We’ve not done one of these in AGES – so here is another addition to our footballing lexicon – the ‘Trequartista’.

A trequartista is a term coined for that mythical ‘second striker’ role, someone who plays in the hole, creates and scores, and is usually supremely gifted.

The Trequartista is not a new advent:

The Austrian ‘Wunderteam’ of the early 1930s had great success with Mathias Sindelar, a centre-forward who constantly dropped deep, and Vsevolod Bobrov did similarly for the Dynamo Moscow tourists who so delighted British crowds in 1945.

It was then Nandor Hidegkuti’s role as a deep-lying centre-forward that so perplexed England when Hungary won 6-3 at Wembley in 1953. If Johnston followed Hidegkuti, he left a hole in the centre of England’s rearguard; if he stayed put, Hidegkuti roamed free.

And is still very much active today – think Baggio and Raul through to currently Aguero and Rooney. Players who are undoubtedly forwards, but drop off into ‘the hole’ to dictate and link play. Think Cantona, think Bergkamp. Think Totti. Think Del Piero.

That is basically a list of my favourite players.

Players who are so good, can be so influential, that a position is carved out for them.They score, they create, they beat players, they link play. They are skilful and difficult to mark.

They are also often difficult to describe, as ‘Trequartista’ has yet to infiltrate its way into the vocabulary of the common football fan.

Hopefully we can begin that process…

‘Trequartista’ – a special type of second striker who plays in ‘the hole’ offering creativity and a goal threat.

I love Trequartistas.

We’ve found an excellent list of the best online football based games – http://myfootballgames.co.uk. We’ll get round to playing and reviewing all of these eventually, but read on for our first; Roberto Baggio’s Magical Kicks (click here to access it).

The best way to do this is probably for me to recount a story from my University days, when I first stumbled across this gem. With abundant time and a fascination for football games, I made it my immediate ambition to top the all time leaderboard. No mean feat, as the leader had several thousand successful ‘kicks’ at the time. It’s addictiveness and longevity is proven by my assault, which lasted several days (an hour or two per evening, often after getting in from a night out), then weeks – after about six weeks, without turning off my laptop, I had crept up to about sixth, with several hundred kicks to my name.

At this juncture I should mention there is no ‘save’ function, so your score is dynamic, and when you navigate away or close the window, that’s your final total. So imagine my distress when, upon coming back from a rare venture to a lecture, I opened the door to my room, firstly to be met with the sweet smell of cleanliness that marked a visit by the cleaner, then the gut wrenching feeling of panic as I saw the plug from my laptop lying loose on the floor.

No, no… it couldn’t be. After all my weeks of hard work propelling myself up the leaderboard, the cleaner had replaced my laptop plug with that of the hoover! Without any save function, I was doomed. My stomach tightened. I was short of breath. Suddenly it occured to me; what if it had gone to standby in battery mode?! There was still hope! I dropped everything on the floor, swept up my little Dell laptop, and with a deep breath, pressed the power button. Nothing. I pressed and held it a little longer. Nothing. I sat, demoralised and inconsolable. All my work out of the window. Gone, like that, in one fell swoop.

My one hope was that my score had somehow been saved, cached, registered, anything. I plugged it in. I turned it on. Nothing on Baggio’s Magical Kicks. No record of my hard work, dedication, and persistence. I was a broken man. I took one to console myself. I scored. I took another. I got comfortable. This wasn’t over yet…