Strikers’ World Cup
What would the World Cup be without the strikers? The guys that pull the ball in the net (or at least are supposed to?).
“The tendency was to play one man up front supported by other players behind. Argentina had (Hernan) Crespo and (Javier) Saviola but Saviola was coming from deep. Germany too with Klose or (Lukas) Podolski – you always had one of them coming from further back. In Brazil’s case, everyone was behind Ronaldo, France have had just (Thierry) Henry up front, and Portugal Pauleta.”
This may help explain why beside Klose, no strikers have scored more than three goals. In addition to Henry, the strikers to have found the net three times are Crespo, Ronaldo, Podolski, Fernando Torres and David Villa. Compare this with Korea/Japan 2002 where Ronaldo struck eight goals, Klose and Rivaldo five, Jon Dahl Tomasson four and five other forwards three.
“We’ve seen few natural goalscorers and instead more attacking midfielders,” Cubillas continued. “If we were talking about natural goalscorers we could include the German (Miroslav) Klose for his opportunism and his nose for goal. Others like (Hernan) Crespo and Ronaldo impressed in patches but not in a consistent way. Klose, on the other hand, performed consistently throughout.”