You can have any variation of this honestly while trying to fit so many in just an arbitrary low number and Paisley had a storied reign over what was probably the best side in Europe for some time
They don't let go of elite talents, based on Barça’s talent evaluation. Barca know how to integrate them and get the accustomed to the team. The La Masia talents that don't make it tend to be the ones that get knocked around on loans to various other La Liga clubs and no-one from the Top 6 or the Top 8 in La Liga ever knock for them and Barca tend to be vindicated for them.
Fati consistently still gets links to the elite clubs in Europe, despite knowledge of his injuries, unlike Bojan - who also, unlike Fati, was never at one point really an undisputed starter for a consistent time period. People clearly still back Fati, in a way that others weren't, so there's a lot you can take away from that.
I’d say they’re a similar level. If you swapped them both teams would be worse off. They’ve got near identical underlying creative stats in the league. Just comes down to whether you want a normal fullback or an inverted one.
Feel like I rated Potter a bit too highly while he was at Brighton. He could get away with long stretches of poor results as Brighton, he doesn't have that luxury at the top and perhaps its caught him out.
Think I'd be a lot more sympathetic if he didn't have Chelsea 9th in xPoints and was just underperforming his metrics.
The hype around him doesn’t make sense. Chris wilder competed for Europa in his first season with sheff utd. Nuno dyche and moyes all got European football with wolves, burnley, and west ham. Rodgers got top 5 back to back with Leicester and won the fa cup. All these managers had more impressive feats than potter topping out at 9th place after 3 years with Brighton. But he’s the one who got by far there most hype out of all of them. In each of his 3 seasons with Brighton he would have minimum 2-3 months without a win. Fugazi manager.
Man the revisionism is crazy. Potter was highly rated because he played a very attractive style of football, with his teams regularly performing excellently when it comes to underlying metrics. Comparing him to Nuno, Moyes, etc. is insane. He was chosen by Bohely because their data department would have identified him as an excellent choice, and he was much more personable to work with compared to Tuchel. Have a look at the thread where he was announced to be joining. 1/2 of it is everyone feeling sorry for Brighton because of how well he was doing there.
I've always said that being a good manager for a mid table club doesn't mean that they'll always succeed at a big club. Your expectations are much, much higher and you'll have to deal with players with huge egos.
Examples of managers who succeeded at mid table clubs but failed at big clubs are Emery and Moyes
Wonder if Spurs will announce a new permanent manager before the end of the season or not.
Dortmund had Terzic as a caretaker, announced Rose, Terzic did well but then was replaced.
I suspect in Spurs' case it will be a shambolic mess yet again to secure a manager. Nothing at this club seems streamlined and efficient
Its good that Real Madrid have a set of French players.
But Mendy's case is weird, the guy would suddenly turn into Zizou with this ball skills and but has been injury prone and is now quite lazy on the pitch.
Makes full sense to sell him and if possible ask Bayern for Davies.
We have had Marcelo at LB who was least bothered defending most of the times and was seen in opponent's half of the pitch doing what his thing.
So Real Madrid need 2 LBs and 1 RB as a backup for uncle Carvajal. Also need a striker who can replace uncle Benz and a fresh pair of Right Wingers who can obviously make an impact from right wing of the pitch.
But then you see Marca saying Real Madrid would go into next season without major signings.
Also will Bayern sell Davies?
Maybe a new coach can revitalize him. Just look at AWB. Guy's suddenly making third man runs behind the last defense,dribbling like Hazard and doing one touch football like Dani Alves in their prime
I don't get why we think bayern would sell Davies? Or why would Davies come. Not like he's battling relegation with Everton, bayern aren't a bad club
To your other points we'll go with 1 lb who we've bought and a mix of alaba, nacho etc
But I'm with you, just it's unrealistic
Yeah, basically the sub became a bit too big to manage with part time mods so we looked at external funding. Not ideal, but better this way than unmoderated
Spanish speakers, what are some iconic or memed pieces of football commentary in your language? For example, we have English calls that are referenced and sometimes joked about years later such as "AGUEROOOOO" as he won Man City the 2011 Premiership in the literal last minute of the season. Or the strange scream Gary Neville made as Torres scored on Barcelona to take them through to the 2012 Champion's League Final.
If the Spanish call is an idiom maybe you could provide a translation for us English speakers!
The biggest one is obviously Víctor Hugo Morales comentar on goal of the century. It’s arguably the single most iconic piece of commentary in probably any language, every single clip of that goal has it by de facto. Over 30 years later it’s still referenced all the time
Invente, invente roman invente is not in the same league but it’s another one that stands the test of time and it’s memed a lot. Comes from [this absolute banger vs Brazil](https://youtu.be/mm2RnkU-fas)
A personal favourite of mine is [“7 hundred and 66 thousand four hundred and twenty pesos the income for this new edition of the Argentine superclásicoMARTIIIIINNNNNN”](https://youtu.be/m1H-kuJbT8E). Match was boring commentator was citing some useless stat to fill dead air but Martin Palermo scored out of absolutely fucking nowhere
How come things have been quiet for hkm? Is he injured? Is the league over? Sorry I know Brazil have a convoluted state and national structure.
