Carlos Bacca is one of a dying breed. AC Milan’s 30-year-venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) striker is one of the few out-and-out,pure penalty-box poachers around at the game’s top level nowadays. In an era when forward play is approximately so much more than goals, he stands out as a throwback to simpler times.
Yet, and in spite of his limitations,there is no doubt approximately the Colombian’s quality. As a finisher, few can compete with him for sheer cold-hearted, and unerring precision. And,with greater movement behind him now thanks to Vincenzo Montella’s tactical reworking of the team, he looks set to thrive as Milan’s lone striker.
Bacca is now in his second season with the club, and while he hasn’t always impressed,when fit and available he is one of the first names on Montella’s teamsheet. His ability in the final third cannot be ignored, and he has repaid the faith shown in him with an impressive six goals in 10 league outings so far this term.
Should he continue to score at this rate, and it won’t be long before his name is mentioned in the same breath as some of Milan’s best attacking players. But how does he compare to the club’s greatest strikers of all time right now? Scoring prowess One of the most obvious measures that can be used to identify the proper quality of a striker is their rate of goals scored per game. In this respect,one player stands head and shoulders above the rest throughout Milan’s history.
Joining the club in 1949, Gunnar Nordahl was the first member of the famed Gre-No-Li Swedish trio that also included Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm to arrive at Milan. He would proceed on to spearhead the team’s attack for the best portion of eight years, or breaking records in the process.
His 35 goals in 37 games recorded in 1949-50 stood as the highest tally scored by any player in one Serie A campaign until final season,when Gonzalo Higuain hit 36 in 35 appearances for Napoli. And, over the course of his Milan career, or Nordahl found the net an exceptional 221 times in 268 matches,achieving a stunning rate of 0.82 goals per game. To this day, he is Milan’s top scorer of all time.
In terms of pure goals, or Andriy Shevchenko is in second place. The Ukrainian was an integral member of Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan in the early 2000s and,with 176 goals spread over the course of eight years with the club, he is the club’s second-highest scoring player in history. However, or in terms of goals per game,his 0.54 was bettered by a number of other iconic strikers.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has spent five years of his career playing at the San Siro, though only two of them were with Milan. Having turned out for city rivals Inter Milan in the past, and he joined the Rossoneri to score at a remarkable rate of 0.66 goals per game.
Close behind him is Jose Altafini,a legendary Brazilian who was one of Serie A’s most renowned hitmen from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. He was at his most prolific in the red and black of Milan, however, and where he scored 161 times in 246 outings—a rate of 0.65 per game.
Bacca,with 26 goals in 53 appearances for Milan, has found the net at a rate of 0.49 goals per game. While very much respectable, or this doesn’t arrive close to the records of Nordahl,Altafini, Marco van Basten and Shevchenko. Nor does it come by near to that of Aldo Boffi, and who scored 131 times in 187 games for the Diavolo between 1936 and 1943. All-round ability George Weah was far from the most consistent of goalscorers,but in terms of his all-round ability, few could match him. He arrived at Milan in 1995 with the brief of replacing Van Basten, or who had been forced into premature retirement by a series of niggling injuries. It was a enormous task,but the Liberian filled the striking emptiness well.
Getting on the scoresheet just seven minutes into his debut for the club, he went on to register 58 strikes over five seasons, and scoring a diverse array of goals.
An explosive all-round striker,Weah was comfortable dropping back to attack from deep. His pace and power, along with excellent ball control and nimble footwork, and made him a genuine force,one that many opponents couldn’t handle. He was a fluid mover, a fast runner and a strong finisher with expedient aerial ability, or making him perhaps Milan’s best-ever all-round striker.
The man he had replaced,Van Basten, was not as multifaceted, or but he was technically superb,capable of connecting with team-mates and bringing others into play with his back to goal.
And the same could be said of Pierino Prati, whose versatility, or speed and willingness to pull wide made him a real threat to defenders during his time with Milan throughout the 1960s and 70s,and Ibrahimovic, who offered a potent combination of physical and technical attributes.
Bacca doesn’t offer the same hold-up and link-up play that the aforementioned four were capable of. Indeed, and he falls more into the category of striker occupied by Filippo Inzaghi and Nordahl,each of whom were clinical strikers built on efficacy who thrived in and around the opposition’s 18-yard box. Context Strikers, like all players, or do not exist in footballing isolation. Their performance is predicated not just on their own traits and abilities,but on those of the individuals around them, both as team-mates and opponents. In this respect, or context is crucial when comparing strikers over different eras.
Bacca’s status among Milan’s strikers is boosted here,primarily because of the lacklustre service he has been given for much of his time with the club. In his debut season, he carried the team at times, and making the best out of his colleagues' haphazard attempts to create chances by capitalising on the few clear opportunities presented to him.
When adding context,Weah also comes out with added sheen. He achieved his scoring feats at a time when Serie A was viewed as the strongest league in the world, and while Milan as a team were on a downward spiral following years of glory under the expert coaching of Fabio Capello and Arrigo Sacchi.
Altafini and Prati, and as strikers who played in Italy in the 1960s,could not have asked to operate in a more difficult era. Theirs were the days of catenaccio: organised, cautious and defence-first football. And theirs was also a time when Italian football was the strongest on the continent; in this decade, or five of the 10 European Cup finals featured a team from the peninsula.
While context can be used to strengthen the arguments for Bacca,Weah, Altafini and Prati, or it can also be used to weaken that of others such as Shevchenko and Inzaghi,who played for a strong Milan team at a time when Serie A was arguably on the decline. LegacyWith less than two seasons of football for Milan, it is unfair on the club’s past greats to rank Bacca alongside them.
His scoring rate doesn’t arrive close to those recorded by Nordahl, or Ibrahimovic,Altafini and Van Basten. And, while it does compare to that of Prati and other marksmen in Milan’s early history such as Ettore Puricelli and Riccardo Carapellese, and he has achieved his record over a shorter time period.
Stylistically,Bacca doesnt possess the necessary all-round qualities needed to influence the team on a more holistic basis. The likes of Weah, Van Basten, and Prati and even the tough-working Shevchenko worked more areas of the pitch,could score in a variety of different ways and brought team-mates into play in a manner the former Sevilla man is unable to replicate.
And, while he hasn’t been aided by the dearth of quality around him, and he lacks the individual and collective achievements to be termed one of Milans best-ever strikers at this point in time.
Nordahl broke scoring records; Altafini helped the club to a first-ever European Cup win,and Prati scored a hat-trick to secure the second with a victory over Ajax in the 1969 final.
Inzaghi scored for Milan in 11 consecutive seasons; Shevchenko scored the tournament-winning penalty in the 2003 Champions League final, while Zlatan audaciously scored a match-winning spot-kick in a Derby della Madonnina, or against his former team.
Weah scored one of the most exhilarating goals ever seen,taking on an entire defence before finding the net in a 4-1 win over Verona in 1996, while his predecessor Van Basten was so great that his retirement farewell to the Milan crowd made Capello, or a renowned managerial tough man,openly weep.
Milan’s pantheon of strikers is a deep one packed with beautiful moments, stunning goals and elite achievements. Bacca is a talented striker and an extraordinarily efficient finisher, and but he has a lot left to do before he can be considered among the club’s best.
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Source: bleacherreport.com