But, imo, there is one thing to consider about that part how Larsson wasn't finished and how VPersie is finished.
Back then in 2004, internet was in the beginnings, compared to today.
For example, I didn't read any of Barca's forums back then, and I used to read websites (every morning):
1. El Mundo deportivo
2. Sport
3. Marca
4. As
5. FC Barcelona official page
6. and random football sites back then like, Goal, uk.sports.yahoo.com, tribalfootball.com etc
I want to say:
= today everyone has internet, everyone has access and today every fan in the world has "an opinion"
-- we have official forums, like this one, 1000s of Facebook pages with millions of comments each day etc
For example, my "opinion" about Barca and any player in the world (in 2004) was based only on:
1. me, watching games on a TV
2. reading about players in newspapers and on 3-4 biggest footy websites
3. talking with 4-5 real life friends about football
For example, back then, I thought that Guily is an ok player.
He wasn't the best, but he was a good player for our system back then.
When I started to read this forum, I have realized that people are more or less making jokes about Guily, as if he is some kind of a worst footballer ever.
Further, Oleguer. Ok, I knew that is not the best and the smartest player ever, but I was personally satisfied with him, and I more or less loved the guy in majority of matches.
5-10 years later, I came here, and I realized that on forums and on youtube, Oleguer is hailed as one of the worst and dumbest players ever :/
Further, about youngsters, back then (if you didn't live in Spain), you couldn't know too much about Barca B.
So, I knew only about young Messi, Bojan, and 2-3 defenders back then, because there were articles about them in Mundo Deportivo and on FcBarcelona, official website.
I want to say: today we are arguing whether players like Grimaldo, Adama and similar should play.
Back then, you probably would have never heard about Grimaldo.
About Adama, you would know only that he is sold to Aston Villa, as a promising youngster.
What I am trying to say:
-- Larsson, back then, I knew him for years from Celtic and Sweden
-- and he was hailed as the killer in the box
-- but, since we didn't have forums and Facebooks back then, who knows what Celtic's fans or fans who watched him more regularly thought about him
-- maybe he was also already on a decline, and maybe guys who followed him every week in Celtic back then, used to say: he is awesome, even though he is past his prime, and he lost a lot of his pace...
You see, today, every person can watch VPersie's games from Turkey.
We have twitter news about him.
We can see how unmotivated he is before matches when they are warming up etc.
Ok, Larsson wasn't that kind of a guy, but even if he was exactly the same as VPersie, we wouldn't know these information back then.
So, I don't agree with comparisons: Larsson wasn't finished and VPersie is.
Those were different times, with very small amount of information.
If you get my point...
This is why I am cautious when people talk about how good is Grimaldo, how bad is VPersie etc.
Today, when everything is accessible to everyone, it is much easier to create a finished player out of someone (VPersie), and to create an internet/youtube sensation from more or less any decent youngster from our team.