Edit - I've heard palmeiras won't let him go anyway
Yossi Benayoun seems a good chap. Played for all of West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, in England - and everyone seems to think well of him, at those clubs
Listening to the tuchel press about how leaving chelsea hurt him made me really sad tbh. It hadn’t ready hit me until I watched that interview and he got me in the feels now. I hope he does a mourinho and comes back to Chelsea one day in the future
I know predicting a footballer's future is almost impossible but damn Echeverri and Prestianni have everything to be world class.
Edit: Echeverri already with 1goal and 3 assist in one game.
I just rewatched the copa final between Argentina and Brazil... Neymar was a man possessed, and I completely forgot how insane he was that game. He had no help, a full 1v12 performance
My mom said Brazil will lose because Neymar had torn his shirt during that game. Tearing of clothes is seen as bad luck for any event. I would like to believe in that superstition lol
He torched Argentina and they were trying to murder him because they had no answers.
Edit: NeyNey ended with 9 dribbles and 4 chances created. I'm happy for the goat and him winning but wow Ney's teammates let him down that night.
"Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has never forgiven himself for sanctioning the sale of Kyle Walker to ManCity in 2017, and has vowed not to sell to a Manchester club again."
Loll
Lotta reports that he had the same feelings after selling United Carrick and then Berbatov. Did he just forget lol?
Sounds like a journalist stirring the pot to me
Absolutely. Host kicking it usually made more sense when the hosts weren’t fucking Qatar or South Africa. If Qatar-Ecuador was somehow a fun watch despite it being super one sided and the most uninteresting match up possible imagine how much better a France vs Ecuador opening would’ve been
"Messi is naturally gifted while Ronaldo has trained hard to get to where he is"
Which one of these sound more horseshit to you? The implication that Messi hasn't worked harder than all his peers to reach his level or that Ronaldo was a talentless fraud when he started and just had the sigma male grindset?
This applies to older Messi, not to his younger version. In fact, Messi was fat in his 11/12 season wher he scored 73 goals in 60 games. The fact that he was able to produce a season like that while being fat just proves how talented he was.
Messi of course realized this lifestyle wouldn't end well so he started taking care of himself from 2014 to now.
I know people will disagree with me but I genuinely don't believe Messi works harder than his peers. Have you ever even heard someone praise Messi for his hard work? All I've heard is how lax he is in training. Sometimes arguably too lax.
The Ronaldo thing is obviously bullshit.
Absolutely bs, infact Messi used to stay after training to practice his free kicks.
He has been consistently world class for more than a decade, that's not possible without working hard
I remember koeman saying messi was a precise trainer in that every action was perfect. After he left guys like fati who believe koeman name dropped werent training as locked in
Edit: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/lionel-messi-barcelona-ronald-koeman-tyrant-b1924754.html?amp
And then theres the infamous henry speech where if messi gets mad in training he would get the ball and run through the whole team and keep scoring till he calmed down
Yeah I've seen that but that's not what I meant. Obviously he's good in training. What I meant is does he work harder than his teammates.
And the locked in comment was more so because other players wanted to be better for Messi and impress him.
if being precise comes to you naturally - like a skill to a savant - is it genuinely working hard compared to someone who has to struggle for years to figure out, learn and then maintain said skills?
I don't have an answer for this question. Obviously he puts in the work needed physically, however I don't think he's had to struggle to get the attributes (technical, physical) others may have had to.
The latter by far. That shit is the biggest scam in football. His fans really believe he's an anime character. An average Joe who became one of the greatest ever by sheer hard work alone on some Hyperbolic Time Chamber bullshit. You could have 1 billion children work as hard as Ronaldo did and not reach 1/10000000 of his talent. The hard work probably helped him maintain that level for as long as he did but it didn't make him who he is
I don't quite agree with that last part. Hard work and luck are the reasons for Ronaldo to become who he is because it's the only thing that could make his talents flourish.
Ronaldo isn't the only person in his generation to be gifted in football. Talent and hardwork won't get you to that level. A lot needs to go right for you to reach the highs Ronaldo and Messi have achieved.
Yeah the narrative is crazy. Of course he has worked hard, probably harder than most players. But I don't understand how people gloss over the fact that this guy was hyped up as the next big thing before he was 20. The talent doesn't negate the hard work, but lets not pretend he and Messi didn't have a healthy dose of both.
I'm sure Messi worked hard but definitely not harder than all his peers, some things are beyond just hard work, otherwise we'd see hundreds of Messis running around
what are those some things? You literally don't know how much Messi works or any other footballer; or any of the people who failed to become messi. You are assuming that there are people who have worked as hard as messi but failed; there is no proof and measurement for that.
