Five Of The Best: Strike Partnerships...

We all know about good players, there are always awards to recognise their achievements. World Player of the Year, Ballon D'or, Players' Player of The Year in various countries, but there is never any recognition for duos. I'm going to pick what I feel are five of the best strike partnerships in my mind.

Rush & Dalglish - Liverpool

Well these two were terrorising defences in England and from around Europe. This was a big man little man partnership but not in the conventional sense with the big target man and little speedster playing off the knock downs. This partnership had the little man playing the roll of deep lying forward both as the creator and the scorer of goals and the bigger man playing off the should of the last defender.

When asked about their partnership Rush said "We didn't practise it or anything, it just happened to be a partnership that worked straight away. I had the pace and he had the football brain and I just seemed to always know what he was going to do and he knew what I was doing." This showed that their partnership was a natural one. In the 1983-84 season the pair scored 59 goals between them.

Dalglish is now recognised as the greatest Liverpool player ever and Ian Rush ended his career with 660 appearances for Liverpool scoring 346 goals that is a goal every other game.



Yorke and Cole - Manchester United

What can I say about this pairing? They were the most feared duo in Europe they were part of  the first English side and only the fourth in Europe to win the treble. There's not much more I can say about these two I think the video below will do all the talking for me...



Bergkamp and Henry - Arsenal

Has their ever been a more creative partnership in the Premier League? I don't think so if I'm honest. Both Bergkamp and Henry were as creative as they were adept in front of goal. The strange thing is that they were never really recognised as a partnership. They were the strike pairing for the legendary Arsenal "invincibles" team which went a full league season without defeat...



Romario and Bebeto

These two are the most competitive strike partnership your likely to hear of. They both played for clubs in Spain before the 1994 World Cup where they made their name as a partnership. In Spain Bebeto won the Pichichi (top scorer award) scoring 29 goals in the 1992-93 for Deportivo La Coruna. The following season Romario overshadowed his compatriots achievement by scoring 30 for Barcelona. Following this the pair didn't get along when they joined up with the Brazil squad for USA 94.

Once they got onto the pitch both players determination to win overcame any personal differences they had. Brazil scored 10 goals in the tournament and Romario and Bebeto scored 8 of them. Bebeto also said regarding their partnership "We had a really good understanding," Bebeto now says. "Look, in football there's always the possibility of disagreements between players, but there was none of that between us. On the contrary, we understood each other really well. The moves came off naturally, I always seemed to know where he was on the pitch and he also always knew where to find me. It was perfect."



Raul and Morientes - Real Madrid

I wasn't expecting to mention these two but after doing my research I have to say they were effective, you'd never guess that if you saw either of them in their post-Madrid days. These two won 3 Champions Leagues and scored 245 between them during the six seasons they played together.




I'm sure there are plenty of more partnerships in football but I think these are the five finest. I would be interested to see if anyone could think of any better. But as usual thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you've enjoyed...