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The left fullback position is one that is ridiculously hard to fill from a management perspective. For starters only about one in five players (20%) favour using their left foot over their right.
Also, they have to be disciplined enough to play in defence so it’s only a tiny number of a very small group of players that can play left back.
Given this background, it becomes appropriate to pay homage to five of the very best players in this most crucial of positions who have been active within the last two decades (1997-2017).
The players on this list have combined have a staggering eleven Champions League winners medals between them, mindblowing thirty-one league titles, 568 international caps and many more honours.
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#5 Ashley Cole (England)
Clubs: Arsenal, Crystal Palace (Loan), Chelsea, AS Roma, LA Galaxy
Never a player far away from controversy in one form or another, Ashley Cole made the England left-back position his own in the years he represented his country.
He began at Arsenal and was an integral part of the Invincibles side that won the 03/04 Premier League title with great ease.
He also won the FA Cup thrice with the North London side and then after seven years with the club he decided to depart and join fierce London rivals Chelsea in what was the first transfer in which the whole ‘tapping up’ thing was especially prevalent.
International Caps: 107 | Honours: Premier League x3, FA Cup x7, League Cup, Community Shield x3, Champions League, Europa League.
His success continued at Stamford Bridge where he won everything possible in the domestic game, albeit, he will be slightly disappointed that he only added one more Premier League winners medal to the two he won at Arsenal.
One of the highlights of his career will be that he scored a decisive penalty in the shootout in the Champions League final versus Bayern Munich in 2012.
In his last season at Chelsea, he found himself second choice to Azpilicueta and played a lot less than he had done in the seasons that preceded it, but in a touch of class, he was made captain in his last game for Chelsea before he was released at the end of his contract in 2014.
Internationally, he was part of the so-called "Golden Generation" that was a lot of things other than golden. He played alongside Beckham, Owen, Lampard, Gerrard and more.
An awful lot was expected of the England side going into the 2004 European Championships and the 2006 World Cup, however, on both occasions they were knocked out in the Quarter Finals to Portugal, a major disappointment for England.
Cole sits sixth on the ‘Caps Won’ for England list, one ahead of Bobby Charlton and one behind Bobby Moore, a feat that he can be incredibly proud of and his only disappointment in what was a career filled with more winners medals than you can count, would be that he didn’t get any silverware internationally.
#4 Bixente Lizarazu (France)
Clubs: Bordeaux, Athletic Bilbao, Bayern Munich (x2), Marseille
The France side which won consecutive major honours in ’98 and ’00 contained Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Didier Deschamps and many more blockbuster names.
So you would be forgiven for not remembering number four on the list, Bixente Lizarazu, who was a lynchpin in both the World Cup & European Championship winning sides, doing his job extremely well without any drama.
Lizarazu stated his club football at Bordeaux and it was there where he found his earliest success, winning the Ligue 2 title as they bounced back at the earliest opportunity after dropping from France’s top flight.
After a ten-year association with Bordeaux he was off to Spain and became the first French player to play for Athletic Bilbao (albeit being a French Basque, he fit into the club's Basque-only policy), however, it did not last long at all as he was soon off to Bavaria, to join the German giants who are Bayern Munich.
International Caps (Goals): 97 (2) | Honours: Ligue 2, Intertoto Cup, DFB Ligapokal x4, DFB Pokal x5, Bundesliga x6, Champions League, Intercontinental Cup, World Cup, European Championships, Confederations Cup x2
It was the 1996 UEFA Cup Final when Lizarazu, who was still at Bordeaux, first caught the eye of Bayern but instead of snapping him up on a free from the French club in the summer of the aforementioned final, then then had to spend over £4m to pry him from Athletic Bilbao, which back in 1997, was considered quite a bit of money.
Bayern, in hindsight, was his adopted footballing home and its where it all fell into place for Lizarazu, domestically and internationally. In the years he was at Munich he won a staggering SEVENTEEN winners medals in a spell where Bayern well and truly dominated Germany and he was also playing his club football won he won the honours with France, as well.
He had a brief spell away from Munich when he decided to go back to France to join Marseille. Unsurprisingly though, six months later, he was back at Germany’s most successful club and that’s also where he ended up his magnificent career.
#3 Philip Lahm (Germany)
Clubs: Bayern Munich, Stuttgart (Loan).
In a somewhat romantic way, positions three and four links together quite nicely as Philip Lahm was Lizarazu’s replacement at Bayern Munich and was the reason why Lizarazu didn’t feature as much in the latter stages of his career.
Lahm isn’t a left back by trade, so his inclusion on this list could be debated, but when you consider that he played a lot of his football there despite his favoured position being the right full back, it is only fair that the German is included on the list.
“The most intelligent player I have ever trained” was what none other than Pep Guardiola said of him when he took charge at Bayern, bear in mind this is the same Pep Guardiola that has trained Leo Messi amongst other players, so it is a huge compliment.
By the time Pep had joined, Lahm had already hit double figures in terms of winners medals and the tally would only rise under the stewardship of the Spaniard as Bayern became the first side to win the Bundesliga five times in a row.
International Caps (Goals): 113 (5) | Honours: Bundesliga x8, DFB Pokal x6, DFL Ligapokal, DFL Supercup Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, Club World Cup, World Cup
He had a few carrots dangled in front of him a few times whilst he was at Bayern in the form of a transfer to Barcelona and Man United, to name just two, but he stayed loyal to Munich, the club he joined at the age of eleven.
Lahm was duly rewarded for this as he became Munich’s captain and led them to even more glory, winning the treble of the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal & Champions League in the 2012/13 season, something which had not been done before in Germany.