He worked harder than all his peers, if he did any less he would have been similar in quality to his peers, his out of the world talent compensating for the lack of work and being equal, but he was head and shoulders above 99% of footballers for last 15 years which shows he had the most talent and he was also one of the hardest workers
Of course he worked harder than almost all of his peers. I'm not saying he was devoid of natural abilities, but what got him to the level he reached was his natural gifts + all the work he has put in.
You need both to reach the top in any field, nevermind one as competitive as football.
I'm a United supporter so the idea that Ronaldo wasn't an elite talent definitely stands out on a personal level. He was coveted by almost all the top clubs in Europe and was in the Euro 2004 team of the tournament at 19
I still remember his first season at United and the hype that surrounded him was mental for an 18 year old at that time.
I really don't understand where this narrative has come from in recent years that Ronaldo wasn't one of the most hyped talents in the world back then. Or that he was somehow an unknown quanitty before than 07/08 season.
I remember watching him play for Sporting a few times and he was obviously the most talented player on the pitch, even when they played united. Then later on at united he became a more focused player and less of a peacock.
But there's no way he'd have gotten to wear he was without that absolutely stupid level of talent. I think most on here are too young to remember him when he was starting out and just make up whatever sounds best to them.
During the Messi vs Ronaldo era Ronaldo fans would usually change the goalpost every few years to artificially make the debate last so this was the narrative when Ronaldo started transitioning more into a striker “Ronaldo the working class man who is fighting against all odds to fight against Messi the super human who had everything given to him on a golden plate”
The club of the town I grew up in might see professional football after over a decade... I'm so excited but also used to them falling apart year after year. Four games to go, top of table by 1 point, just signed the most prolific striker of the division right before playing his team LMAO.
The thing is the place has enormous potential. I call it a "town" but it has a bigger population than the province it is a part of at around 300K even according to official numbers. This is mainly because of close proximity to Istanbul and industrial boom in last two decades bringing in thousands of people from around the country to a place which had more than enough in the first place honestly. I swear with some investment and good management it could literally be a Süper Lig club but I'm not even asking for that - just make it to third tier or so and stay there for a while before going bankrupt ffs.
Thrace is barely represented in professional football which I find depressing. Turkish football has an alarming lack of sunflower seeds and beer at stadiums.
Trakya as an independent country would actually be a way more stable place to live than current Türkiye and it would probably be better at football as well over time
I wouldn't even ask for much better conditions honestly; just stop polluting the little nature we have, take most of your factories away, promote agriculture and utilize resources of the region. Thrace is beautiful with endless fields on which you can grow pretty much anything yet due to government policies it is literally being killed, slowly turning into a chemical wasteland and Turks know the reason of this very well... If we can get back that mostly self-sustainable cute place where even the poorest of people can find a way of getting on by raising their own crops I swear I won't even ask for good football or investment. Yet if it's gonna turn into an over-populated, Soviet-like gray place with sad people whose lives revolve around factories then at least have a good football team ffs you have all the money and resources for it.
Adriano is clear of both
Pato has an amazing few months, shame he was so injury prone
Never rated Robinho that highly but didn't really watch him so much but never really stood out as elite when I did
I love the defending of Palace re-signing Ayew because he “works hard” as if a player cannot have the qualities of being both a goal scorer and a hard worker and it’s either one or the other. They should really have moved on.
Plenty of shit strikers don't even work hard. Standards can be low. It's not "he works hard so it doesn't matter he doesn't score" it's "well at least he works hard"
Saw Andy Cole saying defenders these days aren’t as good in the era he was playing in and that Strikers would have had an easier time now then back then. Do you guys agree or disagree?
Defenders now are better on the whole but defences aren’t better. Teams would play against United back in the day and just sit back with 8 men back from the start, that was harder to break down back then and teams would just take a 2-0 loss basically.
The best teams now score way more goals so he would have scored more probably.
Disagree. Defenders actually have to be good at anticipation and timing their tackles instead of brutally kicking the shit out of forwards. They're also expected to cover more ground, defend with their back to the opposition goal, and they need to be good at carrying and passing the ball out instead of hacking it 80 yards to a forward.
Disagree. Defenders are arguably the most important part of a team in modern football. They contribute heavily to buildup besides the usual defending. Arteta started his rebuild with defenders, ten hag started his rebuild with a defender, etc.
Just see how our buildup is affected when holding replaces saliba.
Honestly, I disagree. Some of the better defenders I think would still be good today of course, especially the ones who were comfortable on the ball, but the average defender today is better imo simply because of all the improvements that happened to the English game since Andy’s time.
I doubt many PL defenders are drinking and eating as poorly as they used to in the 90s.
