The Most Unique Player of All-Time

Revan

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Pippo Inzaghi. Shit at almost everything, still managed to play for two of the top clubs, scored 200+ goals, was a regular for Italy, won pretty much everything, and scored some incredibly important goals.
 

TwoSheds

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Pippo Inzaghi. Shit at almost everything, still managed to play for two of the top clubs, scored 200+ goals, was a regular for Italy, won pretty much everything, and scored some incredibly important goals.
Is that any different to, say, Ian Rush though? Admittedly I'm too young to have seen Rush in what I suppose was his peak. I feel like there are plenty of great goalscorers who weren't that great at football though.
 

Hala Madrid

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Cristiano Ronaldo- He had (in his prime) the ability to dribble with the help of his pace, could shoot and score from anywhere in the field within a 30 yard radius , two footed, best ever with the head and he is the most ambidextrous player I've ever seen; gave passes that would make people go crazy and call GOAT midfielder if it was Zidane or Iniesta.
Was also great at defending (which he didn't do frequently) especially defending headers
Another player close to that was Alfredo Di Stefano
 

Red Stone

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for all his shittyness, I’d still include Suarez. I never know how he does it, but he just pushes and shoves balls past defenders. No style, no grace, and when you see him play, it looks like he has no technique whatsoever. But does deliver.
Harry Kane is another elite level striker who looks like he's just started playing football, yet somehow he's an absolute master of finishing and attacking movement. It's why he's still a one season wonder. Any day now the gig will be up and Harry Kane will prove to everyone that he's actually exactly as shit as he looks.
 

nobby the legend

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The question is not the best, but the most unique...Garincha with one leg several cm shorter.

Peter Crouch.
 
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RedDevilCanuck

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Fellaini.

tall and good in the air but best chest control of all time.

Can look out of his depth or completely dominate a game with no answer.
 

willhse456

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Rory Delap was the first mainstream threat from throw ins, very iconic at the time.
 

VJ1762

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Jesse Lingard. Has managed to convince most on Redcafe that work-rate and movement is enough to warrant a place in the squad.

On a serious note, I liked peak Thomas Muller. Didn't have an array of moves, but put the ball in the back of the net pretty consistently.
 

sherrinford

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Jesse Lingard. Has managed to convince most on Redcafe that work-rate and movement is enough to warrant a place in the squad.

On a serious note, I liked peak Thomas Muller. Didn't have an array of moves, but put the ball in the back of the net pretty consistently.
It does warrant a place in the squad. Virtually no-one would have him starting in an ideal first eleven.

Peak Muller did warrant a starting place in the Bayern team because of that goal scoring nous. He was quite unique I suppose - Ljungberg, Guily and the aging iteration of Cristiano Ronaldo spring to mind as others who similarly based their game around movement and were effective starting from a wide position. Muller had Pippo Inzaghi’s touch though.
 

sherrinford

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Harry Kane is another elite level striker who looks like he's just started playing football, yet somehow he's an absolute master of finishing and attacking movement. It's why he's still a one season wonder. Any day now the gig will be up and Harry Kane will prove to everyone that he's actually exactly as shit as he looks.
You are joking right? Kane’s generally excellent at bringing others into play. His touch and passing is very strong.
 

Black Adder

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Fabio Cannavaro was pretty unique defender. Small in stature for CB (175 cm), but strong and with great leap he was still beast in the air and overall brilliant defender in his playing days.
 

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David Beckham. Weird bow-legged gait and unique kicking technique allowed his to get incredible curl on the ball and produce world class crosses from unthinkable positions on the pitch. Was one of the best players in the world for many years despite his game being so limited.
 

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Ronaldinho. Never seen a similar player before and I don't think we'll see one for a long long time. A guy that was so complete technically that he literally made the ball do anything he wanted in any situation and position on the pitch. A seemignly endless repertoire of individual skills, and yet a very willing and effective team player with out of this world vision, movement and passing ability.
 

RochaRoja

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Phil Jones is quite unique, mostly for the wrong reasons.
Won every club trophy available in England bar the CL, played in two World Cups and made over 200 appearances for one of the world’s biggest clubs despite being nothing more than a meme.

Phil Jones is the first post-modern footballer.
 

