Christophe Dugarry

Christophe Dugarry was never a striker you understood properly by counting goals, which is convenient, because the numbers were not exactly begging for a parade. Tall, elegant and technically gifted, he played more like a creative forward than a ruthless finisher, using touch, movement and combinations to connect attacks around him. At Bordeaux, Milan, Barcelona and Marseille, his career mixed class with frustration, flashes of high-level quality with long stretches where he seemed too refined for the simple brutality of scoring often. With France, however, his tactical usefulness mattered: in the 1998 World Cup squad he offered intelligence, experience and a link between midfield craft and forward movement. He was not clinical enough to be a great centre-forward, but he had taste, technique and a generous understanding of team play. A flawed but classy support striker, easier to criticise than to replace.