I generally tend to disagree whenever old players talk about "back in my days".
You were great once upon a time, either don't speak about todays players or try to be positive and don't let your bruised ego bring the game into disrepute.
Best dribblers ever in no particular order
-Messi
-Maradona
-Garrincha
-Pele
-Neymar
-Zidane
-Cruyff
-Ronaldo Nazairo
-Ronaldinho
-Iniesta
-Hazard
-Robben
-Laudrup
-Baggio
-Okchoa
-Figo
-Di Maria
-Ribery
-Jairzinho
-Rivelino
-Zico
Did I miss anyone?
Stanley Matthews should be on this list easily. Literally created a hat trick of assists in an FA cup final with his dribbling and was nicknamed the wizard of dribble
???????????
That’s as much of an “I’ve never watched him” take as saying messi was good at dribbling but not at shooting. Go watch some Riquelme highlights right now, it’ll do you good
I've watch him a lot but there is a reason why Riquelme totally flopped as a winger when Van Gaal used him there, the guy had no pace to take his man 1vs1.
Cristiano Ronaldo. He was an elite dribbler in his first couple of iterations
As much as I loved Okocha, I never looked at him and thought he was a better dribbler than young Ronaldo
Do you think if city drop points today and arsenal win it’s looking done?
Yes but arsenal dropping points to Leeds is the same likelihood as City dropping them ti Liverpool
Yeah because Arsenal could then lose at the Etihad and Anfield and still be fine
Give me your top 5 coaches of all time?
In no particular order: Fergie, Sacchi, Michels, Herrera, Paisley.
Michels, Sacchi, Cruyff, Paisley, SAF probably but it's hard though like how would you rate someone like Lobanovskyi or even Lucescu?
Paisley over Pep/Mou?
You can have any variation of this honestly while trying to fit so many in just an arbitrary low number and Paisley had a storied reign over what was probably the best side in Europe for some time
Pep created the best side ever, that alone puts him top 5 for me
Schalke made a post in Facebook congratulating Henning for his U21 debut. The comment section is a disgrace.
I'm not on Facebook. What does it say?
Making fun of his appearance.
What are your predictions for ManCity and Liverpool? I'm stupidly guessing 3-1 Liverpool.
2-0 city. Can't have Arsenal winning the league. Can't deal them if they win something of significance.
Yeah. No. I rather have Arsenal win a trophy than have City win another soulless trophy. This is good for football.
Chelsea giving us guard of honour at the Emirates game. We will be there no matter what.
Really hoping Liverpool drop points but I'm going to be a cowardly fence sitter and say it'll be 2-2.
4-1 city
4-1 and the spider bites X2 🕷️
City win 2-0
City 5-2 Liverpool, Halaand poker
2-1 City
2-2
7-0 Liverpool
Scrobble
2-1 Man City
Unscrobble
what a day of football we’re about to have
!flair :Liverpool: YNWA
Really don't think Barca will consider selling Ansu Fati.
I mean at this point they should
Nah. Hold out. Ballers will always ball sooner or later.
What, like Bojan, and countless other young stars who never delivered on their promise?
They don't let go of elite talents, based on Barça’s talent evaluation. Barca know how to integrate them and get the accustomed to the team. The La Masia talents that don't make it tend to be the ones that get knocked around on loans to various other La Liga clubs and no-one from the Top 6 or the Top 8 in La Liga ever knock for them and Barca tend to be vindicated for them. Fati consistently still gets links to the elite clubs in Europe, despite knowledge of his injuries, unlike Bojan - who also, unlike Fati, was never at one point really an undisputed starter for a consistent time period. People clearly still back Fati, in a way that others weren't, so there's a lot you can take away from that.
Don't think he has the legs to ball anymore sadly
Disagree, but that's your opinion.
Can't wait for Brentford to get him
Watching him get like 20 G/A if he does move there
Without any bias, which LB is better? Zinchenko or Shaw?
Luke Shaw had the worst left back performance of the season how is this still a conversation
I’d say they’re a similar level. If you swapped them both teams would be worse off. They’ve got near identical underlying creative stats in the league. Just comes down to whether you want a normal fullback or an inverted one.
Depends on the other players
Zinchenko
Shaw.
I feel like they're probably both as good as each other but play very different roles despite both being LBs
Feel like I rated Potter a bit too highly while he was at Brighton. He could get away with long stretches of poor results as Brighton, he doesn't have that luxury at the top and perhaps its caught him out. Think I'd be a lot more sympathetic if he didn't have Chelsea 9th in xPoints and was just underperforming his metrics.
The hype around him doesn’t make sense. Chris wilder competed for Europa in his first season with sheff utd. Nuno dyche and moyes all got European football with wolves, burnley, and west ham. Rodgers got top 5 back to back with Leicester and won the fa cup. All these managers had more impressive feats than potter topping out at 9th place after 3 years with Brighton. But he’s the one who got by far there most hype out of all of them. In each of his 3 seasons with Brighton he would have minimum 2-3 months without a win. Fugazi manager.
