Grafite

Wolfsburg

Striker - Brazil



Original writeup:

The above goal wasn't only goal of the year in Germany it became kind a symbol or exclamation of Wolfsburg's incredible title run last season and the travesty that was Klinsmann's Bayern team. One team Wolfsburg had a great attack providing endless highlights. The other Bayern a defense that provided holes to whoever their opponents.

Now to be fair it should be said that in reality just about every Bundesliga defense was kind of like that last season as the league quite simply exploded with goals and attacking play.

But it was Wolfsburg through the brilliant trio of Misimovic, Dzeko and Grafite who was the best attacking team of all and provided goals galore with none less that 80 in all.

Grafite himself became league top scorer with 28, his partner Dzeko had 26 and playmaker Misimovic provided an incredible 20 assists

This season compared to all of that has been a disaster and while both Dzeko and Misimovic generally have shown good form on what's an incredibly inconsistent Felix Magath-less team, Grafite has really seen his form plummet and that he kind of came out of nowhere (or journey man career) at an advanced age to begin with could suggest a much lower ranking would be more correct.

Still, while Grafite will probably never reproduce anything like we saw last season and given that he is 31 would no doubt continue to drop in the rankings if indeed this list did become neverending (more than it is already!)he is still an impressive looking striker with excellent tools worthy I think of a spot.

His great strength (or should I say power) technique combination made him almost impossible to stop last season, isolated 1on1 with a defender it was impossible, and even when struggling this season it's something that still gives him 1 goal about every other game and from what I can see this effective skill combination of his looks as good as intact.

The 300 update:

Even though Grafite has had a better start to this season and on the surface played better than the disappointing 2009/10, it has become clear to me that he has indeed lost a step compared to when he terrorized the Bayern and the Bundesliga a couple of years ago.