The Two-Footed Myth and Why Rayan Cherki Is the Real Thing

There is a phrase used constantly in football that almost never holds up to scrutiny: "he's two-footed." It gets said of decent players with a reliable left foot, or wingers who occasionally cut inside. Genuine two-footedness, where a player truly cannot be forced onto a weaker side, is vanishingly rare. Rayan Cherki might actually be one of them.

How Rare Is It?

Researchers have been arguing about how to define two-footedness for decades. A 2001 study by Carey et al. analysing the 1998 World Cup found almost zero genuinely two-footed players when defined by equal frequency of use. A later study by Bryson put the figure at 18% when defined more loosely as "equally strong with both feet." The gap between those two numbers tells you everything: most players who claim to be two-footed are just two-footed-enough.

The reality is that roughly 60% of professionals are right-footed, around 22% are left-footed, and the remainder sit somewhere in the grey area between.

Why It Matters for Attackers

Two-footedness is almost exclusively an attacking asset, and for good reason. Every defensive press has a direction: defenders funnel you onto your weaker side. Remove that option and the press breaks down entirely. For a defender, this rarely comes up. For an attacker in a tight 1v1, it is the difference between a shot and a lost ball.

The shooting angles double too. A right-footed winger on the left has to cut inside, a predictable move every defender reads. A two-footed player can shoot across goal from wide or cut in, and defenders cannot pre-commit. In tight spaces, a one-footed player buys half a second adjusting the ball to their stronger side. A two-footed player plays first time from either. At Premier League pace, that half second is everything.

Who Has It in the Premier League Right Now?

Genuinely balanced two-footedness is rare even among the elite. Opta data covering the last four Premier League seasons ranks players by the difference between their left and right-footed shot proportions. Jean-Philippe Mateta leads on 13.8%, and Anthony Elanga sits close behind with exactly five top-flight goals with each foot. Both are attackers. Of course they are.

This season, Cherki tops the entire Premier League when ranked by two-footedness across shots, crosses, passes and clearances combined. FotMob list both feet as his preferred foot, one of the only entries in their database to do so.

Cherki's Numbers

In his final Ligue 1 season with Lyon, Cherki took 44 shots split almost evenly between feet. He passed with his left foot 56% of the time; only two players in the entire division were more balanced. He was taking corners with both feet in European competition before most teenagers had settled on a dominant side.

He scored his first senior goal for Lyon on 4 January 2020, aged 16 years and 140 days, the youngest player ever to do so for the club. Manchester City signed him in June 2025 for £31m. In 28 Premier League appearances this season he has 4 goals and 10 assists, adding 3 more in the Champions League. He is 22.

Lamine Yamal is widely regarded as the best young player in the world right now. He is also still working on his right foot. Cherki already has both.