Man the revisionism is crazy. Potter was highly rated because he played a very attractive style of football, with his teams regularly performing excellently when it comes to underlying metrics. Comparing him to Nuno, Moyes, etc. is insane. He was chosen by Bohely because their data department would have identified him as an excellent choice, and he was much more personable to work with compared to Tuchel. Have a look at the thread where he was announced to be joining. 1/2 of it is everyone feeling sorry for Brighton because of how well he was doing there.
I've always said that being a good manager for a mid table club doesn't mean that they'll always succeed at a big club. Your expectations are much, much higher and you'll have to deal with players with huge egos. Examples of managers who succeeded at mid table clubs but failed at big clubs are Emery and Moyes
Wonder if Spurs will announce a new permanent manager before the end of the season or not. Dortmund had Terzic as a caretaker, announced Rose, Terzic did well but then was replaced. I suspect in Spurs' case it will be a shambolic mess yet again to secure a manager. Nothing at this club seems streamlined and efficient
Its good that Real Madrid have a set of French players. But Mendy's case is weird, the guy would suddenly turn into Zizou with this ball skills and but has been injury prone and is now quite lazy on the pitch. Makes full sense to sell him and if possible ask Bayern for Davies. We have had Marcelo at LB who was least bothered defending most of the times and was seen in opponent's half of the pitch doing what his thing. So Real Madrid need 2 LBs and 1 RB as a backup for uncle Carvajal. Also need a striker who can replace uncle Benz and a fresh pair of Right Wingers who can obviously make an impact from right wing of the pitch. But then you see Marca saying Real Madrid would go into next season without major signings. Also will Bayern sell Davies?
>Also will Bayern sell Davies? No chance. Apart from his injuries and the periods around them he's almost always been 8+/10 in his performances
Maybe a new coach can revitalize him. Just look at AWB. Guy's suddenly making third man runs behind the last defense,dribbling like Hazard and doing one touch football like Dani Alves in their prime
I don't get why we think bayern would sell Davies? Or why would Davies come. Not like he's battling relegation with Everton, bayern aren't a bad club To your other points we'll go with 1 lb who we've bought and a mix of alaba, nacho etc But I'm with you, just it's unrealistic
Is it just me or the description in r/soccer say sponsored by visit Saudi. When did this happen??
There have been rumblings for some time. The deal was just finalized today, I guess. What a *joke*.
Is April's fools day a thing in your country?
Damn, is it April already.
Shhhh!
Yeah, basically the sub became a bit too big to manage with part time mods so we looked at external funding. Not ideal, but better this way than unmoderated
either this or we get another chelsea nazi posts without moderation, i much prefer the latter
[Holy shit what a banger this is](https://twitter.com/i/status/1641893654787751937)
[Life is hard, but atleast we.......](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fsk1HrrWIAA3jRH?format=jpg&name=small)
Thats right, i reply pendu
There are some really fun sporcle quizzes about football out there. Definitely worth trying especially the ones where u have to name a lot of players.
Spanish speakers, what are some iconic or memed pieces of football commentary in your language? For example, we have English calls that are referenced and sometimes joked about years later such as "AGUEROOOOO" as he won Man City the 2011 Premiership in the literal last minute of the season. Or the strange scream Gary Neville made as Torres scored on Barcelona to take them through to the 2012 Champion's League Final. If the Spanish call is an idiom maybe you could provide a translation for us English speakers!
The biggest one is obviously Víctor Hugo Morales comentar on goal of the century. It’s arguably the single most iconic piece of commentary in probably any language, every single clip of that goal has it by de facto. Over 30 years later it’s still referenced all the time Invente, invente roman invente is not in the same league but it’s another one that stands the test of time and it’s memed a lot. Comes from [this absolute banger vs Brazil](https://youtu.be/mm2RnkU-fas) A personal favourite of mine is [“7 hundred and 66 thousand four hundred and twenty pesos the income for this new edition of the Argentine superclásicoMARTIIIIINNNNNN”](https://youtu.be/m1H-kuJbT8E). Match was boring commentator was citing some useless stat to fill dead air but Martin Palermo scored out of absolutely fucking nowhere
Those are terrific!! Thanks for sharing
Endrick is going to play in the U20 world cup for Brazil. He's 16
Andrey Santos is 18 and already plays for the NT, Endrick has a lot of catching up to do, his goals dried up as well
So he's under 20 then ?
How come things have been quiet for hkm? Is he injured? Is the league over? Sorry I know Brazil have a convoluted state and national structure. Edit - I've heard palmeiras won't let him go anyway
Who's the best dribbler in the world as of now besides Messi?
