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While successful football (soccer) players can come in all shapes and sizes, height can be an important factor in success.

Being tall with good arm span reach are particularly important for goalkeepers. Around the pitch, taller players with a good leap and positional skills have an advantage in overhead contests. We have lists of the tallest footballers, who are mostly goalkeepers.

On the other hand, being short does not offer as much advantage, though short stature and lower center of gravity may result in better balance and agility. There are many short players who have been very successful, for example Maradona 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) and Messi 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in). They are not the shortest though, the shortest player to play professional football may be Polish midfielder Marcin Garuch at 1.53m (5' 0").

Short football players are generally midfield players. Comparing World Cup players (2002-2018), the goalies were on average the tallest, the midfielders the shortest. At the 2018 World Cup, the height of the midfielders ranged from 165-197cm.

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Below we have listed the shortest professional players, which includes players from club leagues around the world, also the shortest to represent their country, and the shortest to play at the World Cup. These heights are as listed online, and there are certainly discrepencies in listed heights depending on what site you're looking at. We have tried to get the most reliable measure, but all the measurements may not be accurate.

Shortest Professional Football Players Ever

Data Source: the height data is taken from the player's profile on Wikipedia when listed, otherwise from other various sources online (Nov 2022)

Shortest International Football Players Ever

Data Source: the height data is taken from the player's profile on Wikipedia when listed, otherwise from other sources online (Nov 2022)

Shortest Players at the World Cup

Data Source: the height data is retrieved from the World Cup player databases on www.worldfootball.net. Not all players on the database have height measurements, so some short players may be missing from this list. (Nov 2022)

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Related Pages

• Football Anthropometry
• Lists of the tallest footballers
• Height changes of the Brazilian team at the FIFA World Cup
• The Shortest Athletes at the Olympic Games
• All about fitness testing, including anthropometry testing
• Procedure for measuring Height
• Poll about the fitness components for soccer
• Fitness for Soccer
• Fitness Testing for Football
• Sport Specific Anthropometry — about body size and composition of many sports
• All about anthropometry testing
• Examples of the World's Shortest athletes
• Height growth charts — monitoring height changes over time
• Converting cm to ft and in and vice versa.