Archive for category Player Compilations

“He is a great goalscorer. But a poor footballer.”

That’s how Johan Cruyff once described Ruud van Nistelrooy. An accurate description, perhaps. But also a humiliating one. At least that’s how Ruud himself perceived it. He had always wanted to be more than ‘just’ a finisher. He repeatedly insisted that he could do more than ‘just’ score goals. Opinions were divided. The debate that ensued perfectly highlighted the remarkable role in soccer of the ‘goalscorer’.

Superficially, soccer is about scoring goals. The man who scores the winning goal is the star of the night. TV-commentators will shout his name. Fans inside the stadium will dedicate their songs to him. His image will grace next morning’s newspapers.

But behind that facade of attention and stardom, there’s something missing. And even the greatest of goalscorers know it. Like Van Nistelrooy, they crave to be seen as more than just a goal poacher. To be valued for more than just tapping a ball over the line.

Football connoisseurs often view goalscorers with a hint of disdain. “Oh, all he can do is finish. He’s not a real footballer.” These experts then proceed to praise the true masters over the ball. The masterminds. The geniuses. The artists. Those, they claim, are the real footballers. That some of the greatest of these ‘artists’ – Cruyff, Socrates – have been denied World Cup glory because of the brutal efficiency of poachers like Gerd Müller and Paolo Rossi, only heightens the loathing many feel for the ‘finisher’.

The conflict between the artist and the finisher is essentially a subset of the eternal struggle between those who love football as an art, and those who primarily look at results. If you’re in the latter category, Van Nistelrooy’s 382 goals leave no room for doubt: he was a brilliant player. For those in the former group – watch the following video and ask yourself if there’s not beauty to be found in many of these wonderful finishes.