‘Dani Alves is an idiot,’ spewed Diego Maradona recently. ‘He speaks because he plays in a position on the pitch where football is not played. Right-backs touch the ball three times and make eight fouls per game.’ If even one of the greatest players in the history of football cannot appreciate the importance of full-backs, it is easy to see why the position has been so undervalued for so long. But that is all changing now.
