We live in a footballing epoch of false everythings.  The game’s progression has given rise to strikers, wingers and advanced playmakers who aren’t really just strikers, wingers and advanced playmakers.  At the highest level, the purity of attacking positions is increasingly rare as forward players become more intelligent in their movements and more organised in their defensive work.  In these circumstances, the more conventional are often under-appreciated.  Perhaps that is why Gonzalo Higuaín, a No9 so true as to be borderline unfashionable, has been disregarded in comparison to his more sophisticated peers. 

Last Sunday, Higuaín scored his 21st goal in as many Serie A appearances this season as Napoli won 4-2 away to Sampdoria to safeguard their top spot in the league.  His strike came on nine minutes when, after receiving the ball from under-pressure opposition midfielder Edgar Barretto, Higuaín moved with the sort of urgency, purpose and immediacy that has characterised his last seven months.  He had eyes only for the goal, which he found with a forceful shot before celebrating with a passionate cry.  It was another powerful reminder of his potency. 

Yet, that game was also reminiscent of other, darker times in Higuaín’s career.  He spurned a couple of good chances and, when it came to taking the penalty for Napoli’s second, he passed on the responsibility – or opportunity, depending upon which way you look at it – to Lorenzo Insigne, his compadre on the left-wing.  According to his coach, Maurizio Sarri, this decision went against their pre-match agreement. “ We said before the game that Higuaín was the penalty taker with Insigne second,” Sarri said. “ They must’ve reached an agreement between themselves.  Evidently Gonzalo didn’t feel like it.” 

Higuaín is most certainly physically powerful, but there remains an underlying psychological fragility that has at times undermined his career.  His facial expressions aren’t particularly varied, generally ranging from a look of anger to one of mild annoyance.  The tortured appearance is a result of the high personal standards he sets for himself – a bar he does not lower gently for team-mates – but behind the menacing glare lies an emotionally vulnerable player with a not-unrelated past of underwhelming displays at vital junctures. 

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gonzalo Higuaín celebrates after scoring another goal for Napoli.  Photograph: Simone Arveda/EPA

Higuaín seemed to be the archetypal Argentinian striker – robust yet technically assured – when he first arrived in European football at Real Madrid, but he got off to an inauspicious beginning in Spain, scoring just twice in his first year in La Liga.  Gradually he matured and scored a very respectable tally, yet there was a short-termism about his time with the club.  He wasn’t a big name, and those without big names usually have to work harder to justify their presence among the Galácticos.  Karim Benzema’s £24.5m arrival at the Bernabéu in 2009 precipitated an erosion of Higuaîn’s status, he was evidently not as flashy as the Frenchman, nor was he as highly regarded. 

Higuaín’s subordination to Benzema at Real Madrid was not dissimilar to his treatment at international level, where he has generally been viewed as a useful talent, albeit one that can get in the way of icons.  In fairness to him, it is hard to shine when you have Lionel Messi standing adjacent to you, and Sergio Agüero and Carlos Tevez vying for your place.  As such, when evaluating Higuaín’s pre-Napoli days, it is worth imagining the frustration he must have felt at being so obviously talented yet so unable to derive the correct value from that talent.  There was always somebody better. 

His first two years in Naples were a showcase of that frustration.  His every performance resembled a release of pent-up hostility.  After years of being second best, he was now the star.  But with that tag came new responsibility.  Napoli signed him for €38m, a club record fee.  He was given a contract of €5.5m per year.  People were discussing his potential impact in the same sentences as they remembered the effect his legendary compatriot Diego Maradona had on the club in the 1980s.  It was an uphill task to merely live up to his billing, never mind exceed it, and the pressure began to spill out on to the pitch. 

Higuaín became notorious for fluffing his lines at important moments.  In the 2014 World Cup final he was presented with a glorious opportunity to give Argentina the lead.  He screwed the ball harmlessly wide and Argentina lost to Germany.  On the final day of last season, he had scored two goals to pull Napoli level with Lazio.  When Napoli won a penalty, he stepped up.  Scoring would have given him his hat-trick while simultaneously putting his team in the driving seat for a Champions League place.  He ballooned the ball over the bar.  Napoli lost 4-2 and had to content themselves with the Europa League.  Last summer he missed from close range when presented with a chance to score an injury-time winner in the Copa América final, before blazing another spot-kick over as Argentina lost on penalties to Chile. 

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Such a harrowing sequence of big misses would have been enough to derail the most promising of careers, but Higuaín finally found good fortune last summer.  When Rafa Benítez – the man who had convinced him to move to Italy – left for Real Madrid, it was believed that Higuaín would follow him out the door.  But before he walked out, in stepped coach Sarri, a man who spent many years in the world of finance before turning his hand to training and organising football players. 

Sarri, with just one season of Serie A experience before his appointment, has unlocked the Higuaín that has never never fully materialised.  He has been straightforward with his attacking talisman, encouraging him not through coddling, but with honest assessment in the form of remarks such as: “If Higuaín doesn’t win the Ballon d’Or, he’s a dickhead.” 

