A great striker can be worth his wait in gold. When a team has two such forwards working harmoniously as a duo, the results can be genuinely spectacular.

Some of football's finest moments down the years, certainly, have been produced by deadly strike partnerships, from Brazil's Romario and Bebeto to Andriy Shevchenko and Sergei Rebrov in Ukraine. And fresh examples continue to emerge.

Arguably the most exciting will be on show at Old Trafford tomorrow, where two of the game's most extraordinary young talents are spectacularly disproving those who labelled them too similar to form a complementary partnership. Neither Carlos Tevez nor Wayne Rooney can be considered an conventional centre forward of course, nor were they ever likely to form the kind of little-and-large partnership that has traditionally proved most popular in English football.

Both, in truth, prefer playing in a slightly deeper support role to the main striker, floating in between the opposition's midfield and back four. The danger, it seemed, that they would step on each other's toes. As it is, the fact that their partnership has succeeded against the expectations of countless pundits can be attributed largely to Rooney's ability - identified typically shrewdly by Sir Alex Ferguson - to excel in a more advanced role.

"I think we have got that right," said Ferguson, reflecting on a five-game period in October that had yielded nine goals for his young strikers. "Wayne is terrific up front. He has power, he has got two great feet, he is brave, you will not intimidate him, he is good in the air and he has got pace. He is the perfect foil for Carlos, who has the brain to drop in good areas, set the attacks going and turn defenders.

"We have had some fantastic partnerships at this club over the years. The first season with Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke was incredible but most of them take time. What you have to remember is that Wayne has just turned 22 and Carlos is only 23. In three or four years it might be something special."

Youngsters lift Lyon
Their best years may lie ahead of them, but Tevez and Rooney are veritable veterans compared to the strike duo currently lighting up French football for perennial champions Lyon. So impressive have Hatem Ben Arfa, 20, and 19-year old Karim Benzema been, in fact, that they have already forced their way into Raymond Domenech's star-studded France squad, and both have been just as quick to find the target, with Benzema already boasting three Les Bleus goals to his name.

Both are products of the Lyon youth academy, and their sparkling performances in the domestic arena have yielded 14 goals this season, 11 of them for the clinical, predatory Benzema. Ben Arfa tends to operate in a more creative role, one which complements his fellow youngster and has proved crucial to maintaining their club's familiar position at the summit of the French standings.

Lyon are not quite so strongly placed in a UEFA Champions League group currently dominated by Barcelona and Rangers, but a 2-0 win away to VfB Stuttgart in their last match was only achieved thanks to another goal from Benzema and a sparkling performance from Ben Arfa. No wonder this prodigious pair will once again be watched closely by continent's biggest clubs when they face up to Stuttgart for a second time tomorrow.

Raul and Ruud: 112 not out
While youth is proving no barrier in France and England, there remains no substitute for experience in the Spanish top flight.

Raul and Ruud van Nistelrooy may both be the wrong side of 30, but a more telling statistic for this prolific pair is their remarkable combined record of 112 goals in the UEFA Champions League. The Real captain continues to lead the competition's scoring charts with 59 but Van Nistelrooy - with three goals already this season - has closed to within six strikes of his Bernabeu colleague and will hope to narrow the gap yet further away to Olympiakos tonight.

Again, doubts were initially cast over their compatibility - many, indeed, suggested the Dutchman's arrival spelt the end for Raul in Madrid - but these peerless predators have worked hard on developing a style that is proving mutually beneficial, and which has left Van Nistelrooy in awe of his hard-working partner. "Raul is a living legend," said the Dutchman. "And we're a great pair. I think we understand each other due to sharing a vision of the game, and work in the same way. We understand football as a duo."

Germany salutes Kloni
The maxim that great players can always operate together doesn't always ring true, of course - chemistry is often found to be lacking - but just as Real Madrid have come up trumps with Raul and Van Nistelrooy, so Bayern Munich have struck gold in pairing Luca Toni with Miroslav Klose.

When the towering Italian was presented alongside Germany 2006's top scorer during the summer, many - as with Rooney and Tevez - predicted that these old-fashioned centre-forwards would prove too similar to flourish in the same team. In fact, so impressed have German fans and pundits been with the powerful pair in the four months since that they have even bestowed a nickname, 'Kloni', on a duo that have proved key in firing Bayern to the top of the Bundesliga and into a position of strength in the UEFA Cup.

Already, they have combined for 16 goals - each with eight goals and eight assists apiece - and it's not just the statistics that are impressive, but also the ease and intelligence with which they have combined. Toni and Klose will certainly be key figures on Thursday when Bayern host Bolton Wanderers in the UEFA Cup, and with both having found the net twice already in that competition, don't bet against them featuring prominently in another week in the headlines for Europe's most exciting strike partnerships.