Zvonimir Soldo

Soldo’s football was almost aggressively unspectacular, which is a compliment if one has not been raised by highlight reels. At Stuttgart and with Croatia, he worked as a tall defensive midfielder/centre-back hybrid, protecting central lanes, winning aerial duels and giving the team a physically imposing reference in front of or inside the back line. His value lived in spacing, screening and tempo control after recovery, the kind of ugly intelligence every balanced side secretly worships.