He won everything possible with Bayern Munich and nearly replicated that with Germany, but the European Championships evaded him. He got a World Cup winner's medal in 2014 and it was rather fitting that it was at his last international tournament that he finally lifted the trophy.
With 113 caps, he is fifth on all the time appearances for the German national side and he will most definitely be remembered very fondly for club and country.
#2 Roberto Carlos (Brazil)
Clubs: Uniao Sao Jao, Atletico Mineiro (Loan), Palmeiras, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Fenerbahce, Corinthians, Anzhi Makhachkala, Delhi Dynamos
Nine clubs spread over three continents is a slightly different pattern to the others on the list, but Roberto Carlos was a player who would have been the first choice in everybody’s World Team XI at some point in the past.
It wasn’t his defending that he was most famous for though, it was his ferocious left foot and THAT goal against France which defied all laws of physics.
He began in his native Brazil where he picked up winner's medal after winner's medal with Palmeiras and that was a sign of things to come for the fullback who was named in the ‘best foreign eleven in Real Madrid’s history by Marca in 2013’.
In between Palmeiras and Madrid, he dipped his toes into the waters of Serie A with Inter Milan. He announced himself with a rocket of a free kick on his debut, however, if something isn’t meant to be, then it is not meant to be and he departed a year later after a difference of opinion with Roy Hodgson on his best position.
International Caps (Goals): 125 (11) | Honours: Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A x2, Campeonato Paulista x2, Torneio Rio-Sao Paulo, La Liga x4, Supercopa de Espana x3, Champions League x3, Intercontinental Cup x2, UEFA Super Cup, Turkish Super Cup x2, World Cup, Copa America x2, Confederations Cup.
Roberto Carlos was and arguably still is the greatest left-back ever to grace La Liga and with his tally of four La Liga titles, three Champions League winners medals, three Spanish Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and one UEFA Super Cup, it is easy to see why.
He scored so many important goals for Real and assisted what could be described as the greatest Champions League final goal of all time when he set up Zinedine Zidane in 2002 against Bayer Leverkusen; its safe to say Roberto Carlos is one of the greats to play at the Bernabeu.
He left Spain behind and tried his luck in Turkey at Fenerbache where the league title eluded him but he did pick up two Turkish Super Cup winners medals but the spell in Turkey was short lived as he decided to return to his homeland and play for Corinthians.
It was not a happy spell back in Brazil though as he was threatened by his own fans after a Copa Libertadores defeat, so he was released from his contract and was on the move again, this time a big money move to Russia and Anzhi Makhachkala. This Russian side were splashing the cash left, right and centre, having Samuel Eto’o up front in what was an expensively assembled team, yet glory evaded them on all counts, meaning that there were to be no more trophies for Roberto Carios.
With what happened at Corinthians, you’d have thought that he had not won much in terms of winners medals for Brazil and all of his success had been domestic, however, that is anything but the case.
In 2002 Brazil won their second World Cup in Carlos's third attendance of the global showpiece. Alongside his teammates, Brazil were runners-up at the ’98 World Cup; Roberto Carlos was too young to be part of the victorious ’94 side, but he was very much a focal point of their 2002 success, scoring their first in a 4-0 rout of China and also starting the final against Germany.
In addition to the World Cup winner’s medal, he also was part of the side that won two Copa Americas, so its fair to say that Roberto Carlos was extremely successful domestically and internationally.
#1 Paolo Maldini (Italy)
Clubs: AC Milan.
It was an incredibly difficult decision whether to put Roberto Carlos or Paolo ‘One Club’ Maldini at number one on the list, but in the end, the Italian won it and one of the deciding factors was that he played at the highest level for just shy of twenty-five years, eventually retiring at the ripe old age of 41.
Honours: Serie A x7, Coppa Italia, Supercoppa Italiana x3, European Cup/Champions League x5, UEFA Super Cup x4, Intercontinental Cup x2, Club World Cup.
Maldini, who joined AC Milan’s youth set up at the age of ten broke into the first team squad at the age of 16 and never really looked back from there, his trophy haul speaks for itself.
Whilst he was in a backline with some greats like Franco Baresi, it was also apparent that he wasn't going to be around for much longer and when the mid-nineties arrived, Baresi retired meaning it was Maldini’s turn to step up to the plate and lead Milan.
The first few years of his captaincy were a rather transitional stage and despite winning the league title in the 1998/99 season, they were yet to reassert themselves as the dominant force within Italian football, however that changed when Carlo Ancelotti took over the reigns.
In the next few years, they would return to being a powerhouse on Europe’s main stage, winning the Champions League twice in five years and that was all built on the solid foundations of an incredibly strong back line which was spearheaded by Paolo Maldini.
He would have had another UCL winner's medal in 2007 but was on the losing end of Liverpool’s amazing come back in the 2005 final and an injury-time loss to Olympique Marseille in 1993. When Milan defeated Liverpool in 2007 final, Maldini became the oldest skipper to lift the trophy.
Over the course of his career, Maldini would feature in over an incredible 1,000 official matches, making him the first outfield player ever to do so and only the second person ever behind Peter Shilton to achieve such a feat.
Perhaps, the only regret Maldini will have, similarly to Ashley Cole is that he never quite got to lift a trophy with Italy. He got closer than Cole, though, finishing as runners-up at Euro 2000 and at the World Cup in 1994; one thing is for sure, despite his lack of international accolades, he’ll be remembered as truly the greatest left back of the last 20 yrs.
