The 15 greatest strike partnerships of the 21st century

It’s a dying breed, is the two-striker setup. Certainly at football’s very top level.

With all the focus on pressing, shape and midfield battles, the extra body is often utilised somewhere else. It’s gotten to a point where teams actually find it more efficient to play without a designated striker at all sometimes, never mind two of them.

Without sounding too preachy about things, the times when two-striker systems dominated the top of football was way more fun. Every kid wants to grow up and form a prolific strike partnership with their best friend, and they still do.

There are still plenty of sides committing to the strike partnership philosophy in more modernised ways, however, and we salute those clubs and coaches. Two-striker systems are still prevalent throughout France and Italy, with plenty of managers making the most of them in Ligue 1 and Serie A respectively.

But, in order to truly celebrate the dying art, we at GIVEMESPORT have compiled a list of the greatest strike partnerships to blossom within the 21st century.

One that flies under the radar, a young Alexis Sanchez made waves with Udinese while plying his trade alongside iconic forward Antonio Di Natale between 2008 and 2011.

The pairing thrived together as Sanchez became one of the hottest young talents in Europe, combining with Di Natale over 39 goals in 2011 before leaving for Barcelona that year.

Ah yes, SAS. Suarez and Sturridge ran riot on the Premier League in the early-to-mid 2010s, firing Liverpool agonisingly close to the Premier League title in 2013/14.

It’s easy to forget just how lethal Sturridge was alongside the Uruguayan, having never really recovered from injuries and inconsistencies in the coming years, while Suarez became one of the