Players who had/have incredible off the (ball?) movement.

I think most top class strikers have fantastic off ball movement. RVP was another example for this as well. Always seems to be in the right position.

Modric. Always seemed to be where he needs to be to carry the ball forwards and influence the game.

Suarez has the same knack, but also for sniffing out goal scoring opportunities.

Carrick.

Park had brilliant off the ball movement. People criticised him far too much and didn’t realise how good he actually was.

Cavani, nightmare for defenders with his movement. He’s always on the go, especially in his prime.

Rio had great off the ball movement as he very often was in good position to defend even before we lost the ball. Almost as he could see when and where we were going to be depossed

Haaland as mentioned is great.

Inzaghi is obvious also.

If Lukaku has top 5 in the world movement, then pretty much everyone has good movement.

Anthony Martial.


It is incredible, but not in a good way.

How has this thread reached 2 pages and not a single Cesc Fabregas shout?

Cavani and Sterling come to mind.

Xavi is the first player who came to mind as soon as I saw the thread title. Gerd Müller, too, was one of the most intelligent players ever, with astute and deadly movement off the ball. He managed to be both facilitative and 'deadly' in his movement and wasn't selfish or overly oriented towards goalscoring with his movement (CR7, Romario, Blokhin etc). Quite remarkable how he managed to be unpredictable, varied and team oriented in his movement. Sometimes the opposition couldn't really comprehend what had hit them and at times they just couldn't stop him.

Tostao, part of the 1970 WC winning Brazilian vintage, had sublime movement off the ball and as brilliant as the rest of the players were, his fluid movement and ability to link up play meant that it all worked out seamlessly. Giresse was another who had exceptional movement off the ball too.

As far as the greats go, Cruyff was arguably the most impressive. He wasn't too centrally oriented in his movement (like other greats)- being a genuine threat on the flanks, was an absolute menace dropping deep and pulling the strings, in the final third or even in the box (in combination with his deceptive aerial ability). He was capable of shifting gears quite rapidly and was quite the ubiquitous presence on the pitch, both in terms of his mobility and in the roles that he played - functioning as the metronomic playmaker of his side, the incisive creative passer, the prime ball carrying threat, and the side's leading goalscorer. And the amazing thing was, he was amongst the best ever, in most, if not all of those categories.

For many seasons this forum told me lingard had world class movement

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Sniffing out good positions was his bread and butter.

Lingard. What sets him apart is his agility and the intensity with which he moves.

First name to came to my head was Cavani

Dele before his dip in form use to make great run's and had good movement.

Ozil always seemed to have great movement when he was playing well..

MattyLT said:

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Sniffing out good positions was his bread and butter.

Click to expand...

Name one exam... nah, I'm good.

If we're talking about the best right now or in recent years, as weird as it sounds; C. Ronaldo.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. People forget because he is the top dog, but watch 3-5 matches of his and the excellence of execution, the mastery, almost everything is exemplary.

Iniesta

Lampard. The amount of space he found in front of the D is ridiculous


But - I think it was these two matches, Carrick kept Lampard is his pocket the whole 180 minutes

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2007737--man-united-vs-chelsea/

Ruud
McCoist

I'm thinking of defenders being positioned correctly or roaming forward or finding space to receive the ball. Full backs who make great overlapping runs. Midfielders who can always find a space to take the ball or run beyond the defence. Strikers who just somehow manage to find a yard here or there, turn the defender with a simple run or just happen to be where the ball drops in the box to score.

Defenders
John Terry
Roberto Carlos
Cafu
Dani Alves
Rio
Marcelo
Lahm
Ashley Cole
Lucio
Alba
Evra
Koeman
Ramos

Mid
Xavi
Iniesta
Scholes
Fabregas
Pirlo
Seedorf
Lampard
Kaka
Bale

Forwards
Ronaldinho
Ronaldo
Messi
Cole
Ruud
Sheringham
Robbie Keane
Henrik Larsson
Cavani
Inzaghi
Villa
Eto'o
Henry
Batistuta
Original Ronaldo

It's obvious but not said enough; Cristiano Ronaldo. Possibly the best off the ball movement in history.

Cristiano is a monster when it comes to off the ball movement. The speed at which he beats defenders in his 30s is outstanding. The thing about Cristiano though is that he's so good at many aspects of football, none really stands out much as his best attribute. He could bulldoze defenders, outpace them, score from shots 30 yards out, score tap ins, out jump defenders. Crazy athlete really.

That thread title...

Off-the-ball movements can be categorized into essentially two I think; 1.natural instinct and 2.reading of the game. The best combine both either because of their football intelligence or they improved on it from experiences and coaching.

Football is also huge, and essentially there are 3 basic areas and transitions of playing. Simply just divide it into three - atk, mid and def. Some players only shows good off-the-ball movements in only one of those but not the other two areas eg. CR7 are so good in atk, but not really in mid bar some aspects of it and never had good off-the-ball movements when defending. We could divide the 3 basic areas into further divisions eg. MID has build-up, wings, possession play, centre, etc of which midfielders may only be best at some but not all of it.

