if you had to choose one footballer to take a penalty to save your life who would you choose some of you might say Cristiano Ronaldo which is not a terrible Choice seeing as he has the most penalty goals of all time and is the most experienced of any footballer ever but even he only has an 84.5% conversion rate many others will probably say lonel Messi who has the second most penalty goals of all time and is the second most experienced player for the task but even Messi only has a 77.8% conversion rate but what would
other professional footballers say about this question I will go with Ronald kman a surprisingly good answer as kman scored 111 penalties in 118 attempts which means he was one of the best penalty Shooters of all time with a 94% conversion rate only missing seven times in his career I would go with James wpr H sorry Jame wpr oh okay yeah I won't even go into detail about why that's a terrible Choice there is uh some good ones so I think I have to say Mario batelli because he was maybe the best I've ever seen as
a penalty taker belli is still a great choice as one of the best penalty takers himself scoring 47 out of 52 with a 90% conversion rate but what if I told you that Beyond a doubt the only correct answer for this question should be no other than this guy right here that's right your life would be safest betting it all on the slow and unathletic midfielder because Matt latier throughout his career would score 47 out of 48 penalties an insane 98% conversion rate however this doesn't even come close to showing you just how criminally underrated
one of the best midfielders in premier league history was because despite the lack of strength speed agility and his incredibly unassuming look Matt latier was one of the most technically skilled players that English football has ever seen so underrated in fact that as a midfielder he would genuinely outscore some of the best strikers you could think of in the '90s to early 2000s even setting records that had never been done before he was genuinely so good that Southampton fans who if you didn't know are nicknamed the Saints because of their club's Origins as a church
football team would literally call him Le God yeah he was so good that even his church origin club would break the first commandment to pay their respects to this Legend So today we're going to look at the story of Matt latier one of the most underrated footballers of all time Matt laier grew up in the small island of gurny in the British Channel and despite being geographically closer to France technically it's sort of its own Nation however they're kind of governed by the British government so yeah it's pretty complicated but he basically grew up in
the middle of nowhere in his own words there was really nothing to do with besides play football and cricket and he would grow up living a Carefree life in a very relaxed and safe environment where he could just focus on being a kid and doing the things he enjoyed and his family had always loved football in fact he had three older brothers who were already obsessed with the sport and as early as he can remember he would watch and eventually join them from the moment he could walk and in gery the chance to play football
was everywhere all the kids in town played and there were always beautiful Fields with pristine grass to play in on the island as young as he was he would already be playing with his older brothers and their friends helping him develop his skills incredibly early and since he was never physically as developed as his brothers and the other older kids he had to rely on his touch and skill rather than physical ability to keep up with him the young Matt latier without any training knowledge or coach would even do this I used to practice with
a tennis ball throwing the ball up against the the side of the house and i' take it on my chest and i' volley it against the side of next door's shed and I'd spend ages doing it so I take the ball on my chest and I test myself that it had to go in that third of the the net or this third of the net never down the middle like it's honestly crazy for a kid to be thinking of training like that back in the early 70s and he attributes all these factors to how he
would quickly develop insanely Elite aim and control at an early age in fact as an 8-year-old he was already good enough to be playing under 11 competitions in gery he was just so much more skilled than everyone else and it was at that age where he knew he had the talent to go professional it had always been his dream to leave gery and continue on to higher professional levels outside of his home just imagine if Matt laier never wanted to go out and see what the world had to offer imagine if he stayed in his
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months for free so click the link in my description or go to nordvpn.com RAR to save big on nordvpn and get four extra months for free with their Black Friday deal thanks to nor VPN for sponsoring this video so finally after spending his development years in gery Matt would fly out to the mainland at the age of 16 where he would go on trial for Southampton he would go on to score 59 goals in his very first season for the Youth team and it was after that first year where he knew that he had the
confidence to make it and that club management knew that they had someone special because right when he turned 18 Matt latier would immediately be placed on the first team where he made a total of 31 appearances in his debut season like how often do you see a footballer that young in the Premier League being so regularly featured on the starting 11 latier was so gifted that as a 20-year-old he would score the fourth most goals in the league awarding him the PFA young Player of the Year award many of you can look at Matt latier
and might be a little quick to judge by his appearance sure I'll admit he does look far from intimidating but those looks are incredibly deceiving because despite being slow and unathletic Matt latier was one of the best midfielders the premier league has ever seen from his first touch all the the way to his striking and finishing latier was just pure class remember the part in the beginning when I said that he had to make up for his lack of athleticism playing against older kids with skill alone well it wasn't a joke and when you add
