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James Fay's avatar

Grace, do you think Spain’s inability to produce a new generation of number nines as good as a David Villa or a Fernando Torres part of the wider trend in major European countries recently of not developing that type of role/player anymore? I wonder how France for instance, even with Mbappe, will cope eventually without a Giroud or Benzema.

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Grace Robertson's avatar

I do, yeah, and I think it's a broader problem across Western Europe. Kane is 29, then the only top class western European 9 younger than him is Haaland, who is such a force of nature you kind of can't credit Norwegian coaching for him. I need to research this more, but it feels like there's a sameness to modern academy players that means we don't get really defined profiles like pure strikers.

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Kieran Marriott's avatar

Great piece as usual. On the first footnote, if you’re really going to try and maintain that as a rule you’ll need to always refer to Cristiano Ronaldo as such as well.

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Grace Robertson's avatar

I know but he wears Ronaldo on the back of his shirt! It's always acceptable to call players what they wear on their shirt in my book. Luis Enrique wore "Luis Enrique".

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