I assume thread is all about searching for players that pretty much dominated all atk, mid & def, or almost all the many aspects of off-the-ball movements yeah? That's hard. At best is midfielders or full backs as they are the most likely to have and develop both atk and def while also have the experiences to develop mid, all related with off-the-ball movements of course. B2B are the best bet but not many have good off-the-ball movements. Not all FBs too have good defensive off-the-ball movements, normally it's on attacks where they show their good off-the-ball movements. Keepers too can have good off-the-ball movements, but often they don't need it, except good sweepers and when they're in the box, seriously a lot of GKs are pointless to have in the box when they overlap like they don't know what to do.

I'll say it's...
Best
Makelele, Schweinsteiger and Lahm, they're good in everything literally I can't find any flaws in their off-the-ball movements whether it's in ATK, MID nor DEF. If we look at specifics, they are not the best at certain aspects since the specialized are better at it, nonetheless they are the best all-rounders.

_______

If we're focusing on specifics...
ATK
Specialist scoring - CR7 in being at the right spot and movements to get the end of the passes and crosses, both in the air and ground. He's the best at it.
General/All-around - Muller for being so good in everything related to off-the-ball movements in the final third of the field.
Specialist support striker - Raul (Real Madrid)

MID
Attacking at the 10 and high half spaces - David Silva
General - Makelele & Schweinsteiger, many forgot how good Makelele is in attacking high up the pitch.
Possession - Pirlo, need to move around well to get the ball, joining in keeping and dominating possession, not hiding, while your marker is sticking on you all the time.
Build up - Scholes, starting attacks by receiving the ball need good off-the-ball movements repetitively to beat markers and not hiding, he's the best at it.
Defending - Carrick, great at screening defense and marking/blocking passing lanes.

DEF
attacking - dani alves for FB, Ramos for CB
General - Lahm
defensive - Nesta

GK
sweeping - Neuer
GK overlap in box during set-piece - Schmeichel

Muller
Crespo
Nistelrooy
Cavani
Inzaghi
Chicharito

ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:

If Lukaku has top 5 in the world movement, then pretty much everyone has good movement.

Click to expand...

If Lukaku hasn’t got good movement, and he hasn’t got good technique, and he’s not particularly strong for a fella his size, how does he score so many goals?

Defensively, Tony Adams was brilliant, always adjusting, adjusting, at walking pace, and when the throughball for the speedy goalgetter came, he was always just about close enough to lumber to where the goal getter just had to pass if he wanted to get a goal. Matrix-like. For a midfielder, Michael Carrick had the same uncanny talent. Currently, Matic has some talent in this, but unfortunately nowhere near enough to call him Nemanja Matric.

Attacking, Ronaldo have developed the Müller (Gerd/Thomas) talent to an extreme degree, whereas Ji Sung Park was beaten by a Liverpool player: Øyvind Leonhardsen was part of the Norwegian golden generation of 94-2000, but immensively frustrating to watch. The analytic poker player coach Egil Drillo Olsen (aka Mad Professor) said several times Leonhardsen was the worlds best of-the-ball player of
his time. Unfortunately he was only the worlds 1 millionth best on-the-ball player of his time, but as a player spends 95% of his pitch time without the ball, Drillo could care less, paving way for Leonhardsen always being ‘The wrong player at the right time’. Norway, with Leonhardseb as a central piece, have never been better since the Nazi Olympics though, so you could see why Drillo had a point.

I think Mbappe is one of the best in the world right now along with Salah maybe.

Out of United players, I loved Scholes and Carrick for their work off the ball. We took them for granted all those years.

Sterling (not mentioned yet I think but really good)
Cristiano
Haaland
Müller
Messi
Havertz
Gnabry
Suarez
Mbappe
Lewandowski
Pedro
Mane
Salah

Chicarito had a great positional awareness up front. His runs were sharp and direct and he could score ridiculous goals, basically as long as the ball touched him - be it his arse, face, nose or the back of his head, he'd score. That's how good his positioning was.

I doubt many of you remember Oyvind Leonhardsen - played for Wimbledon, Liverpool and Spurs about 20 years ago. He was a mediocre footballer, but his ability to time his runs into the box basically made his entire football career. He player close to 200 P.L-matches and had almost 90 caps for Norway. He was probably one of the best

Šuker.

Also, Kante. Sneaky fecker.

Lampard has to be the first midfielder on this list. Obviously never an athletic marvel beyond his endurance but made an exceptional career out of timing his runs properly and being in the right place at the right time above all else.

Bruno usually finds himself in lots of greats positions due to his movement in the final third.

This is a big reason for his great output.

Cascarino said:

If Lukaku hasn’t got good movement, and he hasn’t got good technique, and he’s not particularly strong for a fella his size, how does he score so many goals?

Click to expand...

I’m not saying he doesn’t have some qualities. But world class movement is certainly not one of them.

TwoSheds said:

Michael Owen was terrific.

Click to expand...

That's the one that immediately comes to mind, along with Inzaghi. That was their speciality. They were brilliant at making runs past the last line.