SoundOff: Who is the Hardest Working Player in Football?

By: Daryl | September 7th, 2009

It’s Labor Day here in the USA, a day to celebrate workers by giving them the day off. Because we love a timely themed post here on The Offside, it seems appropriate to ask: Who is hardest working player in football?

Anyone who says Dimitar Berbatov gets a digital slap.

The player that immediately comes to mind is an all action, everywhereatonce midfielder like Steven Gerrard. Or maybe it’s a tough tackling midfielder like Rino Gattuso, who does everyone else’s running for them without grabbing the Gerrard-like headlines.

Overlapping fullbacks put in some honest graft too. Think about how Dani Alves gets up and down that right flank at Barcelona. It’s like he’s playing two positions at the same time: Right back and right wing.

You can’t ignore strikers either. Players like Robbie Keane and Wayne Rooney could just stay up front and wait for the ball. They don’t have to run back and tackle, but they do anyway.

“Hardest working” is surprisingly hard to define. Is it just about how many blades of grass a player covers in 90 minutes? Could be. But that definition puts central defenders and goalkeepers at a definite disadvantage, because those players are required to maintain positional discipline and not go chasing around the field.

Maybe hardest working can refer to players who put the extra hours in in training. I know Alex Ferguson always used to rave about David Beckham staying on the training ground to perfect his free kicks, when everyone else has gone home. I don’t imagine Goldenballs does that quite as much anymore (and dare I suggest that it shows?)

Or maybe the hardest working players aren’t necessarily the big names. There are probably plenty of professional footballers who weren’t blessed with an abundance of natural talent, but have made a career for themselves through hard work.

So it’s a tough one. Which is why I’m turning it over to Offside readers: Who is the hardest working player in football?