Good footballers are nothing if not versatile and the very best often adapt their game over time to get even better. Several big stars started out playing in a hugely different position than we would even recognise them in today though.
Here’s a look at seven top quality players whose careers all might have been very different, or even non-existence, had they not undergone such a big change at an early age.
7. Gareth Bale (Left-Back)
Gareth Bale became the world’s most expensive footballer when he joined Real Madrid for €100m in the summer of 2013. The flying Welsh winger had enjoyed a monumental season for Tottenham, but had only been deployed as an attacking player for three years.
He was a left-back when he joined Spurs in 2007, having earned an excellent reputation as a teenager at Southampton. Bale struggled at White Hart Lane though and was even on the verge of leaving when he was eventually utilised further forward at the age of 20.
Speaking in 2014, Tottenham’s former Director of Football, Damien Comolli, explained, “Spurs actually told Harry Redknapp where to play Gareth Bale, because he wanted to get rid of him. Data was showing Bale would be an outstanding left winger when they were playing him at left-back.”
6. Rio Ferdinand (Attacking Midfielder)
Among England’s greatest and most decorated players, Rio Ferdinand spent more than 10 years bullying forwards as a world class centre-back at the very top of his game during time with Leeds and then more famously Manchester United.
He has always been more comfortable on the ball than most defenders though and that perhaps comes from his days as a goalscoring attacking midfielder at youth level.
In the 1980s one of the Ferdinand’s first coaches nicknamed the young star ‘Pele’ for his natural technique and ability, while his first football idol was Liverpool and England legend John Barnes. He spent two seasons pulling the creative strings for Eltham Town, but when various professional London clubs scouted him it was already with a view to moulding his physical stature into defensive attributes.
5. Carles Puyol (Goalkeeper and Striker)
Everyone knows recently retired Barcelona legend Carles Puyol as an all action central defender, winning headers and making last ditch tackles. But it took the Catalan native quite a while and several different positions before he eventually settled as a footballer.
“When I was young I played as a goalkeeper but I had a back problem and stopped. I played striker too,” he revealed in 2006, adding that his parents were initially sceptical of his plans to pursue a career in football, preferring an academic life.
After joining the famed La Masia academy in 1995, Puyol switched to a deep lying midfielder role, before becoming a right-back – the position in which he established himself in the first team. It was only a few years later that he moved to the heart of the defence.
4. Wilfried Bony (Defender)
In 2011/12 Wilfried Bony scored 37 goals in 36 games for Vitesse Arnhem and was third only to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in the goalscoring leaderboard for the whole of Europe. His first time playing up front came by complete chance though.
Speaking about his early life in an interview last year, the Manchester City striker explained, “I used to be a defender, then one game our forward got injured, I went up front, scored twice and the coach said, “You’re not a stopper anymore’.”
The Ivorian cites the Brazilian Ronaldo as his inspiration after switching positions, but if his father had had his way Bony might not even be a footballer at all. “He would say, ‘Go to school and after that you can play. There are other people, like doctors, who play football’,” the player recalled.
3. Michael Carrick (Striker)
These days Michael Carrick often provides the goals for Manchester United, sitting deep in midfield and spraying pinpoint passes all over the field. In his much younger days, he was the one banging them in though.
Speaking about when he first started playing at the North East’s famous Wallsend Boys Club, Carrick recalled, “Believe it or not, I used to get the odd goal or two. I think if you ask a lot of the lads who are playing professionally now, they were probably all a striker at some stage, because it used to be, ‘stick them up front and score goals’.”
The veteran has even often filled in at centre-back for Manchester United in recent seasons, joking, “I’ve gradually got moved further and further back, and I’m still going.”
2. Thibaut Courtois (Left-Back)
Three seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid helped make Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois one of the best in the world. However, he hasn’t always donned the gloves, beginning his youth career as a promising full-back.
The Belgian recently explained “I started as a left-back. Because I played volleyball I had good reflexes and I liked to dive, so sometimes I went in goal when we rotated. I won the best goalkeeper award at a couple of tournaments and the idea grew that maybe I had more future as a goalkeeper than a defender.”
By the time he was 11 years of age, Courtois was playing in goal on a more regular basis and the rest, as they say, is history.
1. Fernando Torres (Goalkeeper)
Once one of the most feared strikers in the world, Fernando Torres is now finding his feet again at boyhood club Atletico Madrid, but it might have been quite different had he had things his own way growing up.
The former Liverpool and Chelsea front-man loved playing as a goalkeeper when he was younger and still takes the gloves every now and again in training, but it was his mother that prevented him from pursuing a career between the sticks.
“My brother was a keeper and I used to enjoy playing with him in the street. One day the ball knocked my front teeth out and my mum wouldn’t let me play in goal anymore,” he recalled in an interview back in 2011.