RochaRoja

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Jorge Campos without a shadow of a doubt. He earned 130 caps for Mexico in the 90's and early 00's playing between the sticks. Nothing out of the ordinary there, you say? Well, for starters he was only 168cm (5'6") tall. For a top level goalkeeper that's a huge anomaly on it's own, but that's not all that's unique about Campos. At his first club Pumas, he also filled in as a striker despite primarily being a goalkeeper, and over the course of his career managed to rack up 34 league goals for them. Just to add to the legend, he chose his own style of jerseys most of the time, and they're something else to say the least. A single image does not do him justice, so I'd advise anyone to do a little image search over on the ol' Google. There are some proper monstrosities there.
Loved Campos. Generally, I’d say all elements of the game now are superior to what they were twenty years ago but the lack of eccentric Latin American goalkeepers now compared to the 90s, when Campos, Higuita, Chilavert and Rogério Ceni were all active, is a real shame.
 

harms

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What about the "most" unique XI? It's quite hard to do one, as most of the players mentioned are either strikers or forwards. The one that I came up with doesn't even look like a football team.

L. Ronaldo - P. Crouch
Zlatan - Garrincha
Y. Toure - Di Stefano - R. Gullit
R. Carlos - R. Koeman - Beckenbauer
R. Higuita
 

Zehner

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Cristiano Ronaldo - unique for multiple reasons. First of all, it's his skillset. When he entered the scene, he was a fancy and spectacular but ineffcient dribbler/trickster without much end product. The sort of player who'd secretly roll his eyes in training when his coach adviced him to become better at something "down to earth" like heading. Yet he became arguably the best ever at it. There's probably no player of his quality that get's the basic as right as Cristiano. And that's the foundation for his second unique characteristic, the position. There are quite a few players who score many goals from playing out wide. Salah, Mbappe, Neymar, Robben, Sterling, Messi and so forth. But that's not really comparable to what Ronaldo does, who often effectively plays like a striker, demanding crosses and muscling off centerbacks. And last but not least, there's no other player I can think of who transformed himself that immensely over the years. I mean, the player that won his first CL with United is so incredibly different from the one that won his fifth with Madrid, and he was one of the two best players throughout all those years regardless.

Quaresma - in the beginning, Quaresma and Cristiano were quite similar in style, IMO. Many of Cristiano's skill moves were reminiscent of Quaresma's and vice versa, but Quaresma - while being a far inferior footballer - retained this playing style. And on top of that, he's got probably the best outside of the boot in football history. He's probably the only right footed attacker that plays as an inverted winger on the right wing. If you wanted to play with crosses, you'd position him on the left, which is crazy if you think about it considering he's right footed - solely because he's better with the outside than with the inside of his boot.

Ronaldinho - has been explained here numerous times. Nobody was able to do what he did, especially on that level. Probably the most talented footballer in terms of ball control ever - and my favourite footballer of all time.

Ronaldo - probably doesn't need explanations. Incredible player

Thomas Müller - again someone who's named quite often in here. I'd never have thought that somebody with such a fluky technique could become so good. Sure, there was Inzaghi who scored many goals as a poacher but Müller isn't/wasn't that sort of player. He was no fox in the box who managed to escape his markers but someone whose runs all over the pitch were immensely important for the build up of attacks, too. Really shows how good you can become by getting the basics right.

Marcelo - full backs have become incredibly important in the last 10 years and their role has changed immensely. Nowadays they are often the only wide players. Dani Alves is the role model, a good technician, passer, crosser and tackler/defender but his standout characteristic was his athleticism. You'll finde many similar players among world class full backs in that time frame: Maicon, Alaba, Lahm, Alba, Walker, Robertston, Cole and so forth. But not Marcelo. He's nothing special from an athletic point of view, but his technique and passing is incredible. There are very view attackers or midfielders who can claim they have a better technique than him - if any. But there's not a single defender that technically even came close to him, let alone a left back.

Lucio - I've never seen a centerback like him when he was at Leverkusen and in his early Bayern days, honestly. He was notorious for constantly picking the ball up in his own half and just sprint forward with it, at times unstoppable like a train. Scored many goals that way (21 in 122 games for us), even many long shots, at times from free kicks. Van Gaal and Mourinho later forced him to abandon this playstyle for obvious reasons, but he definitely was unique. Here's a video if you are interested, really interesting if you haven't seen him:

Aguero - sure, you don't need to be big anymore to be a great striker and score many goals but honestly, most of his peers play either as false nines or as second strikers, like Griezmann or Dybala. But Aguero is different. I can't remember any other player that was able to play as a lone striker with his height and weight. If you take a look at the world class strikers played as single no. 9, then Aguero stands out because he's probably 15 cm smaller than their average. Whenever people debate about a striker transfer target being to small, someone will eventually drop Aguero's name.

Alexander-Arnold - Beckham is named often in here for being probably the best crosser the world has ever seen and that's fair, but I think Alexander Arnold is an even better shout because his crosses are most likely the best since Beckham has retired and he's played as a full back. Like Marcelo, he's completely different to his world class peers in that position. Although he's also very athletic, his crossing is probably one or two levels above the second best (Kimmich or Marcelo, I'd say).

