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Re: OFFICIAL: FIFA Ballon d'or 2013
by Robben #10 Today at 1:17 am
.*bleep* me; I don’t even think half of the people here have even watched Bayern play more than 10 matches over the last season. Some of the posts I have seen suggesting that Ribéry is nowhere near the level of Messi, Ronaldo, etc. and that it is even arguable that he is even the best player on his team are just out of this world. Some people thinking they can quantify Ribéry’s importance to the team with just goals and assists—it’s just moronic logic, if anything Robben’s importance is solely based on his end product.
If you ever watch Bayern, you will see that Ribéry is our most valuable player. He is the fulcrum to the attack, the leader of the team, and the driving force towards the quadruple. There’s a reason why we haven’t lost in 39 Bundesliga matches with him. The only match we lost last year was because we lacked his incisiveness in the final third.
I don’t even understand the rationale some of you are using to beat Ribéry with a stick when it comes to the Champions League. Prior to Kroos’ injury, Ribéry was consistently creating opportunities and being one of, if not our best player in the Champions League. You can literally go down the list of matches and just pick out vital moments where Ribéry was fundamental to the attacks. In his worst match against Valencia in the 1:1 draw where they were parking the bus, he was playing through pain. He said it, Heynckes said it, Schweinsteiger said it. He’s so valuable to the team that even when he is in pain, he has to play in the crucial match against Valencia, even with Robben and Shaqiri able to play.
What I see that nobody has pointed out is that after Kroos’ injury and when Müller replaced him, Ribéry always had to play deeper in order to support the midfield, something that Kroos always did and something Müller and Ribéry can’t do. That’s why against Juventus, he wasn’t the most important player in the attack. That’s why against Barça and Juventus, he wasn’t the most important player in the attack. Has anyone in this thread ever wondered why Robben and Müller had their best games AFTER Kroos’ injury, AFTER Ribéry had to play a more reserved role, AFTER Robben had to be the more incisive winger in our midfield, AFTER Müller was given a more goal scoring role? It’s actually so obvious to see and notice: go to a Bayern board and ask someone who is knowledgeable why Ribéry wasn’t our best attacking player in the knockout stages, and chances are they will tell you exactly what I am saying. The fact that some of you are overlooking how much work it takes to make Alaba look like a phenomenal defender is ridiculous. The only mistake that Alaba made defensively through the Champions League was slipping against Walcott in the 0:2 loss. Guess who was playing ahead of him? Not Ribéry, and that’s why there was an absolutely massive gap for Walcott to exploit ahead of Alaba.
Ribéry is given complete creative freedom in the Bundesliga and he is by far the best player in the Bundesliga. It’s not even a debate. The fact that Schweinsteiger won a rigged German Footballer of the Year vote is not even worth commenting on. Those that go out of their way to think Lahm is our best player or most valuable don’t know what they are talking about. We lose more without Ribéry than we do without Lahm, and that is when we replace Ribéry with a much better replacement than Lahm. We played Rafinha for a consistent stretch of matches later on in the season and he was playing extremely well, that’s how insignificant the quality of defenders we actually need in our team to excel in the Bundesliga.
We don’t need a player who is the end station for all of our attacks like Ronaldo is for Madrid because we are past that. We don’t need to solely rely on a player for offensive output like Messi is for Barcelona because we are past that. The quadruple is proof of that. Our highest goalscorer didn’t even score 25 in the season, yet we were still able to outplay every team in our path. Our closest call in the Champions League shouldn’t have even been close—Arsenal were put away until their ghost corner that they scored from.
What we have in our team is a leader both offensively and defensively, someone who can consistently get us out of the gutter with a touch of magic, someone who even when he isn’t at his best offensively, will work his ass off to keep playing the ball for the team. It’s so obvious to see that Messi doesn’t contribute at all off the ball, neither does Ronaldo. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is just talking out of their ass.
Ribéry is a team player first, a playmaker second, and a scorer third. The vast majority of the chances he creates aren’t even put away, some of them being so simple. The likes of Mandzukic, Robben, and Müller have all missed absolute sitters over the past 6 months. Ribéry has by far been our most consistent player over the past 15, 18 months. You can literally count the amount of bad matches he has had over the past 12 months on 1 hand. In the Bundesliga, I doubt you can even muster up 1 or 2 matches over the past 12 months where Ribéry has performed poorly.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if you question Ribéry’s importance to the team, you don’t even watch Bayern play consistently. No excuse, reasoning, will change my opinion on that. Ribéry is definitely not the best player in the world on talent or skill, but in terms of importance he is the most crucial player to the best team in the world.
Jesus, it’s like some people just look at the stats and just make a judgement on how important or how good a player is. Ribéry’s importance to the team goes far beyond goals and assists. It’s like so many of you want to bash the other player in question just to make your own preferred player look better. I don’t even care if Ribéry wins the Ballon D’Or or not, he’s already won European Footballer of the Year which is an equal accomplishment. I’d rather see mostly reputed journalists in Europe voting for Ribéry instead of the *bleep* captain of Morocco and Lebanon or the media from Liberia. Even if Ribéry is a *bleep*, I’d be glad to see that he made it on the top 3, or even top 2.
Some of you fanboys really need to take a look at yourselves in the mirror. Every single year it is OMG!!! MESSI OR RONALDO!!! NOBODY IS NEAR THEM etc. Every year it's either the Ronaldo or Messi fans that get butthurt (Madrid fans for the past few years) and then there are the stupid conspiracy theories, etc. Ribéry is just as deserving of this award as Messi and Ronaldo are.
