5 weird stereotypes in football

#2 Short players are good dribblers

The look on Scholes’ face when he realises that he has to dribble past the wind

Well, let’s just blame Lionel Messi for this. The Argentine’s mesmeric dribbling ability has been wowing the world for the past decade and it is for him—and Diego Maradona prior to him—that people sometimes overestimate the ball-controlling abilities of short players.

While it is true that short players have a lower centre of gravity and, as a result, better chances of being a good dribbler, being short doesn’t guarantee one’s place as a great dribbler. Theo Walcott, for instance, isn’t exactly an epitome of a dexterity on the ball.

Similarly, players like Vurnon Anita, Jay Spearing, Clause Makelele, Philipp Lahm, Paul Scholes, Andrea Pirlo and countless others were short but weren’t as great dribblers as shorter players are made out to be.