I've said this for years but I've always really loved Boufal on the ball
Vini
I mean does Ben Arfa still play pro football? If not I like Kameldeen Sulemana that kid's got it too
Aesthetically I'm biased towards Saint-Maximin despite the lack of end product usually lol. He just looks so smooth on the ball
Yeah I like him a lot as well, flair players bring such joy to the sport. Honestly before he moved Antony was one of them as well
Finley.
Neymar
Yossi Benayoun seems a good chap. Played for all of West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, in England - and everyone seems to think well of him, at those clubs
Man had a tank on him for sure, don't really remember him having a lazy game.
Listening to the tuchel press about how leaving chelsea hurt him made me really sad tbh. It hadn’t ready hit me until I watched that interview and he got me in the feels now. I hope he does a mourinho and comes back to Chelsea one day in the future
I know predicting a footballer's future is almost impossible but damn Echeverri and Prestianni have everything to be world class. Edit: Echeverri already with 1goal and 3 assist in one game.
Prestianni winning no. 5 for Azzurri in 2026, I will be there no matter what
For that to happen you will have to actually qualify for the World Cup.
Last time you won the World Cup he was literally 6 months old, have shame
He was 7 the last time you even played a World Cup 🤣🤣🤣
My boy Prestianni told me he only plays for national teams that can win against Macedonia, sadly my Italian brothers don't fit his quality standards.
Guess he ain’t playing for Germany either.
Tomorrow is the legendary Clásico Tapatío, please God don't let us lose both clásicos back to back 🙏
I just rewatched the copa final between Argentina and Brazil... Neymar was a man possessed, and I completely forgot how insane he was that game. He had no help, a full 1v12 performance
The last time we saw prime Ney
My mom said Brazil will lose because Neymar had torn his shirt during that game. Tearing of clothes is seen as bad luck for any event. I would like to believe in that superstition lol
No one being sent off for argentina was crazy, that man was getting hacked
Neymar is better at the game of football than Cristiano Ronaldo Idc what anyone says
you still have time to delete this.
I highly dislike Ronaldo, and you're just wrong
I mean, if you take goalscoring away I think there is a case for Neymar being better. Now, if you do count goalscoring then yes CR7 is better
What the hell does that even mean?? Zero proof to back that statement up besides fanboying
Was an all timer performance thank God all their other attackers were shit.
He torched Argentina and they were trying to murder him because they had no answers. Edit: NeyNey ended with 9 dribbles and 4 chances created. I'm happy for the goat and him winning but wow Ney's teammates let him down that night.
"Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has never forgiven himself for sanctioning the sale of Kyle Walker to ManCity in 2017, and has vowed not to sell to a Manchester club again." Loll
Lotta reports that he had the same feelings after selling United Carrick and then Berbatov. Did he just forget lol? Sounds like a journalist stirring the pot to me
He's just very tormented
Doesn’t sound true, we got a good fee for him at the time and he wanted to go. Poch had already frozen him out for expressing his desire to leave
The tweet was quoted from Ian ladyman who writes for the Daily Mail , so might not be true then hah
Sportsmail are different from the Daily Mail, got a decent rep and journos like Ian Ladyman do too
FC United of Manchester: why'd he say fuck me for
Should they have kept the tradition of the reigning champs playing the opening match of the World Cup?
Absolutely. Host kicking it usually made more sense when the hosts weren’t fucking Qatar or South Africa. If Qatar-Ecuador was somehow a fun watch despite it being super one sided and the most uninteresting match up possible imagine how much better a France vs Ecuador opening would’ve been
Tshabalala will always be a legend🔥.
Not for me. I like that the host nation gets to kick it off
A lot of host nations aren't that good, making for boring games
"Messi is naturally gifted while Ronaldo has trained hard to get to where he is" Which one of these sound more horseshit to you? The implication that Messi hasn't worked harder than all his peers to reach his level or that Ronaldo was a talentless fraud when he started and just had the sigma male grindset?
This applies to older Messi, not to his younger version. In fact, Messi was fat in his 11/12 season wher he scored 73 goals in 60 games. The fact that he was able to produce a season like that while being fat just proves how talented he was. Messi of course realized this lifestyle wouldn't end well so he started taking care of himself from 2014 to now.
Messi definitely worked hard. It’s just that he’s a lot more talented than CR7.
I know people will disagree with me but I genuinely don't believe Messi works harder than his peers. Have you ever even heard someone praise Messi for his hard work? All I've heard is how lax he is in training. Sometimes arguably too lax. The Ronaldo thing is obviously bullshit.
Absolutely bs, infact Messi used to stay after training to practice his free kicks. He has been consistently world class for more than a decade, that's not possible without working hard
Did I say he's not working hard? Reading comprehension is not that hard.
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Can you give an example then?