the fact that as a kid he was already training with tennis balls and conditioning himself to never aim in the middle of the goal you have one of the most lethal marksmen the game has ever seen and that is not an exaggeration latier was absolutely brilliant with his shooting regardless of the distance and this guy might not have had the most powerful shot there was but even from ridiculous distances well beyond the Box his aim was just so brilliant I mean I know you see him striking all these balls and scoring them from far out
and to think that maybe the keepers weren't that skilled but the truth is the guy just knew how to put the ball behind the back of the net and of course with this incredible aim latier was also an absolute free kick expert the way that he only aimed for the upper or lower Corners was a thing of beauty you could never be sure that you were safe when he was taking a free kick from just outside the box in fact he even had this incredibly unique style of shooting in some occasions because at times it
looked like his free kicks would just cheekily chip over the line to catch everybody off guard with that unorthodox and unusual technique there was even this one free kick where he legitimately flicked it up by himself before voling it perfectly to the upper corner I mean you'd only see this kind of thing in training or at the park but here he was doing it to the best goalkeepers in the Premier League but that wasn't the only skill set he had because again despite his lack of athleticism La tier's first touch and dribble were phenomenal he
had incredible control and surprising touch that would catch Defenders off guard time and time again for the entirety of his career it's almost zones to see honestly because when you combine this Immaculate first touch and close control dribbling with just truly ridiculous shooting technique accuracy finishing and aim you get goals like this even against one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time Peter schmeichel and you have to remember he was doing this all from the Midfield regularly scoring double digit goals and even having several 20 plus goal Seasons throughout his career in the Premier League
imagine if you added even the slightest boast of speed and athleticism on this guy like in the 1993 94 season he would go on to score more goals than Legends like Ian Wright and Eric canona all while providing 10 assist assist as well and more so in the following 1994 95 season Not only would he go on to score 30 goals in all competitions but would also lead the Premier League in assist with a 15 in 49 total appearances that's a92 goal contributions per game if you look at season after season at the top scores
in the Premier League during his career Matt latier would almost always be the only midfielder among the top scorers and on several occasions even finishing in top five like it honestly surprises me how many seasons he would score more goals than even a forward Legend like Eric Kenta I mean it's honestly insane to watch a guy like latier doing all the things he did on the pitch despite looking unintimidating and absolutely gas like he just ran a marathon cuz as soon as he started to attack if you gave him enough space he was going to
score and all these combined are the reasons why he became the first midfielder in premier league history to ever score a 100 goals and only the six player to ever achieve the Milestone but of course we can't forget about his penalty taking skills because when going for a penalty latier only had one philosophy aim as deeply as possible for the corners yeah easier said than done but again since his childhood he' always trained to aim for the corners and nothing else so naturally it would only translate to his penalty taking technique because Matt latier would
not once ever take a penalty that was of Target the only one in his career that he failed to to convert was still on target it just so happened to be saved by keeper Mark Crossley who he himself describes as the best save of my career in fact it was so uncharacteristic of the cool and composed latier that there were even some conspiracy theories about how he was paid to throw the match yeah that's how good of penalties he was and I know there are some players who have never missed a penalty but they simply
either won haven't taken enough or two played in a much weaker League which is why latier would be my choice any day of the week to take a penalty if my life depended on it luckily for Southampton latier was an incredibly loyal player to the club that had given him a chance since his teenage years as he could have easily gone to a club like Manchester United and stacked up all those pieces of silverware in fact Chelsea even made a bid for him in 1995 during his prime for 10 million which now doesn't sound like
much but back then would have made him the most expensive footballer in English history in fact Mali iier would single-handedly keep Southampton from relegation for his entire career I mean just look at how they were doing throughout the years 16th Place 18th Place 18th Place 17th Place 16th Place 17th Place yeah they were an incredibly weak Squad without him they would have definitely gotten relegated in fact in the 1993 94 season a single goal difference is what kept them from being relegated and that just happened to be the second highest goal scoring season of Leer's
career that is why just a couple Seasons after he retired Southampton were relegated for the first time since 1978 leod was truly a savior for his Club but if you really wanted to see just how underrated and Overlook latier was in 1998 leading up to the World Cup he would go on to score a hattrick for England and would still be left out of their World Cup squad in fact he only had a total of eight caps in England throughout his career that is just incredibly sad until this day the only reason able explanation his
simple favoritism or the fact that he just wasn't as respected due to his lack of athleticism and Club success I mean if a guy like James Milner can get six times more caps as him I genuinely don't know what to tell you but overall especially in hindsight it was clear as day latier was one of the best midfielders in premier league history and was criminally underrated for how good he was but that didn't matter because leti's desire and passion for football was never to win trophies but in his words you know the winning was great
but the winning wasn't always the be all and end all to me um and that's kind of what made me I think a little bit different I wanted to entertain people
