Top 5 strikers who have truly excelled for FC Barcelona

For a club as famous, and as committed to attacking football as Barcelona, it might be surprising to note that the team does not actually have a long list of top strikers.

This is due to the fact that the way the Blaugrana usually play means that the main striker is more often than not supplanted by certain players around them. In fact, it is safe to say that the club has a longer/better tradition of outstanding wingers and playmakers.

This has led to certain situations where top quality strikers like David Villa and Thierry Henry have been deployed as left wingers to accommodate the genius of players like Lionel Messi in the middle.

Some quality strikers in the club’s history have also had to accept to play second fiddle like Patrick Kluivert did while Rivaldo was at the club. Not all strikers have been as accepting of this philosophy though (the name Zlatan Ibrahimovic comes to mind).

Because this article is about actual strikers and not goalscorers, players like Leo Messi, Johan Cruyff, Ronaldinho and others have been omitted.

Despite all this, the club has had some pretty special strikers who have been brilliant in the famous Blau I Vermeil (Blue and Red) jersey.

On that note, here is a look at 5 of the very best:

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#5 Patrick Kluivert (1998-2004)

Kluivert was an exceptional forward who always delivered

While Kluivert’s career at Barca was not as trophy-laden as he would have hoped, the Dutchman more than delivered on the promise he showed during his days at Ajax Amsterdam (he scored the winning goal in the UEFA Champions League final in 1995 against Juventus).

For a man as tall as he was; 1.88m, he possessed an immaculate first touch and was fleet-footed which helped him get on the end of passes/crosses from such brilliant players like Rivaldo, Luis Figo, and many others during his time at the Nou Camp.

He had joined the club on transfer deadline day in August 1998 for a fee of £8.75m and during his time with the club, he finished as top scorer for the team in four of the five seasons he spent at the club.

Culés loved him for his brilliant aerial ability, intelligence and ability to dribble past opponents (he was as adept at making the Cruyff turn as any player apart from the maestro: Johan Cruyff himself).

Despite his undoubted talent, he had disciplinary issues and clashed with managers more than once during his time at the club especially fellow Dutchman Louis van Gaal.

Kluivert left the club in 2004 with a respectable goal tally of 124 goals in 249 appearances, but with just a solitary La Liga title.

#4 Quini (1980-1984)

Quini was a great scorer of goals despite his rather ungainly appearance

Despite scoring more for hometown club Sporting de Gijón than he did for Barca, Enrique Castro González (Quini’s full name) was a brilliant striker for the Blaugrana and fully merits his place on this list.

The brilliant Asturian was famous for his aerial abilities, his quick thinking which helped him get into good scoring positions and despite his rather ungainly appearance, quick feet that always seemed to have that extra step whenever it came to burying the ball in the net.

The well-loved striker, who was famously kidnapped during his Barca days, was a goal-scoring monster and won the Trofeo Pichichi (award for La Liga’s top scorer each season awarded by the influential Madrid-based newspaper; Marca) 5 times during his playing career (three times at Sporting de Gijón and twice as a Barcelona player).

Despite playing for just four seasons at the Nou Camp and the trauma associated with his kidnapping, Quini scored 112 goals in 178 games for Barca and won five trophies during his time with the club.

#3 Samuel Eto'o (2004–2009)

Eto was a supreme predator who almost always delivered for the team no matter the circumstances

The Black Diamond, Eto’s journey to playing at the Nou Camp was the opposite of someone like Josep Samitier’s as he was signed first for Real Madrid before moving to Barcelona after three highly productive seasons at Real Mallorca.

A brilliant striker who was as strong as he was fast, Eto'o was a terror during his Barca days as his pace, power, aggression, aerial ability and deadly finishing made him a nightmare.

Due to his high intelligence levels, he was able to dovetail very well with such geniuses as Ronaldinho, Messi, Thierry Henry and others during his 5-season stint at Barcelona and it wasn’t until Pep Guardiola arrived and found the team in need of a reboot that the three-time African Footballer of the Year had to leave the club in 2011 (he won a treble with the team in Pep’s first season).

A very intelligent person, he had issues with various managers during his time at the club, famously refusing to come on for a game against Racing de Santander in a La Liga match in 2007 and was also respected for his forthright views on racism.

His tally of 131 goals in 200 games was a phenomenal record and he remains the 8th highest goalscorer in the club’s history.

#2 Josep Samitier (1919–1932)

Samitier was influential for the club as a player, technical staff, and manager

Goals are the currency with which strikers “purchase” the adulation of their fans and by that criteria, Samitier was a classy goalscorer who would always have a pride of place whenever a roll call of legends is taken at the Nou Camp.

He initially started out as a midfielder but was converted into a striker by legendary manager Jack Greenwell.

The Culés of that era loved him for his personality and style of play which earned him the nicknames of Home Llagosta (The Grasshopper Man) due to his ability to stretch out a leg and get the ball into the net and Surrealista (The Surrealist) due to his “magical” ability to always be in the right place at the right time.

His record is absolutely sensational; he scored 326 goals in 454 games for the Blaugrana (fourth highest ever behind Messi, César and Laszlo Kubala) and was thought to be the best European forward of his time.

The Barca team of that era was built around him and his popularity helped the move from the old Camp de la Indústria stadium at to the newer, bigger stadium of Camp de Les Corts (Barcelona’s stadium until the Nou Camp was built in 1957).

Despite leaving the club to spend a season with arch-rivals Real Madrid (then known as Madrid CF), Samitier was welcomed back with open arms and as manager, he led the club to its second-ever La Liga title (he was the top scorer in the team that won the first ever La Liga title in 1929)

He is also credited with being the brain behind the signing of possibly the greatest ever player to wear the Barca jersey; Laszlo Kubala.

#1 Laszlo Kubala (1951–1961)

The King; Kubala was the G.O.A.T before Messi's arrival on the scene

Before Messi became the peerless G.O.A.T (Greatest of all time) that he has become, a question to Culés about who had been the greatest player in the club’s history would have been met by one unanimous answer; Ladislao Kubala Stecz.

The Hungarian was Barca’s answer to Real Madrid’s Ferenc Puskas and in 1999, on the occasion of Barcelona’s centenary celebrations, he was voted the club’s greatest ever player.

Although not exactly a number 9 player (he was more of a second striker but was more than capable of playing on his own upfront), Kubala is on this list due to the rather exhausting number and range of goals he plundered while wearing Barcelona’s colours.

Some strikers are great goal scorers while some are scorers of great goals; the famous Barca number 9 was the best of both.

Renowned for his pace, dribbling ability, intelligence and a right foot that caused terror to many a goalkeeper; Kubala was persuaded to sign for the club by the then technical secretary, a certain Samitier.

The rest, as they say, is history and after plundering 281 goals in 357 games for the club and winning a host of titles including 4 La Liga titles, he left for Catalan rivals RCD Espanyol.