Man of the Match thread

[Pepe Silvia]

Vallodolid vs Barcelona

Messi - dangerous runs, made the defense work double time, and always sought the lanes for the through ball. Excellent game and well taken goal.

Alba - this guy does it all. The assist by itself was magnificent. The perfect touch to find Xavi. Defensive position galore.

Alves - I thought he looked solid and menacing with his runs, his crosses, and his presence on defense. He did lose a few balls bombing forward, but he made up for it with his well rounded game.

 

[Corruption]

messi
xavi
alba

 

[CatalinR10]

Messi
Xavi
Tello

 

[raskolnikov]

Alves: how can you not include him, was Like classic Dani since a very long time.
Busquets: great game again by one of our most intelligent players.
Messi: set up most of the attacks and scored another beauty.

 

[Josef K]

Busquets
Xavi
Alves

 

[jiopi]

Alves: how can you not include him, was Like classic Dani since a very long time.

And he did something that I haven't seen in a while, backpass from 1on1 situation.

 

[xaviniesta]

Alves: how can you not include him, was Like classic Dani since a very long time.

it's definately great to see him back and yes he was very good tonigh, like he used to. but i have to use a word BUT here. the goal was completely his fault cuz he let his marker for a easy tap in there. ruined to very very essential clean sheet.


btw, its funny that most of the votes here goes to player who went into the stats by eiter assist or a goal. well, actually it's not, its sad.

 

[jiopi]

Yeah lets all vote players randomly. That would be joyful.

 

[utility73]

Xavi
Messi
Busquets

 

[aki13]

1. Messi - Only scored 1, but drove us forward and was always the threat, he creates all the chaos and room for most of our attacks.
2. Busquets: I thought he payed really well again, he seems to be hitting his top form.
3. Xavi -n Scored & just bossed the game.

Others: Alba & Alves.

 

[Trickykid]

The Official Barcaforum.com MoM-thread award
La Liga, Valladolid, away (3-1)

1. Messi (40,9%) dangerous runs, made the defense work double time, and always sought the lanes for the through ball. Excellent game and well taken goal ~ Pepe Silvia
2. Xavi (28,2%) The captain led by example and stepped up to finish when Pedro, Sanchez and even Messi were struggling ~ barcanuck
3. Busquets (13,8%) great game again by one of our most intelligent players ~ raskolnikov

After a - for him at least - lacklustre third spot last time out against Atletico Madrid, Leo Messi returns to his natural habitat; 1st place. Oddly enough all it took last night was one measly goal, as he broke his habbit of scoring braces in La Liga. He picked up around 41% of the votes as he soared even further out of reach in the overall The Official Barcaforum.com MoM-thread award rankings. Tonights first spot marks his 11th ultimate prize out of a possible 21.

If he squints hard, perhaps Xavi can see the smoke emanating from the mercurial Argentine's boots way, way above him. At least he's still the one closest to Messi in the overall rankings, however far away that may be. The seasoned catalan maestro earned nearly 30% of the votes, which easily made him the sole true contender for this rounds top honors. After a rather dull period of 6 matches either being rested or having forgettable matches, Xavi looks to be back in form with 2 podium placements in his last three games.

In third spot we find Sergio Busquets who takes his second consecutive medal. Mister dependable scored around 14% of the voting pool.



Shout-out of the day goes out to Dani Alves, who turned back the years with a great display against Valladolid. He got a fair amount of votes, not enough to challenge for the podium, but according to the users of The Official Barcaforum.com MoM-thread, he was the best of the rest.

Curious fact of the day:

- Busquets takes his incredible run of games with points to 13, as he sees Iniesta falter with a sub appearance in which he didn't have time to thoroughly stamp his authority. Iniesta's streak ends on 10. Closest to Busi's record is still Messi who trails him by 2.

I wish you all a happy holidays, as we take a well earned seasonal break until the 6th of January, where our lesser - and rather ugly - little brother, Espanyol, gets ready to take a right ol' beating on the Camp Nou!

Apparently the last chart, and possibly a few before, had errors, as the sorting feature in Excel once again is messing with my head. This one is correct though, of that I'm sure.

 

[GiantKiller]

Brilliant work again, Trickykid.​ Keep it coming!

 

[raskolnikov]

Thanks Tricky, your posts are a lot of fun to read.
I have a question though, at this rate when the season is over according to the chart certain players will be ranked above others as in who performed better in the season overall.
But what if a player like Cesc for example has amazing games and ones where he goes missing yet collects more top 3 points than for example busquets who is more solid overall but scores more 7/10 causing him not to make the top 3 as often but still being overall better.
Or doesnt the chart represent the overall best players in the end but who had more top performances in matches?

 

[Trickykid]

Thanks a bunch, guys.

raskolnikov, good question. It does indeed only represent the top performance, which actually is a flaw I've tried to address a few rounds ago. I made a secondary chart showing votes/game, which should give a slightly better, if not exactly perfect, indication of consistency rather than top performances only. I'll update that chart for the next game.
However, the only way to give the perfect picture of how the players are doing during the season, would be to give every single player a rating after each match. That would mean far less votes though, as it would be much more of a hassle to vote, and I don't even want to think of the work that would lie in counting the votes either. Right now I think the current system works OK, but if you have any ideas on how to improve it, please do tell.

 

[GiantKiller]

The secondary chart showing Votes/Game is a really good idea, I believe. However, I feel that not all people may be able to appreciate how well someone like Busquets, for instance, performs in a particular game. Moreover, deciding who to vote for can be a problem as well and I've encountered this at times too which means that some who were also worthy of votes may not be chosen ( Hence, the 'honorable mentions' ). So, just like you mentioned, it doesn't appear to be exactly perfect.

Also, when you talk about a rating system, you're referring to the average rating of every player to determine who was most consistent throughout the course of the season ( Take the Cesc-Busi example. ), are you not? I think that's a mighty fine idea as it'll be more accurate and save the 'raters' and you, especially, quite some trouble.

Just my opinion, though.