Andrzej Szarmach

In Poland’s great 1970s side, Andrzej Szarmach was the forward who made all that movement and delivery feel brutally practical. Tall, clever and wonderfully sharp in the box, he had the timing of a classic centre forward but enough technique to combine with teammates rather than simply wait for crosses like furniture. His partnership with Grzegorz Lato and the creative service around him made Poland dangerous in a very specific way: fast, vertical, intelligent and ruthless once the ball reached the penalty area. At the 1974 World Cup he was devastating, then confirmed his value with five goals at the 1976 Olympics. He was not as globally mythologised as Boniek or Lato, but his finishing, aerial strength and positional instinct were elite. Szarmach was the kind of striker defenders lose for one second, then spend the next five years regretting it.