Tallest Height allows the attackers to most effectively carry out a power struggle and take overshadows in the opponent’s penalty area, defenders – to win the fight for the “top”, goalkeepers – to reflect difficult shots. In this article, we have compiled the top 10 tallest footballers in the world who have not retired as of 2019.
10. Fraser Forster
Club: Southampton
Role: goalkeeper
Height: 201 cm
Forster started playing football at school. At the age of 16, Fraser was noticed by Newcastle United scouts. Since 2005, Forster has played in the youth team of Newcastle, but he failed to break into the main team. Frazier was promoted to third Newcastle goalkeeper, spent two years in reserve, and was loaned four times. On loan, Forster got his game practice and revealed himself as a reliable goalkeeper. Thus, at Norwich, where he played from 2009 to 2010, Fraser received the Golden Glove of the England Football League as the goalkeeper who played the most clean sheets in the English Football League. From 2010 to 2014, Forster played at Celtic, where from the very first season he became a base player. Celtic initially rented a goalkeeper from Newcastle, but after two successful seasons bought Forster from the Forty.
In 2014 Fraser moved to Southampton, where he is currently playing. In the 2015/16 Premier League season, Forster kept the Saints’ goal intact for 6 games in a row after a long recovery from injury.
9. Lovre Kalinich
Club: Aston Villa
Position: goalkeeper
Height: 201 cm
Lovre started his professional career at Croatian Hajduk in 2009. As a Hajduk player, Kalinic has been on loan three times to Croatian clubs from the lower leagues – Unake, Novalja and Karlovac. In 2013, Igor Tudor took over as head coach of Hajduk. Under him, Lovre managed to break into the main team. So, already in the 2013/14 season, Lovre played 29 matches at goal, while in the previous season he entered the field only in 4 meetings. In winter 2017, Kalinic moved to Belgian Gent, where he immediately became the main goalkeeper and defended the team’s goal until the end of the 2016/17 season. In 2019, Lovre moved to Aston Villa.
8. Vanya Milinkovic-Savic
Club: Torino
Position: goalkeeper
Height: 202 cm
Vanya is the brother of the famous Lazio midfielder Sergei Milinkovic-Savic. Both brothers inherited tall stature from their mother, a former basketball player. Sergey’s height is 192 cm, Vanya – 202. At the beginning of his professional career, in 2014, Vanya signed a contract with Manchester United, but he never played a single match with the club and was loaned to a team in whose system started playing football – Serbian club Vojvodina.
In 2015, Vanya moved to Lechia, in 2017 – to Torino. He did not manage to gain a foothold in the “bulls”. In the first season, Vanya played only one match at the goal. Over the past season Milinkovic-Savic managed to be on loan from two clubs, SPAL and Ascoli, and played 12 matches.
7. Stefan Mayerhofer
Club: “Aarau”
Position: forward
Height: 202 cm
Mayerhofer is a player who has changed over 15 clubs in his career. Stefan played mainly in teams from Austria and Germany, as well as Slovakia, England, Switzerland. At the beginning of his professional career, Mayerhofer played in little-known Austrian clubs – Tulne, Förste, Langenrore. From 2005 to 2007, Mayerhofer played at the Bavaria farm club. In the 2006/07 season, he played five matches for the main club of Bayern, but entered the field in only two meetings and in total spent 11 minutes for Munich. He also played for the Viennese “Rapid”, “Wolverhampton”, the Austrian “Red Bull”, “Cologne”. Mayerhofer currently plays for Swiss Aarau.
6. Church Pantilimon
Club: Nottingham Forest
Position: goalkeeper
Height: 203 cm
At the beginning of his career, Costel played in little-known Romanian clubs. In 2011, from the Timisoara club, the Catholic Church moved to the English Manchester City, initially on a one-year lease. The Citizens drew attention to the tall goalkeeper after playing in the 2010/11 Europa League, where City faced Timisoara in the qualifying round final. During his three seasons at City, Church never managed to gain a foothold in the team. The goalkeeper played for the team in only 29 matches, of which only 7 – in the English Championship. From 2014 to 2018, Pantilimon played for Sunderland, Watford and Deportivo, and is currently playing for Nottingham Forest.
5. Lasina Traore
Club: Uypest
Position: forward
Height: 203 cm
The Ivorian forward is familiar to many Russian fans for his performances for Kuban (2011-2012), Anji (2012-2013) and CSKA (2016). In “Kuban” and “Anji” Lasina demonstrated the most productive game. So, for 40 matches in “Kuban” Traore scored 18 goals, the same – for 46 games in the “Anji”. Since 2014, after moving to AS Monaco, Traore has experienced a difficult period in his career – constant injuries throughout the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons affected the player’s form and prevented him from getting into the main Monegasque team. From 2014 to 2018, Monaco has repeatedly leased Traore to Everton, CSKA Moscow, Sporting Gijon, Amiens. In none of the clubs did he manage to reveal his potential. In total, from 2014 to 2018, Lasina scored 20 goals. Traore now plays for the Hungarian Ujpest.
