Every great striker needs another striker to play off. For most great strikers you will see a man playing along side them with complimentary skills. Now, I'm pretty sure no one I know knows Craig Bellamy. Why don't you know him? Well because he is the ultimate unselfish, trash goal player. Bellamy much like one of my other favorites of all times Paul Dickov is just there to be a gnat.
His motor will never stop and he is usually good for a yellow card a game. These type of players play best along side big men who clog up the middle allowing them to roam the outside of the box and pick up trash goals around the goal. For every Van Nistelroy, Crouch, Samaras, Henry, Koller and Morales, there is a Bellamy, Rooney, Van Persie, Robinho etc... There is a gnat. So to Zlatan I'll take the man with most gumption and fire I've seen on the pitch in some time in that likes of Craig Bellamy.
Now for my legend of the day I'll go to the concesus greatest European ever to play the game according to the FIFA 100 list and Beckenbauer. I am talking of the man that would be our Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth. He is said to be the closest thing beauty ever had to a definition on the soccer pitch. His name is Johan Cruijff (Croyf).
Many people say Johan Cruijff was a product of one of the greatest football system ever invented in "Total Football". The idea was that you could move players around from one position to another, fluidly, while not losing the structure of the team. This would seriously confuse defenses and markers that were once spotting Cruijff at center forward suddenly found him playing center back. Cruijff's signature backheal move was said to be, outside of the Brazilian game, the first real usage of a "trick" or a "deek". You will also notice in the video that Cruijff was one of the first pioneers of curling the ball and an art now gone in "toeing" dips over walls and long running wingers.
You will not hear of legends like Cruijff because his goals, much like Bergkamp's are thought to be more beautiful then memorable and the Netherlands never won the world cup under him as he bounced from team to team. However, his ability to adapt with punishing and finessing finishes are said to still be incomparable to athletes of even today. Link posted by JVMM : 1:15 PM
