Soccer
  • Home
  • Football
  • Eleven Top Class Uruguayan Players New Liverpool Striker Darwin Nunez Can Emulate

Eleven top class Uruguayan players new Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez can emulate

Darwin Nunez will be hoping to make a big impression at Liverpool, and there are plenty of brilliant footballing Uruguayans from which he can draw inspiration.

Darwin Nunez will become the 24th Uruguayan player to play in the Premier League after he joined Liverpool in a blockbuster £85million deal.

In truth, the list of Uruguayans in the Premier League is a genuine mixed bag. For every Luis Suarez there has been a Nacho Gonzalez.

However, if you are looking for top modern players from Uruguay who could inspire Darwin Nunez to reach the peak of his powers at Liverpool then Planet Sport has brought together a list of the best of them.

Edinson Cavani

Edinson Cavani is the player Darwin Nunez has been most closely compared to, and if that proves to be founded then Liverpool fans have every right to be excited.
Cavani looked good at Palermo when he first arrived in Europe, and then he looked absolutely brilliant for Napoli.

His strike rate of 216 goals In 304 games for Napoli and Paris Saint-Germain went under the radar slightly in England, but he earned a fresh load of respect from Premier League fans during his spell at Manchester United.

Alvaro Recoba

If you grew up watching football in the late 1990s and early 2000s and didn't adore watching Alvaro Recoba, there is every chance that the sport just isn't for you.

Recoba was a scorer of great goals more than he was a scorer of lots of goals, with almost every one of the 50-plus he caressed in for Inter Milan being a thing of absolute beauty.

His international record wasn't great, and he probably stayed at Inter too long in truth, but during that time there wasn't a football fan in the world not happy to see their club linked with Alvaro Recoba.

Daniel Fonseca

Speaking of Italian football in the 1990s, who could possibly forget Daniel Fonseca? Who would even want to?
Fonseca was a genuine top-class striker for Napoli, where he scored 31 goals in just 58 Serie A games. This was the 1990s Serie A, too, the one where defending was a borderline obsession.

His goal return diminished a little at Roma, although injuries had started to get hold of him by then. He still got a move to Juventus out of it, but they played him mainly out of position on the left wing.

Fonseca is a player of two tales - what actually was and what might have been, if not for the injuries.

Ruben Sosa

Since we are currently enjoying our little visit to the glorious splendour 1990s Italian football so much, it would be remiss not to mention Ruben Sosa.

Sosa was nicknamed The Little Prince and he certainly played like royalty. He was small and stocky in stature, but brilliantly skilful with a hammer of a left foot.

Sosa succeeded in La Liga before arriving in Serie A, where he was a consistent scorer for Lazio and Inter. He also led Uruguay to two Copa America titles.

Gus Poyet

When Gus Poyet arrived in the Premier League he was a genuine breath of fresh air. By that time in Poyet's career he was the finished article as a player having excelled in La Liga with Real Zaragoza.
A bad knee injury early on in his Chelsea days derailed him a little, but he returned to make a serious impact for Chelsea, winning the FA Cup and UEFA Cup Winners' Cup whilst in West London - a competition he also won with Zaragoza (Arsenal, Niyam, Seaman, etc… that year).

He moved on to Tottenham as his career was coming to an end, but he had certainly proven himself to be a player of serious quality.

Diego Forlan

It's fair to say that things never really worked out for Diego Forlan at Manchester United. It wasn't that he wasn't likeable, because he was. It was just that he struggled to hit a cow's backside with a banjo.
It was probably just a case of the right club at the wrong time, because Forlan really showed how good he was when he went to Spain. He played in La Liga for seven years for Villarreal and Atletico Madrid, scoring 128 league goals in the process.
He was also a real force at international level, with him finishing his career with 36 goals in 112 caps.

Federico Valverde

The seemingly relentless Uruguayan football machine is still churning out top talent, and Federico Valverde is probably the best evidence of it.

While most Uruguayans have to work their way to the top after they arrive in Europe, Valverde went straight in at Real Madrid and he has never looked out of place.

It was Valverde who created the winning goal for Real Madrid in the Champions League final win against Liverpool this year and he was arguably their most effective player in the game too.

Internationally, Valverde already has more than 40 caps to his name despite being just 23 years old, so there's every reason to expect some great things from him in the coming years.

Paolo Montero

Uruguay are probably known for two types of footballer: absolutely brilliant forwards and incredibly nasty defenders.
Paolo Montero was certainly the latter, and at one point he had a legitimate case to be considered the best central defender in the world.
He wasn't just nasty, though. He was also comfortable on the ball and was the bedrock of a Juventus team that won four Scudettos either side of the millennium. If you were compiling a list of the greatest modern defenders, Montero would be in there.

Diego Godin

Diego Godin is one of the most brutally efficient players in modern memory. He is 36 now and still plugging away at Atletico Mineiro, but it was his Atletico Madrid days that really showcased his talents.

He found the perfect coach for his uncompromising style in Diego Simeone, but Godin was going to be a horrible opponent to play against no matter who he played for.

Godin was perhaps the ultimate modern master of the dark arts in terms of defending.

He pulled shirts, got his sneaky kicks in, was physical, nasty and yet somehow managed to make it look like he was the one who was always getting fouled. Magnificent.

Rodrigo Bentancur

If Liverpool fans want a recent example of a Uruguayan who has effortlessly adapted to the Premier League very recently, then look no further than Rodrigo Bentancur.

Since Antonio Conte brought him in from former club Juventus in January, Bentancur settled immediately into the heart of the Tottenham midfield.

He is one of those players who somehow manages to marry elegance on the ball with tenacity off it, and he was as responsible for Spurs qualifying for the Champions League last season as any other player.

Luis Suarez

Of course, Liverpool already know all about just how good Uruguayan players can be, as they got to watch one of the greatest every week.

Luis Suarez was never the most popular or likeable player outside of Anfield, be he was both a scorer of great goals and a great goalscorer.
What's more, he has done it at literally every club he has been at, and internationally, too. That is something that is actually very rare.
If Darwin Nunez can even approach Luis Suarez levels for Liverpool, it's going to be an incredibly fun ride.

READ MORE: Who is Darwin Nunez and what can he bring to Liverpool?

More Articles