Are you kidding me? We dont need physicality, we need quick thinkers with vision. If you dont let the opponent get to the ball, they wont get the chance to bully you off the ball because you are always one step ahead.
tiki-taka is dead, mate. Accept it. Xavi and Iniesta are two of a kind.. Now, imagine them arriving at the same time. That's basically a small miracle. Maybe once in the current century something like this will happen again.
Anyways, you are treating him as a joke but Paulinho is very talented and a great scorer for a b2b midfielder. He scored a hat-trick against Uruguay in El Centenário. Brazil won twice there in 50 years. Pele's team didn't win there, Ronaldos/Romario' teams didn't win there and Paulinho scored a hat trick, just to show you how hard it is.
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Here's Paulinho against paraguay, a mediocre team but with a good D. Two backheel assists (1st and 3rd goal), first one was a beauty to Coutinho, the next acquisition. After the game coutinho said "Paulinho helps the entire team"
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He also destroyed Argentina's team with one goal and a great chance he dribbled everyone and almost scored. "Oh but Int. football sucks". Sure.
Here's Paulinho vs. Barcelona. A much inferior team and he still bossed Barça's midfield as best as he could and thus made the match competitive for a while.
[youtube]Dp-qvBxRuh8[/youtube]
Now, the best match is Brazil vs. Spain in the confederations cup final, where the defending WorldCup and Europeans champions got bossed by a midfield led by Paulinho.
Go watch that game again if you think he's trash. Iniesta probably remembers him very well.
Oh, there's also the Club World Cup he won facing Chelsea, he also played great against a much better team and his team beat Chelsea, something Barça couldn't do that year.
I wont post videos of his days in Brazil because you'll say it doesn't count because football is only good in Europe but yeh, he may not be worth 32,5m but he's a WC player and one of the reasons the greatest NT ever have a realistic chance to win the WC again next year.