Who was your favourite player as a kid?

The Cat

Will drink milk from your hands
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Who did you pretend to be in the school yard while playing football?

Was only ever one choice for me.

 
Cantona at an early age, Baggio for my formative years and then Bergkamp as I got hipster in my early to mid teens.
 
My first favourite player/s are from the 1994 Bulgarian national team when we reached 4th in the WC - Letchkov and Mihaylov.

Figo was my first star player favourite.
 
Mine is from the USA '94 too, it's Roberto Baggio. I just fell in love with him in that tournament. Was heartbroken when he missed the pen in the shootout, even though I always support Brazil at the World Cups.
 
Il Fenomeno.

To be fair I'm doing my best post-career emulation too.
 
Insanity said:
Mine is from the USA '94 too, it's Roberto Baggio. I just fell in love with him in that tournament. Was heartbroken when he missed the pen in the shootout, even though I always support Brazil at the World Cups.
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I cried my eyes out when he missed the pen. Every other lad in my class was supporting Brazil and I’d spent the week getting shit for backing Baggio to the hilt.

A few years older and I’d have got credit for backing the underdog but at 11 it was ruthless.
 
Schmeichel. Probably because I was a keeper due to being the only one daft enough to dive on the concrete netball court we used as a 'pitch' at school.

If United were 2-0 or more up, I'd often want the opposition have a few chances just to get to see Big Pete make some saves. :lol:
 
Scholes as a kid, as my brother got there first with Cantona and I couldn't copy him.

As a late teen I was bizarrely a massive hipster fan of Ozil after watching a silly amount of the Euro U21s where he first came to prominence (had far too much spare time back then). Was gutted when he went to Madrid after some very vague hopeful rumours of us being interested.
 
Scholes. And I even liked him more the older he got. I just loved the that grumpy, old ginger in the middle of the park spraying his passes all over the pitch with absolute perfection. And if he got bored doing that, he just smashed the ball from distance in the corner of the net or axed someone.
 
Batigoal. Gabriel Batistuta.

Loved watching Football Italia on channel 4 on a Sunday morning.
 
Rui Costa or Del Piero, couldn't' honestly pick one over the other.
 
My two were Keane and Carrick. Different ends of the spectrum, but both assured and assertive in their roles.

We’ve not had a top midfielder since Carrick’s legs went.
 
I know this very “mainstream”, but for me it was Beckham. He was my hero at the time. I would be glued to the tv, waiting and wishing for him to get the ball. Would go outside at half times and pretend to take free kicks like him.

As my understanding of football grew, so did my awe of Scholes and his ability. I loved watching him play, and found his terrible tackling (relative to the rest of his skills - he was a liability and just used to chop people down constantly) completely funny.
 
Patchbeard said:
Scholes as a kid, as my brother got there first with Cantona and I couldn't copy him.

As a late teen I was bizarrely a massive hipster fan of Ozil after watching a silly amount of the Euro U21s where he first came to prominence (had far too much spare time back then). Was gutted when he went to Madrid after some very vague hopeful rumours of us being interested.
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Good choices! At the time he burst to the scene I was watching the Bundesliga a lot and Werder always were my favorites. Always positive, attacking football, Thomas Schaaf seemed to be a very decent guy while being a really good coach.

And then this skinny little wizard with psycho eyes broke through. Really enjoyed watching him there.
 
Beckham. I was a right winger and obsessed with long passes, crossing and free kicks.


Not that sort of right winger
 
Scholes, just leathering the ball any time it came to you at the edge of the area and expecting it to rifle top bins every time
 
Pancho
stuart-pearson-manchester-united-7603435.jpg.webp
 
First favourite player was Lou Macari closely followed by Jimmy Greenhoff.
 
Back then there was much less football on TV so I used to love things like football Iralianwhen you got to see some of these players up close. I was drawn to enigmatic players. “As a kid” is quite broad, so I’ll cover the period of probably 8 to 16, during which these were some of my favourites for varying reasons:

Darko Pancev
Álvaro Recoba
Dejan Savicevic
Faustino Asprilla
Roberto Baggio
Romario
Rai
Joao Pinto
Paolo Futre
Marco Van Basten
Hristo Stoichkov
Matthias Sammer
Gheorge Hagi
Davor Suker
Diego Maradona
Claudio Cannigia
Gabriel Batistuta
Alessandro Del Piero
Roberto Carlos
Javier Zanetti
Patrick Kluivert
Zvonimir Boban
Carlos Valderrama
Fredy Rincon
Enzo Scifo
Jurgen Klinsmann
Eric Cantona
Fernando Redondo

Loads more. Just a few that came to mind.

Edit: The REAL Ronaldo. I was a bit older when he started really blowing up, but he just about squeezes in there in his PSV and Barca days.
 
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