Search results

Hahaha yeah its absurd; he's basically the type of player who is good enough to get a fair number of caps for his national team, but not by any means an all-time great type of player. I would equate him to someone like Marcos Senna (from a few years ago, not right now, given that Senna is 35)...

The value of a player is the value of all expected future contributions to his teams. In that sense, Xavi is not worth THAT much simply because he does not have THAT many future years left to contribute in. Only in that sense is it justifiable to value players such as Nigel de Jong higher than...

Zidane's passing wasn't always about the assist though. He would give perfectly weighted pass-before-assist sorts of passes, as well as just great possession-oriented, and tactical passing in general. I don't rabidly believe he MUST be put in the top 5 passers ever, but he is certainly near the...

Messi is definitely a phenomenal passer. I have been really impressed in the last year with the improved weighting of his through balls (not that they were bad before!). It seems like I have seen a lot of Messi through balls in the past year where the striker (generally Pedro or Villa) do not...

Who do you put ahead of him? Xavi and Iniesta obviously. Who's the third? Busquets? Fabregas? I think one could definitely argue that he was our 3rd best passer last season; Busquets is a phenomenal passer, though so idk.

This is not hating on Messi; I think his passing is actually one of the best in the world right now. We saw a great example of this today for the 2nd goal. HOWEVER, Maradona's passing was one of the best in football history. The man averaged an assist every 2 games in his club career, while...

Last year, I believe. That's why the 2009 season was a "sextuple" even though 3 of the trophies (both super cups and the club world cup) came during the next season.

Overall Maradona's passing was better, BUT Messi made huge strides in his passing last season. He's not actually THAT far from Maradona's passing level anymore. He will almost certainly keep improving on this with age, so it's possible he will equal Maradona in this.

Hahaha that's actually true. And yeah, if Messi can continue to improve on his free kicks (I think he made a huge step forward in this last season, but there is still plenty of room for improvement), he will basically become the perfect player. IMO free kicks are the only thing that Maradona...

1 goal and 1 assist today against Porto.

I'm not sure if this is what you were saying, but I think it's interesting to point out that with the inevitable third Ballon D'or for Messi, he will become the most prolific player in Ballon D'or history. The list of players who have won it 3 times will be: Messi Cruyff Platini Van Basten...

I'm a little bit worried for Keita and his playing time. I know he actually made the most appearances of any Barcelona player last season, BUT his main role was as either a midfield substitute for Xavi/Iniesta, a starter if Xavi/Iniesta were out, a Cup player, or sometimes a more defensive sub...

Messi clearly deserved this award. However, I have to say Ronaldo probably did deserve to be 2nd. Xavi is probably my favorite player in the world and Ronaldo is a total ass, BUT the man scored 53 goals last season! I know a lot of them were scored against weak opposition at the end of the...

Yeah Messi has to be the favorite. He is the consensus best player in the world and the only way the consensus best player in the world wouldn't get the ballon d'or is if it went to a great player on a more successful team. However, at this point, only Manchester United can be more successful...