Why is the elite pool of strikers ever shrinking?
When Brazilian Ronaldo gracefully sidefooted past Oliver Kahn to make the score 2-0 in the Fifa World Cup final, there was no question regarding who was the star of the moment. Having led the scoring charts for the tournament with 8 goals, Ronaldo also went on to win the Ballon D'Or that year, engraving his name ever more firmly into the list of the greatest players the world had ever seen.
But 12 years later when Mario Gotze half-volleyed past a despairing Sergio Romero, the landscape of football had changed completely. Top scorer James Rodriguez (6 goals) and next highest goalscorer Thomas Muller (5 goals) were not strikers for their teams; in fact, even 3rd placed Lionel Messi could not be categorised as a striker for the role he played in the Argentina team.
Just as with the final, not many games were decided by world class strikers with a moment of magic – in fact, eventual winners Germany were particularly noted for their lack of strikers, relying occasionally on a 36-year-old Miroslav Klose or opting to line up without a striker altogether.
Though not as prominently, the struggles faced by strikers as compared to previous years is evident in the Premier League as well – despite being arguably the best individual players at their respective clubs, Sergio Aguero and Daniel Sturridge need a couple of absences to ascertain their place in the starting 11. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp prefers Roberto Firmino to any of his traditional striking options, and Arsene Wenger has struck gold with his experiment of Alexis Sanchez as centre forward.
So why do we have such a dearth for elite strikers across the world of football? Here we take a look at a few possible reasons:
#1 Team game
Among other things, the evolution of football over the years has meant a staggering increase in focus on the 'team' aspect of the game. 10 players no longer line up on the pitch just to support an elite teammate; the mantra of winning and losing as a team has broadened to even include the coaching and backroom staff along with the players.
“We defend as a team, We attack as a team,” proclaim most modern-minded managers in world football, like Mauricio Pochettino, Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. When a goal is conceded, fingers are pointed all the way starting from a striker who did not press at the right time.
While this is obviously great for the spirit of the game as a whole, it robs freakishly talented individual players of the arrogance they used to boast in earlier decades. Alex Ferguson famously exempted Eric Cantona from his hairdryer treatment even after kung-fu kicking a fan against Crystal Palace – it is difficult to imagine similar treatment being meted out to any player in football today.