Blog of the Orkut Man United Charity.

Football, the world’s most popular sport, has been aptly named ‘The Beautiful Game’. The pinpoint passing, the dribbles, the scorching long range shots, the curling kicks, even the crunching tackles each aspect of the game adds to its completeness and beauty. My interest in sports has been since my school days, and to be honest like most Indians I started playing and following cricket before football, but once the game entered my life, all others went distant second. The first football match I ever saw was a recording of the 1974 World Cup Final between Netherlands and West Germany, where the Dutch maestro Cruijff, one the best wingers the world has seen, was pitted against the the German legend Beckenbauer. West Germany won the match 2-1 and lifted the cup, but not before Cruijff had captured a young boy’s imagination. I started following Manchester United around the same time and the wing wizards Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelskis were the main reason I started following the club. Both were wingers with an eye for the goal, and a style of play with attacking runs. The aura and history of the club viz; The Busby Babes, their great achievements under Sir Matt Busby cemented my relationship with Manchester United but Giggs and Kanchelskis will always remain the reason I started following them. Ryan Giggs is and will always remain my all time favorite football player. Although Kanchelskis left in 95, his position was more than ably filled up by David Beckham and his vacant position has been filled up by Cristiano Ronaldo. Manchester United has always made very effective use of wingers and under the stewardship of Sir Alex Ferguson; this has been a corner stone of their attacking style of play

By now anyone will have understood that from the day I saw Cruijff till today, wingers have always fascinated me. It’s the one position which, according to me has been perfectly named, as I think that wingers truly are players with wings. They don’t bother to run on the pitch, they simply fly. They make the other players look like some a bunch of schoolboys while themselves epitomizing the beauty of the game. The blistering pace which leaves the opposition defenders miles behind and crowd spellbound before breaking into a roar, the outrageous dribbles and the one-twos against the players, the soaring crosses which drop right in place for a striker to head the ball into goal, all are just a day on the pitch for a talented winger. And it is the continued display of these skills which makes football matches very endearing to watch. Only a very die-hard fan will pick to watch a modern day Chelsea-Liverpool snooze over the breath-taking antics of a Cristiano Ronaldo.

Winger is one of the two out-and-out attacking type players on the pitch, the other being the striker. There is simply no such thing as a defensive winger. Wingers are supposed to run through defenders and support strikers by creating goal scoring opportunities. They are supposed to stretch defenses allowing other players to exploit the gaps to attack the opposition. Teams like Manchester United which effectively employ wingers are far more attacking than teams who don’t and for people like me, much more endearing to watch. South Americans are considered to be the players with true flair, a fact which is accepted by many fans and players alike, but wingers are still the best players to watch on pitch, an interesting clash considering the fact that some of the best wingers are and have been of European origin.

To give a tactical overview, wingers can be classified as wide-forwards in traditional formations, but today are more or less attacking midfielders. They are used in standard 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 and 4-3-3 formations. Their primary aim is to beat opposing fullbacks by dribbling around them and delivering crosses from wide positions. These requirements make wingers, usually the most technically gifted players in the team. They are pacey, have excellent ball control, passing, crossing and top it off very good dribbling skills. Wingers do have defensive duties but they are very limited and in a normal game, wingers are expected to deal with the attacking aspect of the game and not the defensive. And above that they are very wily players, adept in the use of trickery and guile to bamboozle their seemingly witless opponents.

In the last couple of decades we have seen some very good wingers, inspite of the fact that football more and more is becoming a very technical game and the beauty of the game is on the decline. Ryan Giggs has of course been there all along and is still there right up with the best, an amazing fact considering he has been playing top flight game for almost 17 years. Andrei Kanchelskis, David Beckham, Luis Figo, Mauro Camoranesi, Karel Poborsky, Robert Pires and in the recent times Cristiano Ronaldo, Arjen Robben, Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Joaquin, Alexander Hleb, Cicinho, Maxi Rodríguez, Jesus Navas and to certain extent Robin van Persie all are excellent examples and each of them has the capability to single-handedly smash through opposition defenses to either create goals or score them. There isn’t any person in this world, no matter how much a non-football fan, who cannot appreciate the on pitch trickery of Cristiano Ronaldo, or the pin-point passing of David Beckham. French great Henry began his career on the flanks before becoming a forward, and it is those skills which are a major reason for his ability to do his attacking runs. You just need to watch small clips of all these players to understand what kind of greats they are . . .

Who can forget the legendary goal by Giggs 99 FA-Cup semi-final, where he dribbled past 5 Arsenal players on the way to history or the performances of Luis ‘Lion King’ Figo for Barcelona and Madrid or the lob-shot specialist Poborsky and in recent times the trickery of the Portuguese Golden Boy, Ronaldo. They have truly lorded over football pitches . . .

The words

Take flight let your wings unfold

Only you can really be so bold

The open sky is your goal

Fly away, O liberated soul

truly suit a winger

and in these times, we look to likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and his fellow Lords of the Wings to restore football to its former beauty