CB: Carles Puyol
Carles Puyol was one of the last of a dying breed of centre-backs. Rugged, powerful, dominant and no-nonsense, he did the job of an out-and-out defender better than pretty much anyone of his era.
But he was also extremely gifted in possession. He was a key man early on in Pep Guardiola’s tenure at Barcelona and in the Spain teams that won both Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup.
Puyol finished his career in 2014 with a hugely impressive list of honours: six La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues, two Copa del Reys, a World Cup and a Euros. He was in the UEFA Team of the Year six times from 2002 to 2010.
While both Guardiola’s Barcelona and Vicente del Bosque’s Spain were recognised for their aesthetic brilliance, for their slick passing and fluid movement, Puyol added a necessary steel. At the 2010 World Cup, Spain were almost impossible to score against, not only because they kept so much of the ball, but because of Puyol’s ability to both lead and organise his defence.
The Guardian once described Puyol as, “Barcelona's very own Captain Caveman, playing football with his heart on his sleeve and his hair in his eyes, throwing himself about the pitch and launching wholeheartedly into kamikaze tackles like a hyperactive, lunatic kid.”
While the idea of Puyol as a hard-tackling beast of a defender was, in many ways, accurate, he was a far more well-rounded footballer than many acknowledged. He would have had no issues at all slotting into the world’s top defences today.
Callum Rice-Coates
