5 strikers who were forced to play as wingers?

#2 David Villa

Espanyol v Barcelona - La Liga — El Guaje had a wonderful first season with Barcelona

So this actually kind of feels like a cause and effect thing now. After the failure and subsequent departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Barcelona, Guardiola realized the type of forward that he needs in order to accommodate Messi in the middle shouldn’t be a complete individualist while also having a sense of individualism at the same time.

Confusing, isn’t it? Well, that was what David Villa was for Barcelona – selfless enough to not be pissed off about Messi playing in the center and selfish enough to score goals from the left with his uncanny sense of scoring.

And it worked out just fine for Barcelona as the Catalans went on to win the double in El Guaje’s first season with the club. The thing is, Villa was far more adequately skilled to play from the left – something he did with Spain alongside Fernando Torres in their World Cup winning campaign in 2010.

And right after that, he did the same for Barcelona as he scored an impressive 23 goals in that campaign.

About the author

Umid Kumar Dey has been writing at Sportskeeda since January 2015, focusing mainly on football, cricket and WWE. In that time, he has gone on to become one of the most-read writers on the website.

His work has also featured on Goal and he has also edited a book. Currently, he works as a freelance writer who aspires to become a data scientist in the field of sports.

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Edited by Nived Zenith