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Eric Cantona
The original and perhaps the best of the Premierships' foreign legion.
Only failings on the European stage besmirch the indomitable 'winningness' and legacy of the Premiership era's first big foreign star.
Strutting and aloof, Cantona made his greatest impact in Soccernet's maiden season when he came back from a nine-month suspension to lead United's highly youthful team to a Premiership and Cup double. United triumphed through a series of 1-0 victories in which the Frenchman scored the goal. A win at title rivals Newcastle and the FA Cup Final win over Liverpool came as a result of such strikes.
Within a year of his Wembley triumph, Le Roi was gone. He had become bored by football and walked away at 31. But of all the stars of the Ferguson era, it is he that is revered most in the stands of Old Trafford. He laid the foundations for a decade of unprecedented United success.
Peter Schmeichel
The proof of his brilliance has been in the difficulty of replacing him. Since the Great Dane departed Manchester United in 1999, Sir Alex Ferguson has bought eight goalkeepers in a search for the match-winning custodian Schmeichel was.
While Cantona scored those crucial goals in Soccernet's debut season, it was Schmeichel that kept the clean sheets, his manic, berating manner matched with supreme athleticism and a fearsome, overbearing physique that put off many a striker bearing down on goal.
He of the red nose in winter may have reappeared in dotage for Aston Villa and Manchester City but his bowing out in the Nou Camp in 1999 would surely have been a fitting close to a custodial career to rank with any to have played in the English game.
David Ginola
Why's he in this line-up? It's because he's worth it. The skills that won the hearts of Newcastle's fans during two seasons at St James' Park were transferred to White Hart Lane in the summer of 1997 and he became almost the archetypal Spurs player, his grace and skill entertaining while winning little in the way of trophies. He became double player of the year in 1999 while his team underachieved in mid-table and won the League Cup.
Accused of lacking the end product to complement his rich skills and perhaps not quite matching the high worth he granted himself, Ginola still lit up the English scene with some great goals and fantastic dribbles. It's best to forget the hair commercials and war over body shape with John Gregory at Aston Villa.
Gianfranco Zola
Will there ever be a more popular foreigner in the Premiership? As soon as the little Sardinian arrived in the winter of 1996 at Chelsea from Parma, we were bewitched by his skills and seduced by his obvious enjoyment of the game. Chelsea were known at the time as a club where old foreigners went to retire but Zola was here to win matches and entertain.
He took Chelsea's dad's army to their first silverware in 26 years with the 1997 FA Cup and scored a blockbuster goal to win the Cup Winners' Cup the following year. And there were regularly moments of improvised brilliance like the backheeled flick in a League Cup tie with Norwich in 2001.
It was Zola that carried an ailing, pre-Abramovich Chelsea to Champions League qualification in 2003. The decider came in a final match with Liverpool. The game neared its end as Zola held off, took on and beat the entire Liverpool defence and then held the ball as time ticked on his Chelsea career. A fine segue as he left for home that summer. English football had lost one of its true gents.
Paolo di Canio
Nowhere near as universally popular as compatriot Zola, but possessing nearly as many skills, Paolo was the proverbial one-man lift riot with footballing ability to burn.
After a rumbustious and torrid spell at Celtic, Sheffield Wednesday splashed out ?.5m for the former Lazio, Milan and Juventus man. And the fans loved him, especially in tandem with pal Benito Carbone. But then came a push on referee Paul Alcock, a long ban, a fall-out with Owls big wigs and a cut-price move to West Ham.
Hammers fans were treated to four years of great goals, tantrums, no-shows and a player with as much ability as any to have ever graced 'the Academy'. Sir Alex Ferguson tried to pinch him in January 2002 to play the Cantona role for Manchester United but the deal fell through and Paolo exited Upton Park upon relegation the following year. A quiet (for him) season at Charlton was followed by last summer's return to boyhood heroes Lazio.
Dennis Bergkamp
The Dutch master is far too fitting a title to not attach to this product of the Ajax school. When Arsenal paid ?.5m for a striker who had flopped in Serie A with Inter Milan, it seemed a gamble. And two seasons of only occasional flashes of brilliance seemed to make it a high price.
But then came the arrival of Arsene Wenger and Bergkamp became the ideal strike partner for first Ian Wright, next Nicolas Anelka and latterly Thierry Henry as Arsenal played an attacking game based around the feints and flicks of the Dutchman. He was PFA Player of the Year in 1998 as Arsenal lifted the Double and he has kept on producing the great goals and performances ever since.
While European football may have not seen the best of Bergkamp and Arsenal, the Premiership has been graced by his presence.
Patrick Vieira
At time of writing it seems that Arsenal may soon lose their skipper.
Perhaps a piece of Arsene Wenger pragmatism may see him cash in a player who he has surely had the best of.
The gangly 20-year-old he plucked from AC Milan's reserves in 1996 soon turned into a giant. His tackling, passing and sheer physical presence were key to Arsenal's Double of 1998. His partnership with Emmanuel Petit was a colossal and efficient midfield engine that provided protection for an ageing back four and supplied plenty of the ball to the likes of Bergkamp, Anelka and Henry.
Perhaps that was the very best of him, as injury and frequent suspensions have interfered along the way but he has always remained, with obvious deference to Roy Keane, English football's premier central midfielder.
Sami Hyypia
Gerard Houllier's reign at Liverpool will always be regarded as one of underachievement, especially in the light of Rafael Benitez's single-season success at Anfield. But in this imposing Finn, the Frenchman made a signing that must surely be his best as Reds boss.
Special mention must go to Stephane Henchoz, who partnered the ?m signing from Dutch club Willem II from his signing in 1999. The pair manned the central defence of a side that lifted three trophies in 2000/1. Liverpool's treble was built on their stout defending, the skills of Gary McAllister and the goals of Michael Owen but defending was key to Houllier's successful formula.
Houllier's dour approach made a fans' hero of Hyypia and though he was perhaps not so favoured by Benitez last season, he became one of the heroes of that historic win in Istanbul.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy
A controversial choice in the Soccernet office it seems but then a quick glance at his goal record meant the Dutchman just had to be included.
Without goals, Ruud is not the same player, as the pallid version of him in the last season showed. Forget the stat that he has never scored from outside the area, just look at his record of being leading Premiership scorer in 2001-2 and 2002-3 plus breaking his own consecutive scoring record of seven-in-a-row by scoring nine-in-a row the following season.
And in Europe, he's been even more of a goal machine, being leading Champions League scorer in three of the last four seasons. It took just one Van Nistelrooy to replace Cole and Yorke at United, where he has received no less an accolade than that of being compared to Denis Law.
Thierry Henry
The speed of an Olympic athlete, the finishing power of a souped-up Ian Wright, Henry, at 27, can already be regarded as perhaps Arsenal's greatest ever player.
Like Vieira, Henry was plucked by Wenger from the bench of a Serie A side, when he was signed from Juventus. Unlike his compatriot he took a while to fire as his club finished the season trophyless in 1999-2000. Since then he has set off a goalscoring frenzy that is destined to supersede Wright as number one in the club's all-time list.
But it's not just his goals, it's those run from the left that he makes, panicking defenders in his wake to supply goals for his colleagues. To think that 2004/5, where he was far and away the Premiership's leading scorer, was regarded as a quiet season shows the frightening level of expectation that follows the flying Frenchman.
[ Last edited by Brian on 14-7-2005 at 03:32 PM ] |
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