4. Young Changpeng
Club: Henan Jianye
Role: forward
Height: 205 cm
In October 2016, Young was spotted by scouts from the English club Bolton Wanderers, who brought the tall striker to England. Young spent a month in the club system and was nicknamed “Chinese Peter Crouch”. After returning from England, Changpeng made his debut in the Wuhan Guanggu main team in 2008. However, he managed to play only one game for the first club. In 2008, the Chinese Football Association suspended Wuhan Guanggu player Li Weifeng for 8 matches for fighting on the field. The club president did not accept the punishment, Wuhan Guanggu withdrew from the Chinese Super League and was disbanded, and all the players in the base were sold or leased. During 2009, Young was on loan from the CTGU university team, and in 2010 he moved to Chengdu Tiancheng. Until 2018, Changpeng played for Henan Jianye, then he was transferred to the reserve. Young rarely played for Henan Jianye as a substitute. Since 2017, he has entered the field in only eight matches, in the last two having played one minute.
3. Vanya Ivesha
Club: Opatija
Position: goalkeeper
Height: 205 cm
41-year-old Ivesa is not only one of the tallest players in the world, but also the oldest footballer ever to play in the Croatian First League. Ivesa spent most of his career in Croatian clubs – Istra, Rijeka, Opatija. From 2008 to 2015, Vanya played in Turkish clubs – Eskisehirspor and Elazigspor. The longest period in a footballer’s career was playing for Eskisehirspor. Ivesha spent 4 years in it. Since 2018 Ivesa has been playing for Opatija, a club from the Third League. Prior to that, Opatija hosted Ivesha twice – in 2015 and 2017.
2. Christoph Van Hout
Club: Westerlo
Role: goalkeeper
Height: 208 cm
Van Hout started playing football for youth clubs in Belgium and the Netherlands. The first club in his professional career was the Dutch Willem II, to which Christoph moved in 2006. However, during the season in the Eredivisie, Van Hout never entered the field, after which he returned to Belgium, where he signed a contract with Kortrijk. In it, Christoph also failed to achieve a place in the base. For two seasons at the club, Van Hout played only 8 matches on the field. The same unsuccessful two seasons were at the Liege “Standard”, where Christophe played from 2009 to 2011 and spent only 11 matches during this time. In 2011 Van Hout returned to Kortrijk. During the 2011/12 season, he received more game practice than in the previous four seasons – 32 games, in 10 of which Christoph kept the goal clean.
Since 2015, one of the tallest footballers in the world has been playing for the Belgian Westerlo. Christoph failed to take a place at the base and win in the fight for a place in the gate from Coen Van Langendonk. Van Hout has 21 matches in four seasons.
1. Simon Jorgensen
Club: Dulwich Hamlet
Position: goalkeeper
Height: 210 cm
Simon Jorgensen is the tallest playing footballer in the world, his height is 210 cm. Simon’s grandfather Bloch Christian Petersen and his great-uncle Kai Hansen played football. Hansen played for the Danish national team and took part in the semifinals of the 1964 European Championship, where the Danes faced the USSR national team. Simon began his professional career in the Danish B-93, where he performed for three years. After a short performance with the Danish Baldclub 1908 and Frem, Jorgensen left for England. From 2016 to 2017, Jorgensen managed to change three clubs. The most famous of these was the Accrington Stanley of the Second League. Simon was never useful to the team – he was included in the application for championship matches three times, but he never played in any of them, taking part only in the League Cup game with Preston North End.
Jorgensen is currently playing for Dulwich Hamlet, a Division 6 club in England. Fans helped the club in raising money for signing Simon. It is noteworthy that before Jorgensen, another player above two meters, Peter Crouch, played in Dulwich Hamlet. Dulwich Hamlet loaned Crouch from Tottenham in 2000.
Bonus: one of the most famous tall players to retire in 2019
Peter Crouch
Last club: Burnley
Position: forward
Height: 201 cm
Crouch is one of the tallest footballers ever to play in the Premier League and for the England national team. Peter’s professional career was supposed to start at Tottenham, but the club was not interested in the player and gave him on short-term leases to clubs in the lower divisions of England and Sweden. On account of Crouch performances in 10 clubs, including Aston Villa (2002-2004), Southampton (2004-2005), Liverpool (2005-2008). In January 2019, Crouch signed with Burnley and announced his retirement in July of the same year.
In the BBC film A Royal Team Talk, Crouch talked about how his looks caused him complexes and provoked ridicule from football fans. At the beginning of their careers, fans of rivals greeted Crouch with the chant “Does the circus know you’re here?” Aston Villa fans dedicated to Crouch the chant: “He’s tall, he’s lean, he’s a freaky goal machine”. Liverpool fans’ chants also play up the striker’s tall stature: “He’s big, he’s Red, his feet stick out the bed, Peter Crouch, Peter Crouch” ).