This is the recency bias that is killing football memory.
Yes, Harry Kane is a beautiful footballer. He drops deep, he plays like a 10, he sprays passes. But don't you dare use him to rewrite what Robert Lewandowski WAS for us.
Lewandowski wasn't there to be pretty. He was there to be LETHAL.
He was a poacher, a killer, a pure number 9. He didn't need to drop to the halfway line to feel important. He lived in the box, on the shoulder of the last defender, where it hurts the most. That takes courage. That takes instinct you cannot teach.
Remember? 41 goals in a single Bundesliga season. Breaking Gerd Muller's 50 year record. 5 goals in 9 minutes against Wolfsburg. A Champions League won in Lisbon where he was the top scorer and the monster that carried Bayern. He didn't assist the build-up, he FINISHED it. And that is why they won.
This new purist agenda that a striker MUST deep-ly and MUST create is trying to erase the poachers. They want every striker to be a midfielder. No.
You play football how you feel it. You play how it is most efficient for you. If your efficiency is 50 goals a season inside the box, then stay inside the box. What matters is how much DANGER you bring, how much SUCCESS you bring to the club.
Kane is playing great football. But Lewandowski gave us FEAR. And for 8 years, every defender in Europe slept with fear because Lewa was waiting in that box.
Poachers, speak up now. Defend your art before they tell your kids that scoring goals is not enough.