Andrés Iniesta

[instinct]

''Hey girl, bring me a beer''

 

[CatalinR10]

....and a sandwich

 

[jiopi]

seriously, what's with your crush on messi? everyone has a favourite player, but honestly, you wage a crusade in the iniesta thread just because some people like his dribbling more. Messi is the best player in the world, but that doesn't mean he's the world number one in every aspect of football. let it go already

Exactly kind of post what is wrong in forum discussions today, why can't we argue about things intelligently rather than making the discussion personal with personal comments? It rather seems that you have the crush, because I argued behalf of my opinion, and you just state your own, no matter how bad it is.

 

[abual3bed1]

Enjoy!

 

[khorne]

Exactly kind of post what is wrong in forum discussions today, why can't we argue about things intelligently rather than making the discussion personal with personal comments? It rather seems that you have the crush, because I argued behalf of my opinion, and you just state your own, no matter how bad it is.

because it's no intelligent discussion when people say iniesta is like messi without the finishing skills (which is actually a compliment for messi) and you come along and say "wrong, he's also worse in dribbling than messi". it's like you cannot stand the thought that someone might not give enough credit to messi. hence me saying that you have a crush on him. if that is too personal for you, i apologize and i will pay special attention to your sensitivity in the future.

 

[Elite-BkD]

I love Inie, always have always will but good god no, no, no, no.

You're confusing dribbling the ball with running at/past defenders.

 

[footyfan]

You're confusing dribbling the ball with running at/past defenders.

I would like you to name some good dribblers like Iniesta of the past 15-20 years and some players who are good at running past defenders.

IMO both are considered dribbles, you think exactly like jiopi except on the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

[jiopi]

IMO both are considered dribbles, you think exactly like jiopi except on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Nope, I never said so. I said dribbling is basically kicking the ball, and how good you are at it, is practically measured with your overall speed, and the frequency and precision of the touches. I said though that going past a player by dribbling is harder than not going past a player, which in the real world is true.

 

[jiopi]

Cruijff: on Messi dribbling - "The most genius is the frequency of touches on the ball. In a period of one or two metres. He can, I don't know how often, change direction. Where we need two steps to change, he makes four steps. It means that he can change four times [within those two metres], so you [as opponent] are always running behind."

 

[footyfan]

Running at past/defenders is what Ronaldo and Walcott do. Messi's control of the ball at pace is outstanding and probably never seen before. It's probably something Iniesta can never do while one can imagine Messi being able to do what Iniesta does at a later stage in his career. Obviously right now, Iniesta is much better at keeping the ball and creating space through dribbles.

Dispossession statistics is connected to successful dribbles, and Messi's conversion ratio between dribbles and dispossession, as pointed earlier is much better than Iniesta's, even with less space, more markers and so on. Turnovers isn't about dribbling, but making killer passes and taking shots on goal.

Here's whoscored's definition for turnovers:

Turnover
- Loss of possession due to a mistake/poor control

If you look at absolute values, clearly Messi loses the ball more than Iniesta and he also has more turnovers. I agree with you that these stats are correlated to dribbling stats but like I already said, a lot of Iniesta's dribbles dont count as dribbles for whoscored. Hence, his ratio remains lower than it actually is.

Put Messi on the midfield dribbling in more space, with more time and less simultaneous opponents, and his conversion ratio will be even better.

This can be made clearer by recording where the turnover occurs. If a lot of Messi's turnovers already occur in midfield (which may be possible because he drops deep a lot), then there's nothing to be debated, it means he already loses the ball more than Iniesta in midfield. One of these dispossessions have cost Barcelona already, vs Chelsea in the first leg.

In midfield, it's important to keep the absolute values of dispossession and turnovers down, it doesn't matter if your dribbles count as dribbles or not. This is exactly what happens with Iniesta.

 

[footyfan]

Nope, I never said so. I said dribbling is basically kicking the ball, and how good you are at it, is practically measured with your overall speed, and the frequency and precision of the touches. I said though that going past a player by dribbling is harder than not going past a player, which in the real world is true.

What I meant is that both you and Elite-BkD have very rigid definitions of dribbling and seem unreceptive to other ideas.

 

[Elite-BkD]

Dribbling = small power/well controlled deft touches on the ball in order to bring it around with you as you're moving. Someone like Gareth Bale, C. Ronaldo are very good at taking on and beating defensive players while demonstrating plainly inferior dribbling skills to those shown by the likes of Iniesta, Xavi, Silva, Messi, etc. Yes, obviously dribbling is an asset very commonly associated with forwards taking on/beating defenders but the two are not the same thing. I don't understand how you could possibly pay attention to Barca matches and come up with the idea that Iniesta is not as good as Messi in terms of ball control, nevermind that the idea is ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, Messi is not someone who simply uses an athletic advantage (which, mind, he certainly has with his speed & crazy explosiveness) , he's excellent with the ball. But head and shoulders above Iniesta? Give me a break.

 

[footyfan]

For me there is no doubt that Iniesta has better control than Messi, which is suited for his midfield role while Messi's style of dribbling is suited for a forward. However, the fact that you don't consider Messi's exceptional control for his pace as dribbling skills is what puzzles me.

 

[Yugi]

didnt post in this thread lately so just gotta say:

 

[Elite-BkD]

For me there is no doubt that Iniesta has better control than Messi, which is suited for his midfield role while Messi's style of dribbling is suited for a forward. However, the fact that you don't consider that Messi's exceptional control for his pace as dribbling skills is what puzzles me.

I dunno, I just think that Messi has a combination of quickness/agility and control which is pretty clearly more lethal in terms of running at defenders. Dribbling for me is your manipulations of the ball with feet, half of taking a ball around a defender is something other than dribbling and that's the half where Messi trumps Iniesta for me.