Cannavaro - like Aguero, but as a CB. He's so unique that likewise to Aguero and strikers, whenever people debate about a CB being to small, someone will eventually drop Cannavaro's name.


If it's really solely about uniqueness and not about being extremely good at certain things, I'd probably go with this eleven:


Aguero
Ronaldinho Müller Quaresma
? ?
Marcelo Cannavaro Lucio Alexander-Arnold
Chilavert

Can't really think of unique midfielders, honestly. It seems like everyone I that comes to mind has someone with identical style.
 

Fortitude

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What about the "most" unique XI? It's quite hard to do one, as most of the players mentioned are either strikers or forwards. The one that I came up with doesn't even look like a football team.

L. Ronaldo - P. Crouch
Zlatan - Garrincha
Y. Toure - Di Stefano - R. Gullit
R. Carlos - R. Koeman - Beckenbauer
R. Higuita
Does Ronaldo even count? Just a complete outlier!

‐---------------------------Zlatan
Ronaldinho----------Gullit-------------Garrincha
---‐----------------Di Stefano
-------------------------Beckenbauer
R.Carlos--------------------------------------Vogts
-------------------------Passarella
--------------------------Koeman
--------------------------Yashin

Facchetti for Carlos; Alves for Vogts.

Vogts for being 5'5" but playing like he was 6'3" and being imperious at things he really had no business being, so much so, he was a solid CB. Bit of the Stiles there.

Yashin was a complete glitch during his era; nothing like him then.

Bunch of brilliant weirdos there.

The likes of Wanchope, Friday, Stiles should be mentioned more, I think.

Unique and good, and unique but not probably divides the thread.
 

harms

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Does Ronaldo even count? Just a complete outlier!
I can’t think of anyone who played like him - the combination of pace, dribbling and strength. Weah, Henry? The quality gap between them translates to the stylistic differences as well. Maybe Eusebio... But yeah, he’s a bit different from other choices.
 

harms

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Re: Yashin, Beara looked very similar to him — unlike all those “first sweeper keepers” he genuinely looked like a modern keeper stuck in the 50’s by mistake.
 

Fortitude

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I can’t think of anyone who played like him - the combination of pace, dribbling and strength. Weah, Henry? The quality gap between them translates to the stylistic differences as well. Maybe Eusebio... But yeah, he’s a bit different from other choices.
I know what you mean, but he's such an anomaly, I didn't even register him with regard to a thread like this even though he's got every right to be here.

Just the gap is so insurmountable it's like a different sport.
 

Hitman Harry

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Firmino’s no look goals are pretty unique. As a player, he’s very silky but also hard working. Very hard to find.
 

Demyanenko_square_jaw

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I think Djalminha was the same sort of player as Ronaldinho, with that focus on street tricks and juggling in his AM style. He was the lesser version, but from the same school of thought and was doing a lot of those moves at Deportivo before Ronaldinho broke out as a world star.

As far as a singular trait, Lokomotiv Moscow playmaker Dmitriy Loskov ability to regularly score free kicks with either foot is something i've not known from anyone else.
 

Foxbatt

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He could play anywhere he wants to play. Started on the left wing, then CF then dropped into midfield and have even played in central defence. The same with Gullit. Can play in any position. People forget Frank Rijkard. He can play in any position too.
 

Web of Bissaka

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Jorge Campos, mexican GK and Striker.

Yeap, late game often switch from GK to play Striker, and he scored goals alright.

Can't think of any other GK that did that.
Plenty of past keepers either score from set-pieces (Freekicks and Penalty) and/or when they "GK overlap" inside during corner or freekick delivery.
 

Synco

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On attacking sweeper keepers: The earliest one I know of is Petar Radenkovic.

Some sweeping moves in here

Some attacking moves (better mute that one)
 

UnofficialDevil

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Always thought Rooney was unique. He could be up on the end of something in the penalty box and next bit he could suddenly be the last man making a passionate last ditch tackle in defence or vice versa. I reckon he could have played anywhere in his prime and put in a shift.

This is the perfect example even though not in a united shirt! Could you imagine a Messi, Ronaldo, Aguero and the likes doing the same?

wow! Hadnt seen that! thanks for posting
 

Art Vandelay

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Jorge Campos, mexican GK and Striker.

Yeap, late game often switch from GK to play Striker, and he scored goals alright.

Can't think of any other GK that did that.
Plenty of past keepers either score from set-pieces (Freekicks and Penalty) and/or when they "GK overlap" inside during corner or freekick delivery.
Not only that, but wasn't he tiny for a keeper? I don't think many others would be mad enough to wear the crazy neon either.