Top 5 Goalscoring Defenders in Modern Football
In football, the defender's primary role is to protect their goal area from the opposition’s offense and prevent goalscoring opportunities. Essentially, defenders do the majority of the ‘dirty work' including tackling, making clearances, and marking the attacking players.
In the modern age, there has been an emergence of new systems of play and plenty of assigned secondary roles to defenders. More of these players are involved on the offensive end, especially during set pieces.
These five defenders have shown on a consistent basis that they too can be as lethal as the strikers in a team. Some of the goals that they have scored could easily make a novice fan confuse them for a centre-forward.
#5 Leighton Baines
The Everton left-back and England international has set various records for his pedigree in scoring penalties. He is the type of player that would be the first choice in taking spot kicks - even during shoot-outs.
Baines has 42 career goals, including 38 for Everton, majorly drawn from his clinical finishing from free-kicks and penalties. In 2012, he scored four goals and created over 115 chances for his team which was the highest of any player in the major European leagues.
In 2014, Baines scored three penalties in the Premier League to become the only player to convert all penalties after taking more than 10 penalties. In total, Baines has missed only three penalties out of 29 attempts.