WATCH OUT:The 8 Greatest Attacks in Football History (Ranked)………..
They say the hardest thing to do in football is score goals. In order to win the biggest prizes in the game, an efficient attacking force is paramount to the team’s success. In recent times, front threes have become increasingly popular, especially in England. Pep Guardiola became renowned for playing a three-man forward unit during his time at Barcelona, but Jurgen Klopp was the manager to form one of the most iconic trios in football history at Liverpool.
Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane transformed Liverpool’s attack, guiding them to domestic and European glory. Here is a closer look at the best attacking trios ever, including players from some of the dominant Real Madrid teams and the famous Brazil national team of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Ranking Factors
- Front three: Attack must be made up of an attacking trio.
- Trophies won: Trophies collected during their time together.
- Iconic moments: Moments of brilliance by the attack in an important match.
- Longevity: The length of time playing together at the highest leve
Speaking to Sky Sports in 2020, Gary Neville described the front three of Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo as the “best front three together in the Premier League”. The trio only spent two seasons together, but they enjoyed significant success. In the 2007/08 campaign, Manchester United won the Premier League and the Champions League, beating Chelsea in the final on penalties in Moscow. Ronaldo’s performances, which saw him score 42 goals in 49 appearances in all competitions, resulted in him being awarded the 2008 Ballon d’Or.
The Red Devils continued their dominance of the domestic game in the next season, winning the Premier League with a points tally of 90. They also managed to win the League Cup but were unable to defend their Champions League crown, losing to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in the final.
Salah joined Liverpool in the summer of 2017, with Firmino and Mane already at the club. The Egyptian excelled in his first season at the club, scoring 44 and registering 15 assists. Liverpool narrowly missed out on the Champions League title, losing to Real Madrid in the final. In the summer of 2018, Klopp added talented goalkeeper Alisson to the squad. Virgil van Dijk also joined in January 2018, bolstering Liverpool’s defensive options.
The attacking trio continued to produce devastating performances domestically and in Europe, with a much more solid defence behind them. Liverpool went on to win the Champions League in the 2018/19 campaign and also missed out on the Premier League title by just one point to Manchester City. A year later, Klopp’s side won the league title, ending the club’s 30-year wait.
Domestic success continued in the next few seasons with FA Cup and Carabao Cup trophies added to the cabinet. The front three of Salah, Firmino and Mane remains one of the most dynamic trios in Premier League history under the charismatic management of Klopp. In their time at Anfield together, Salah scored 65 goals and registered 21 assists, Mane pitched in with 44 goals and 17 assists, while Firmino contributed with 35 goals and 16 assists.
There is a statue outside Old Trafford of George Best, Denis Law and Sir Bobby Charlton with the caption, “The United Trinity”. Together, the attacking trio helped secure United’s first European Cup, where they beat Benfica 4-1 in the final. At Wembley Stadium, Charlton scored a brace, and Best also notched to cement their place as the best team in Europe.
Best was the last player out of the three to join United. He joined the club in 1963, a year later than Law and seven years later than Charlton. During their time together in the 1960s, all three players won the Ballon d’Or. They won the English top-flight title twice in three years, in 1965 and 1967. Before a match between Liverpool and United, the former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly, revealed what he said to his playersbefore kick-off:
“I took the models of Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best off the model pitch and put them in my left-hand pocket. Then I told our players: ‘Don’t worry about them, they can’t play at all.’ It was psychology, of course. Charlton, Best and Law were three of the best players in the world.”
Johan Cruyff joined Ajax in 1964. Piet Keizer and Sjaak Swart were already at the club, and, under the new manager, Rinus Michels, who was appointed in 1965, they formed one of the best attacking trios in football history. Ajax’s expansive and innovative style of play, which became known as ‘Total Football’, resulted in three consecutive Eredivisie titles under Michels.
Their domestic success was impressive, but when Feyenoord became the first Dutch side to win the European Cup in 1969, they were keen to deliver against the best of the rest in Europe. They did just that, winning three European Cup titles in a row, beating Panathinaikos, Inter Milan and Juventus in consecutive finals. Cruyff scored a brace in the victory against Inter in 1972, before leaving the club in 1973 to join Barcelona.
Real Madrid have won a record-breaking 15 Champions League titles. The first five of these came in consecutive seasons in the 1950s. Ferenc Puskas joined Alfredo Di Stefano and Francisco Gento at Madrid in 1958 after the club had already won three European Cups in a row. The Hungarian forward helped Los Blancos win the trophy twice more, in 1959 and 1960, with arguably the best European Cup final performance ever in the latter.
Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in the 1960 European Cup final, with Di Stefano scoring three and Puskas scoring four in front of over 127,000 people at Wembley Stadium. In their 1959/60 European Cup campaign, Madrid scored 31 goals in the competition, blowing away every opponent.
3 Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo (1999-2002)
The trio of Rivaldo, Ronaldino and Ronaldo first played together in 1998. Brazil were preparing for the 1999 Copa America with friendlies against various opponents in Europe and South America. Brazil won the 1999 Copa America, beating Uruguay 3-0 in the final. Ronaldo and Rivaldo were the joint top scorers, scoring five each. Rivaldo was awarded the competition’s best player, with the world now aware of the talent in Brazil’s front three.
When people think of this trio, the 2002 World Cup is often what comes to mind first. Brazil won the competition for the fifth time, with Ronaldo scoring eight goals. In fact, Brazil’s front three scored 15 goals between them in their seven matches, with Ronaldo scoring a brace against Germany in the final.
2 Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale (2013-2018)
Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale spent five years at Real Madrid together. From 2013 to 2018, Real Madrid won the Champions League four out of five times. Bale played an important role in two of these title wins, scoring in the victory against Atletico Madrid in 2014 and scoring a brace, which included an overhead kick, against Liverpool in 2018.
Benzema and Ronaldo featured more consistently than the Welsh winger, helping the club achieve domestic success in the 2016/17 campaign, winning La Liga ahead of Barcelona. The Catalan giants dominated La Liga during this period, winning three out of four titles between 2014 and 2018. Despite this, Madrid maintained their dominance in Europe, with all of their front three coming up with critical goals in the latter stages of the competition.
1 Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar (2014-2017)
In three seasons at Barcelona, the front three of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar scored 364 goals and registered 173 assists between them. They won the treble in the 2014/15 campaign, winning both La Liga and the Champions League, with 122 goals shared between the trio. Barcelona defended their La Liga crown in the following season, along with the Copa del Rey.
Neymar’s final year at the club was in the 2016/17 season. Barcelona won the Copa del Rey for the third time in a row, with Messi scoring a remarkable 54 goals in all competitions. The Brazilian winger then departed for Paris Saint-Germain, breaking up the best attacking trio in the history of the game.
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