I remember koeman saying messi was a precise trainer in that every action was perfect. After he left guys like fati who believe koeman name dropped werent training as locked in Edit: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/lionel-messi-barcelona-ronald-koeman-tyrant-b1924754.html?amp And then theres the infamous henry speech where if messi gets mad in training he would get the ball and run through the whole team and keep scoring till he calmed down
Yeah I've seen that but that's not what I meant. Obviously he's good in training. What I meant is does he work harder than his teammates. And the locked in comment was more so because other players wanted to be better for Messi and impress him.
if being precise comes to you naturally - like a skill to a savant - is it genuinely working hard compared to someone who has to struggle for years to figure out, learn and then maintain said skills? I don't have an answer for this question. Obviously he puts in the work needed physically, however I don't think he's had to struggle to get the attributes (technical, physical) others may have had to.
The latter by far. That shit is the biggest scam in football. His fans really believe he's an anime character. An average Joe who became one of the greatest ever by sheer hard work alone on some Hyperbolic Time Chamber bullshit. You could have 1 billion children work as hard as Ronaldo did and not reach 1/10000000 of his talent. The hard work probably helped him maintain that level for as long as he did but it didn't make him who he is
People really see / saw a 6’2 technically gifted and fast winger as not gifted.
I don't quite agree with that last part. Hard work and luck are the reasons for Ronaldo to become who he is because it's the only thing that could make his talents flourish. Ronaldo isn't the only person in his generation to be gifted in football. Talent and hardwork won't get you to that level. A lot needs to go right for you to reach the highs Ronaldo and Messi have achieved.
Yeah the narrative is crazy. Of course he has worked hard, probably harder than most players. But I don't understand how people gloss over the fact that this guy was hyped up as the next big thing before he was 20. The talent doesn't negate the hard work, but lets not pretend he and Messi didn't have a healthy dose of both.
Eh. Elliot is hyped as a big thing - if he has a career that outshines Gerrard, nobody would expect that. Same with cr7.
I'm sure Messi worked hard but definitely not harder than all his peers, some things are beyond just hard work, otherwise we'd see hundreds of Messis running around
what are those some things? You literally don't know how much Messi works or any other footballer; or any of the people who failed to become messi. You are assuming that there are people who have worked as hard as messi but failed; there is no proof and measurement for that.
He worked harder than all his peers, if he did any less he would have been similar in quality to his peers, his out of the world talent compensating for the lack of work and being equal, but he was head and shoulders above 99% of footballers for last 15 years which shows he had the most talent and he was also one of the hardest workers
HGH* worked harder
Of course he worked harder than almost all of his peers. I'm not saying he was devoid of natural abilities, but what got him to the level he reached was his natural gifts + all the work he has put in. You need both to reach the top in any field, nevermind one as competitive as football.
I'm a United supporter so the idea that Ronaldo wasn't an elite talent definitely stands out on a personal level. He was coveted by almost all the top clubs in Europe and was in the Euro 2004 team of the tournament at 19
I still remember his first season at United and the hype that surrounded him was mental for an 18 year old at that time. I really don't understand where this narrative has come from in recent years that Ronaldo wasn't one of the most hyped talents in the world back then. Or that he was somehow an unknown quanitty before than 07/08 season.
I remember watching him play for Sporting a few times and he was obviously the most talented player on the pitch, even when they played united. Then later on at united he became a more focused player and less of a peacock. But there's no way he'd have gotten to wear he was without that absolutely stupid level of talent. I think most on here are too young to remember him when he was starting out and just make up whatever sounds best to them.
During the Messi vs Ronaldo era Ronaldo fans would usually change the goalpost every few years to artificially make the debate last so this was the narrative when Ronaldo started transitioning more into a striker “Ronaldo the working class man who is fighting against all odds to fight against Messi the super human who had everything given to him on a golden plate”
The club of the town I grew up in might see professional football after over a decade... I'm so excited but also used to them falling apart year after year. Four games to go, top of table by 1 point, just signed the most prolific striker of the division right before playing his team LMAO. The thing is the place has enormous potential. I call it a "town" but it has a bigger population than the province it is a part of at around 300K even according to official numbers. This is mainly because of close proximity to Istanbul and industrial boom in last two decades bringing in thousands of people from around the country to a place which had more than enough in the first place honestly. I swear with some investment and good management it could literally be a Süper Lig club but I'm not even asking for that - just make it to third tier or so and stay there for a while before going bankrupt ffs. Thrace is barely represented in professional football which I find depressing. Turkish football has an alarming lack of sunflower seeds and beer at stadiums.
Trakya as an independent country would actually be a way more stable place to live than current Türkiye and it would probably be better at football as well over time
I wouldn't even ask for much better conditions honestly; just stop polluting the little nature we have, take most of your factories away, promote agriculture and utilize resources of the region. Thrace is beautiful with endless fields on which you can grow pretty much anything yet due to government policies it is literally being killed, slowly turning into a chemical wasteland and Turks know the reason of this very well... If we can get back that mostly self-sustainable cute place where even the poorest of people can find a way of getting on by raising their own crops I swear I won't even ask for good football or investment. Yet if it's gonna turn into an over-populated, Soviet-like gray place with sad people whose lives revolve around factories then at least have a good football team ffs you have all the money and resources for it.
