da brdice： Chelsea had a bad day at the office on Tuesday night in the Champions League.
da heads bet： The Blues hosted Bayern Munich at Stamford Bridge in the first leg of their round of 16 tie, and they were dominated from start to finish. The Bundesliga champions amassed 64% possession of the ball, whilst they also had 16 shots at goal to their opponents’ nine.
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Left-back Alphonso Davies caused the south west London outfit plenty of problems down his flank.
The £36m-valued 19-year-old – as per Transfermarkt – assisted Robert Lewandowski’s strike, whilst he also completed six of the seven dribbles he attempted and won eight out of 10 ground duels.
Given his accomplished defensive performance, you wouldn’t have thought the Canada international is actually a winger by trade – he scored eight goals and provided 10 assists during the 2018 MLS season, at which point Bayern decided to take him to Germany.
He is not the only player to reinvent himself and progress in a new position though.
Here are five other stars from world football who have completed similar transitions.
Joshua Kimmich, RB to CDM
It seems that the Bavarian giants enjoy using players in different positions than what they are used to.
Germany international Kimmich was arguably one of the best right-backs on the planet in the past two full seasons – he managed 24 Bundesliga assists from the role for Bayern during that time. However, both Hansi Flick and Joachim Low clearly see him as a defensive midfielder, and that is the role he has taken up during this season.
You can see the value in that – he has averaged a WhoScored rating of 6.91 at right-back this season compared to 7.5 in the middle of the park. He has still managed to make a creative impact, with two goals and five assists to his name in all competitions, and playing in the middle allows him to play a bigger role – he has averaged over four more passes per match in the Bundesliga compared to last time out.
Gareth Bale, LB to LW
Bale wasn’t always a world star. When he moved to Tottenham from Southampton for £5m in 2007, Spurs did not win any of the first 24 matches in which he made an appearance. He started out as a left-back for the Saints, and it was a return of five goals and 11 assists from that position in the Championship that caught the eye of the Premier League club.
In his first three campaigns – 2007/08, 2008/09 and 2009/10 – he played the majority of his matches in the back-line. Harry Redknapp even said in December 2009: “I’m not looking for a left-back because you won’t get a better one than Gareth Bale.”
In 2010/11, though, he gradually progressed forward, and would play 36 matches at left midfield. It was against Internazionale in the Champions League when he announced himself to the world as an attacking threat – he scored a hattrick, effectively ending right-back Maicon’s career at the highest-level – “Taxi for Maicon”.
He would go on to play 132 games on the left in a more attacking role, scoring 46 goals and providing 39 assists. That convinced Real Madrid to make him the most expensive player in football history in 2013, and he has since scored over 100 times for Los Merengues.
Thierry Henry, LW to ST
The France international is one of the greatest Premier League strikers of all time – with 228 goals in 375 matches for Arsenal, he is their all-time record goalscorer – but he wasn’t always a centre-forward. He was signed from Juventus by Arsene Wenger having failed to make an impact on the left flank. The boss decided to play him through the middle, but after failing to score in his first seven Premier League matches, the former AS Monaco man wanted to change roles. Henry once said: “At a certain point, I wanted to go to Wenger and tell him to put me back out wide.”
This is just one of the many reasons why Wenger is one of the greatest managers in English football history. He could still play on the left flank, as he showed when he moved to Barcelona – he scored 37 goals in 73 matches there according to Transfermarkt for the Blaugrana – but it was up top where he made his mark on the beautiful game.
Javier Mascherano, CDM to CB
It took just seven games for Liverpool to be convinced to sign the Argentina international from West Ham, and he would go on to be a formidable figure in defensive midfield for the Reds – he played 67 matches there, according to Transfermarkt. It was his performances in the middle of the park that convinced Barcelona to sign the now Estudiantes player, with a fee of around €30m (£25.2m) being agreed.
However, with Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Sergio Busquets in midfield, it was always going to be hard for Mascherano to make his mark in that position. Instead, he re-invented himself as a centre-back.
According to Transfermarkt, he would go on to play 260 matches there for the Blaugrana, whilst he also played at the heart of the defence in the 2014 World Cup as the Albiceleste made the final.
Philipp Lahm, LB to RB to CDM
There are very few players who have been world class in three different positions, but Phillip Lahm is one of them. He started off his career on the left of the back four, with him scoring the first goal at the 2006 World Cup in that position. He was hugely successful, playing 164 times for Bayern Munich as the Bavarians won the Bundesliga three times in the first decade of the century.
However, with the emergence of David Alaba, Lahm was moved over to the opposite flank, and arguably got even better. As Bayern won the Champions League, he racked up 19 assists during the 2012/13 campaign. All in all, he managed 261 games there.
Then, under Pep Guardiola, he was even used in defensive midfield. He also played there for four out of the seven games of the 2014 World Cup, which Germany won – he was the captain. Arguably one of the most versatile players in the history of football, Lahm completed each transition with relative ease, writing himself into the annals of the game in the process.