I've read many things over the years about players being right footed who are actually left footed & vice versa. Much of it has been nonsense written by people who should know better. Often the players themselves perpetuate the myth. I'm thinking here specifically of Bobby Charlton. Bobby, the legend goes, was right footed, but injured his right foot two days before his league debut in 1956 or whatever. So he goes out on the pitch (on his league debut with an injured foot!!!!!!) & starts using his left foot, & finds that it is really good & he'll use it for evermore. Did you ever hear such nonsense?! Since I played football, & trained my weaker side (my left)... I actually found that in the end, I trusted my left more to shoot & was comfortable passing with it. I trusted it because it was like a dumb obedient pony, it didn't think, it didn't ask questions, it just did the job. Well either that or I balanced better in regard to directing the ball than for my stronger side, I don't know. But what I do know, is that when a player gets into trouble or is under pressure, particularly when dribbling, he will instinctively rely on his stronger foot to get him out of trouble. It is nature. It goes with our heartbeat. Anyone looking below, therefore can clearly see that Bobby Charlton was left footed! (39) Sir Bobby Charlton - England's Greatest Player - YouTube
Interesting idea mate. To be honest, I did always assume he was primarily right footed (although largely two sided), and without saying that for sure you must be wrong, I'd say that my own impression would be that for example the volley at 1:43 could be a good clue that he was indeed right footed. Everyone is different of course, but personally speaking I think that is the type of thing I'd find difficult or impossible to pull off like that on my left (irrespective of maybe not exactly finding it easy as such on the right either necessarily lol!). Moreso than dribbling, or as you say passing, or shooting from the ground with time to set properly etc. But the idea about dribbling is interesting certainly, in terms of the instinctiveness you imply and for sure I think it holds for various more obviously one sided (though at times good enough with the other leg in certain positions) players. Messi when dribbling in general I suppose, Brian Laudrup also I think (left and right respectively for those two players of course). I'd not read the specific story you share above about Charlton, but had read something about both him and Best training their left a lot by practicing with it loads in training if I remember correctly.
Maybe the acrobatic volley at 3:48 is a similar example to the other one I gave, in terms of something that would add to a perception he was right footed. To be fair, that it's even a question shows he was certainly pretty great on both sides in general I think anyway! EDIT (rather than add a 3rd post in quick succession), I'd say the iconic volleyed goal at 6:20 too - it just seems like his natural side the way he connects so sweetly with it with that kind of shot I think, not to say a right footed player couldn't do something kind of similar with the left (I think Hoddle did do some quite similar things actually for one example with his left although he's a player who was said to be kind of ambidextrous I think, and nevertheless maybe the most impressive or difficult volleyed goals he scored were still right footed ones...and I think in his case that is his predominant side anyway). In essence, I guess I'm saying if hypothesis 1 is look at the dribbling in tight situations, my hypothesis number 2 would be look at the volleys instead lol!
I hope my comments and observations didn't come over too much like a rebuttal of the opening post anyway. It was definitely interesting, and I can see the premise that a player will dribble mainly on his better side naturally can be a good guide. Like I say, when it comes to Charlton I'm not sure it holds necessarily myself (and/or that the examples were not typical or inherent re: his dribbling overall), but I'm not the authority on it or anything so of course I can be wrong too myself. I can't remember exactly where now (and even whether via a Big Soccer post or not) but I briefly read something about Puskas originally being right footed, and I was thinking surely not! It seems like it was hearsay though, judging by his Hungarian Wikipedia article which was posted in the Goal Contributions thread today I noticed: Puskás Ferenc (labdarúgó) – Wikipédia (wikipedia.org) In the 'legends' section of the translated page it says this: He is rumored to have tried to score with his right foot in one of his matches early in his career, but the shot hit the goalkeeper, whose all ribs were broken, so he later used only the weaker ball (PDG: This word should have been foot I assume) to shoot the goal. The reality, on the other hand, is that he was able to use his left leg better than his right