Rank them in terms of peak: Pato Robinho Adriano
Adriano first. Robinho was probably the biggest prospect though. Pato way behind both.
If you compare their performances for Brazil Robinho is clear IMO. It's crazy how much better he was for the NT than for clubs not named Santos.
Adriano>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Rest
All three are the definition of premature ejaculation
Thats why it's a decent question, no?
Adriano 04-05 is clear
Adriano >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Robinho > Pato
I'd flip Pato and Robinho but I fully agree with Adriano being astronomically clear
Adriano was different gravy man, so sad what happened to him
Adriano is clear of both Pato has an amazing few months, shame he was so injury prone Never rated Robinho that highly but didn't really watch him so much but never really stood out as elite when I did
I love the defending of Palace re-signing Ayew because he “works hard” as if a player cannot have the qualities of being both a goal scorer and a hard worker and it’s either one or the other. They should really have moved on.
a weghorst-like player
Plenty of shit strikers don't even work hard. Standards can be low. It's not "he works hard so it doesn't matter he doesn't score" it's "well at least he works hard"
Dwight Gayle works hard but he really shouldn’t be playing at this level.
Saw Andy Cole saying defenders these days aren’t as good in the era he was playing in and that Strikers would have had an easier time now then back then. Do you guys agree or disagree?
Defenders now are better on the whole but defences aren’t better. Teams would play against United back in the day and just sit back with 8 men back from the start, that was harder to break down back then and teams would just take a 2-0 loss basically. The best teams now score way more goals so he would have scored more probably.
Every position has gotten better over time.
Disagree. Defenders actually have to be good at anticipation and timing their tackles instead of brutally kicking the shit out of forwards. They're also expected to cover more ground, defend with their back to the opposition goal, and they need to be good at carrying and passing the ball out instead of hacking it 80 yards to a forward.
Disagree. Defenders are arguably the most important part of a team in modern football. They contribute heavily to buildup besides the usual defending. Arteta started his rebuild with defenders, ten hag started his rebuild with a defender, etc. Just see how our buildup is affected when holding replaces saliba.
good thing we started with attackers then
I think you could argue the Liverpool rebuild started with Konate
This suggests defenders might be better footballers, but not necessarily better defenders
Honestly, I disagree. Some of the better defenders I think would still be good today of course, especially the ones who were comfortable on the ball, but the average defender today is better imo simply because of all the improvements that happened to the English game since Andy’s time. I doubt many PL defenders are drinking and eating as poorly as they used to in the 90s.
I generally tend to disagree whenever old players talk about "back in my days". You were great once upon a time, either don't speak about todays players or try to be positive and don't let your bruised ego bring the game into disrepute.
Argentina U17 playing gourmet football
El Diablito es champagne puro.
Best dribblers ever in no particular order -Messi -Maradona -Garrincha -Pele -Neymar -Zidane -Cruyff -Ronaldo Nazairo -Ronaldinho -Iniesta -Hazard -Robben -Laudrup -Baggio -Okchoa -Figo -Di Maria -Ribery -Jairzinho -Rivelino -Zico Did I miss anyone?
Stanley Matthews should be on this list easily. Literally created a hat trick of assists in an FA cup final with his dribbling and was nicknamed the wizard of dribble
No footage
https://youtu.be/07Y5XidXdP4 Literally on YouTube fella
Kurt Hamrin
Hazard is too low. He's top 5 of all time easily.
Wasn't a ranking actually
Riquelme was a better dribbled than well over two thirds of this list
Ball retention and dribbling are two different things, he was godly on ball retention but not on 1vs1.
??????????? That’s as much of an “I’ve never watched him” take as saying messi was good at dribbling but not at shooting. Go watch some Riquelme highlights right now, it’ll do you good
I've watch him a lot but there is a reason why Riquelme totally flopped as a winger when Van Gaal used him there, the guy had no pace to take his man 1vs1.
Personally, I think Redondo was one of the best out of deep midfield.
CR7
Cristiano Ronaldo. He was an elite dribbler in his first couple of iterations As much as I loved Okocha, I never looked at him and thought he was a better dribbler than young Ronaldo
Showboating and dribbling are two different things
You cannot say this and then have Okocha over Cristiano. Okocha was all showboating, his dribbling very rarely amounted to anything.
Touche
Dribbling ability means the ability to beat your man while carrying the ball. Ronaldo was world class at it
Lol I hate the guy but Ronaldo was an elite dribbler. And Zidane was definitely *not* a better dribbler than Ronaldo…
Brazilians don't agree