Higuaín has reached a new level under his new coach.  In his first season in Italy he scored 17 goals; in his second he went one better.  Having just passed the halfway mark of this term, “Pipita” has already blitzed both of those tallies.  He is on course for the most productive season of his career.  His anger continues to simmer throughout his play, but he is less of a chore to play alongside.  He is finally channelling his emotion, inflicting it upon opposition defences.  In many games he has been simply irrepressible. 

The motivation to erase bad memories and a new diet of less red meat, more fish and honey instead of sugar have been suggested as reasons behind his improved form, but it’s impossible to ignore Sarri’s tactical influence.  After a poor start, in which Napoli didn’t win any of their opening three games and Higuain only scored in one match, Sarri disbanded his favoured 4-3-1-2, which he had used to great success at Empoli, and brought in a 4-3-3.  The new system put Higuain up top as the lone striker, with two wide players – Insigne and José Callejón – on either side of him.  Since the switch, Napoli have played some of the most beautiful football on the continent and Higuaín has scored at an unprecedented rate. 

He has found the net in 13 of the 18 league matches since Sarri’s tactical modification, hitting six braces along the way.  He has formed a devastating triumvirate with Insigne and Marek Hamsik, Napoli’s own left-sided Bermuda Triangle in which opponents are consistently lost without trace.  Insigne cuts in, Hamsik pushes forward, Higuain – conventionally, with his back to goal – combines with both, and the results are stunning.  That link-up play isn’t the most prominent aspect of his performances, however.  He is moving faster and holding the ball up with a renewed vigour.  In short, he is playing the role of the true No9 to near perfection. 

Higuaín lacks the bells and whistles that many of his contemporaries possess.  He doesn’t have the footwork of Benzema and Agüero, or the refined grace of Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.  Nor is he quite as quick or deft in his movement as Luis Suárez and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.  Essentially, he is nothing more or less than a classically trained No9.  It just so happens that he is an exceptionally efficient one. 

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In Higuaín’s concoction of brutish physicality, cold-hearted finishing and relentless work ethic, Sarri sees something that few else do. “ He is becoming what I always thought he should be, in other words the best striker in Europe and perhaps the world,” he said, before adding, “I wouldn’t even exchange him with Lewandowski.”  Biased words, you might think, but they are not without evidence to back them up. 

Of all the strikers mentioned, only Ibrahimovic and Benzema have scored more goals, contributed more successful passes and created more chances per 90 minutes of action than Higuaín.  However, rather intriguingly, Higuaín has completed far more dribbles than those two.  In fact, he has gone beyond his marker more than any of the other aforementioned strikers, with only Lewandowski and Agüero coming anywhere near close to him in this area.  Not only is that a telling portrait of the lone furrow that Higuaín has had to plough within Sarri’s system; it also offers a glimpse of the player’s refreshed mentality.  More confident and determined than ever, he is bearing the burden of pressure easier now than before. 

For further context, it’s worth considering that Higuaín is reaching those numbers without having a Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or Thomas Müller alongside him.  And, while Ibrahimovic is the most impressive striker statistically, it’s important to note that he is achieving his numbers within an expensively assembled Paris Saint-Germain side that faces little strenuous competition in Ligue 1.  By contrast, Higuaín is cutting through Serie A defences that, while not as stout as they were a few decades ago, are still some of the most disciplined and well-drilled that you are likely to see in Europe.  Additionally, he has played more minutes than any of his illustrious striking rivals, appearing in every single one of Napoli’s league fixtures.  His consistency across that period has been remarkable. 

Right on cue, football’s wealthiest clubs are beginning to sit up and take notice.  Bayern Munich have been the most outspoken, with club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge telling reporters: “Higuaín is a fantastic player.  We at Bayern like him.”  Those words correlate conveniently with those of Carlo Ancelotti, who is set to take up the manager’s post at Bayern come the end of Pep Guardiola’s reign.  The Italian fuelled speculation by saying: “Who would I take to my next club?  Among the foreigners in Serie A, I’d choose Higuaín.”  Recently there have also been rumours of PSG’s interest, with Ibrahimovic’s contract set to expire in the summer.  Even Roberto Mancini at Internazionale joined the chorus of admiration, jokily telling La Stampa: “I would be more than happy to take Higuaín on loan.” 

The clamour signifies a growing acceptance that Higuaín has definitively made the leap from sub-elite to truly world class.  He is no longer the other man or the choker.  He’s in the spotlight and he’s revelling.  Thanks to a perfect symbiosis of his individual characteristics and Sarri’s tactics, he is driving Napoli forward in their charge to win a first Scudetto since 1990.  With or without the league title, Higuaín’s form this season has deservedly thrown him to the forefront of the conversation regarding the world’s finest No9s.  Functional and unashamedly orthodox, his progression is a testament to the conventional. 

• This is an article from Tactical Calcio

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