo with a Spaniard, Emilio Butragueño, at Real Madrid. Sánchez was a short, technically proficient player who accelerated as if he had been released from a catapult. A clever player and extremely irritating, the way he stepped on your heels or your toes, forever badgering and bullying and trying to manipulate the referee.
Mark Hughes was a unique forward at Manchester United and Chelsea, in a class of his own. If I were to compare him to a player in today’s game I’d choose Zlatan Ibrahimović, strong as an ox and always ready to receive the ball. With a Hughes or a Zlatan in your team you only need to tell your players one thing: “Play to him. All the time.” When players like that are in possession, no one gets the ball. They don’t let anyone near. Of all the leading players, they hold on to the ball more than anyone else.
Marco van Basten is one of the most complete strikers I have ever known and certainly the best I’ve ever played with. And it was so easy for him. He could make his own goals: he excelled where there was no room to move, his headers were strong, he didn’t shy away from one-on-ones, and he was technically skilled, quick, and a cool, clinical finisher. I often stood and watched on the pitch and thought: what’s that Bassie up to now, never seen anything like it, incredible.
Marco needed just half a meter to get the ball in. It was beautiful to see: an elegant striker. At the same time, he could be really nasty on the pitch, hard and unkind. Above all, he was an absolute egoist. If he hadn’t scored, but a teammate had, he would shout: “Hey, let me have the ball, give me the ball, give it here!” I often heard him ranting on. Brilliant, a real phenomenon.
Strikers in national teams
You may have a good keeper and nine top players in your national team, but without a top striker you’ll never win a major competition. If you have a good keeper and nine top players and you do have a top striker, then you have a chance of becoming European or world champions. Alongside the Dutch team of 1974, the Brazilian squad of 1982 were the best that ever played in a World Cup without actually becoming world champions: a collection of incomparable Brazilians were eliminated by a good team with a world-class striker.
Júnior, Leandro, Toninho Cerezo, Falcão, Zico, Sócrates and Éder are Brazilian names that still conjure up an amazing image, even today. They were sent packing by Paolo Rossi, a scrawny Italian striker with a pale sunken face. A player who epitomized the Italian school of striker. If you get only one chance in a game, you have to make it count. Failure isn’t an option. Brazil gave Rossi three chances. Three goals later, Brazil, the best side at the 1982 World Cup, were on their way home and Italy went on to beat Poland and Germany to become world champions.
Brazilians are by definition technical soccer players, but without a super striker they have never become world champions. In 1982, the unknown Serginho failed in the role. Whenever Brazil had a super striker, they always won tournaments: he is the one who pulls the trigger for the great players who make up the team. Pelé was one, and with him Brazil became world champions three times: 1958, 1962 and 1970. With Romário they won the 1994 World Cup in the United States, while Ronaldo made the Brazilians world champions at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
At the last World Cup in 2014, playing at home, the Brazilian squad once again lacked a world-class striker, and once again they failed to perform. Like Ronaldo in France in 1998, Neymar was much too young and inexperienced to carry the burden. He is also more of a wing forward. Without a clever finisher, who pays little heed to Brazilian soccer culture and lives only to score goals, almost all Brazilians play to the feet. However, even winning teams don’t always have the ball at their feet.
A team needs depth. And you need a healthy mix to get results. Unfortunately, the Brazilians realized this too late and pulled the wool over their own eyes with a series of irrelevant victories in international friendlies. They had Ramires, yet he never played in the World Cup of 2014. A bit of luck saw Brazil through to the semifinals. There the side was demolished by Germany (7–1), after which the Netherlands did the same with a 3–0 victory in the battle for third place.
In Brazil they understand that they desperately need a world-class striker. Only they have yet to find the right player, judging from the list of international top scorers. Jonas scores like there’s no tomorrow, but that’s with Benfica, and he’s already thirty-two. Then there’s Alex Teixeira Santos, who played brilliantly for Shakhtar Donetsk. Past tense, because in January 2016 his manager sent him to China on a lucrative million-dollar contract—the kiss of death for this Brazilian striker’s development in the sport. And after them comes Neymar. He is more of a player than a goal-getter and there’s not much space for his kind of striker in today’s game.
Portugal have a similar problem. You would think that the Portuguese had a superb striker in the form of Ronaldo. Only he doesn’t always play in that position. He likes to get involved and to make runs in the channels. That puts him farther away from goal and makes it more likely that he’ll lose the ball on the way than if he stationed himself in the penalty area. A few years ago Nuno Gomes and Pauleta were still playing in forward positions. They would have made a perfect combination with Ronaldo. Portugal are a very good team, but without a striker to support Ronaldo and simultaneously draw attention from him and distract the other side, Portugal and Ronaldo may not always fulfil their potential. And time presses: Ronaldo isn’t getting any younger.
England have long had an excellent striker in the shape of Wayne Rooney, but he’s also getting on. In his heyday other problems prevented him from raising England’s game, such as the dilemma over Gerrard and Lampard. Rooney usually played as well as expected; it’s not by accident that he’s one of England’s all-time top scorers with fifty-three goals. Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy, both English goal-getters in the style of Gary Lineker, are set to follow in Rooney’s footsteps.
The Netherlands had two strikers—Patrick Kluivert and Ruud van Nistelrooy—who both played at the highest level and were known around the world: two amazing players who only ever played together in the Dutch national team. It never really clicked on the pitch, especially since loyalty to the 4-3-3 principle was more important than adapting the system to Kluivert and Van Nistelrooy’s qualities.
That they played for top clubs such as Ajax, AC Milan and FC Barcelona (Kluivert) and PSV, Manchester United and Real Madrid (Van Nistelrooy) was no reason for the Netherlands’ coaches to consider reshaping the team around one or both of them. In fact they were rivals, though any other country would have given anything to have had either of them as their striker.
Johan Cruijff was the best Dutch player ever, and Kluivert the second-best striker—after Marco van Basten—a superb, complete player. Van Nistelrooy was a late developer, less complete as a player, yet more of a goal-getter. He was devastating in the penalty area, totally foc
used on scoring goals. Nothing else mattered to him.
Kluivert and Van Nistelrooy were both born on July 1, 1976. In a sense, they followed each other in the Netherlands team. Kluivert made his debut in 1994 at age eighteen, and was capped for the last time at the age of twenty-seven in the run-up to the 2004 European Championship in Portugal. Van Nistelrooy was twenty-two when he played his first international, in 1999, after which he waited out the next two years while he recovered from knee injuries. He played his last international in 2011, at thirty-four. While Kluivert and Van Nistelrooy are exactly the same age, they only played together for the Netherlands for around three or four years.
At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Ruud van Nistelrooy failed to make his mark because Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie continually moved into the center. That tactic left Van Nistelrooy standing empty-handed. Passing back and forth was not his style: he was a finisher, the final touch. He was wandering about as if he had lost the way, and never received any crosses from the wing during the entire World Cup. In which case there’s no point fielding a goal-getter like Van Nistelrooy, whose place is as close to the opposing goal as possible. That is where he showed his devastating qualities as a finisher. Playing to serve other players was not Van Nistelrooy’s style. He served by getting goals.
Today, filling the striker position is a problem for the Netherlands. A string of good strikers have worn the orange shirt in recent decades, including guys like Van Basten, Van Nistelrooy and Van Persie, as the most obvious examples: top international players who played for major clubs such as AC Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United at the pinnacle of European soccer.
These days the pool of goal-scoring strikers is not large. In the Dutch league, Luuk de Jong is successful; at the international level, Arjen Robben is the only Dutch forward still playing at his absolute peak in Europe.