Spain

Stric

New member
Puyol 3 Champions League, Xavi 4, Pique, Busquets 3+.
Several La Liga titles.
How would their career look? Exactly the same.

Exactly the same? What absolute nonsense. These guys have a World Cup and two Euro medals. These are the absolute peaks of their careers. Liga titles are worthless compared to that. It's unfair, but it's the reality. Club football fans are constantly diminishing the importance of national football, whereas most casual football fans/watchers care about national football primarily.
 
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Flavia

Guest
1x Champions League >>> 1x World Cup and 2x Euro.

And they have 3+.

No, not really. CL is easier to win, there's one every year. You could say they might have the same weight, but 1 cl will never be bigger than 1 wc and 2 euros.
 

Stric

New member
That goes both ways, doesn't it? In club football you can buy the players you like and create a team. In national football you play with who you have at disposal.

You simply cannot be persuaded, although you are completely in the wrong on this one. But since this started with you claiming that their careers wouldn't have been any different without the WC and ECs, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I cannot even argue at that level.
 
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Flavia

Guest
Casillas isn't really someone to take into account. Messi said he'd trade his cls for one wc.

In any cup competition there's luck and possible corruption involved, anyway.
 

Alik

Moderator
Besides, Iniesta also said that scoring the winning goal in the world cup was the highlight of his career.

Whilst Casillas is talking about the significance of "La Decima".
 

Pablo Escobar

New member
That goes both ways, doesn't it? In club football you can buy the players you like and create a team. In national football you play with who you have at disposal.

It doesn't go both ways, it goes exactly one way and that's having the best of the best players at a number of clubs and all of them in Europe ( 3 leagues each with a few teams + 1,2 extra from others like PSG and Juventus ), not spread into mediocre teams like some a few decades ago when there were restrictions such as max 3 foreigners, and you don't see a player like Messi going to play for Granada or AC Torino for obvious reasons, by the time he scored 5 and assisted 3, a big club offers big cash and gets him, like Dybala, neither was Ronaldo at 28 thinking of going to Sporting Portugal, if there ever is such an option, that's like at 34 or 35, but he will likely skip it.

Barca had 7 Spain players in the final but no Messi. Spain were dominant without Messi becuase it was enough, Barca wouldn't even make it past Arsenal in the Champions League that year which would look sad, but true if you think of it. While Argentina with Messi was destroyed by Germany.

Barca without Messi and/or injured Messi in the other match of the tie is a 0-7 against Bayern, a Spain can still beat Germany because they wouldn't have lined up Robbery, Javi Martinez or Alaba that played extraordinary then but a Barca without Messi against a Germany in that day would've made it easily past because Xavi was a nightmare destruction for them, but was completely invisible against Bayern, the same way we didn't need Ramos as RB because Alves was better and Casillas only had to save the team in the situations Valdes was great at ( 1 on 1 with the player ) or as Capdevilla wasn't even a player considered by Barca or Real cause of Abidal and Marcelo.

Same thing goes for Portugal getting destroyed by Muller & Co because Portugal sux even in the years penaldo si considered as ballon d'or, Ronaldo alone would hardly beat Albania or any team that decides to park the bus. Players hardly play in the EL and would loose 11-2 to Sevilla Substitutes or something like that. If it wasn't for Moutinho they wouldn't even have played at the WC and Sweden only has Ibra and a bunch of mid table-to-relegation fighting players in the top leagues and others in weak leagues.
 
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Jenks

Senior Member
I don't think anyone is arguing that opponents in the World Cup are tougher than the ones in the Champions League, but that doesn't mean the latter is harder to win and it certainly doesn't make it a more prestigious tournament.
 

Messi983

Senior Member
Puyol 3 Champions League, Xavi 4, Pique, Busquets 3+.
Several La Liga titles.
How would their career look? Exactly the same.

1x Champions League >>> 1x World Cup and 2x Euro.

And they have 3+.

It's not whether you prefer CL over WC/Euro or which one is harder to win. I can actually agree with you and also prefer club football over international and Barça's trophies over Spain's, because I'm Barça fan first and foremost and don't really care that much about Spain (but I'm happy for our players to win). It's just that winning 4 CL, 7 La Liga titles,... AND 1x WC, 2x Euro is much better than "only" winning 4 CL and 7 La Liga titles without winning anything on NT level looking from players perspective. Which is the standpoint we should look at and try to understand thinking of players like Puyi, Xavi, Pique, Busi and other Catalans who play(ed) for Spain. Top players wants to play NT football and Spain is their only choice to do that until Catalunya becomes independent. If/When that happens I think most of them will choose to play for Catalunya even if their chances to win WC/Euro will be smaller.

Some great players have never won anything on NT level, because they were playing for "smaller" teams (like George Best or let's say Bale nowadays - yes, he can still win, but I doubt he will - with all respect to NIR and Wales fans here) with not enough talent around them to compete for titles. You can't choose where you'll be born and while today there are players like Diego Costa most of the players don't have a choice and/or stay loyal to their NT. If you are born in a country that is ranked around 50th or 100th in FIFA rankings (not that I give them much importance, but just for example) there is very likely you'll never win anything on NT level even if you are individually great and play for a great club like Best/Bale did/do. On the other hand you have players like Messi who is coming from a historically one of the greatest football countries but is unlucky or whatever we might call his appearances for Argentina so far (everyone has his own opinion on that) that he didn't win anything yet except for Olympics who most people don't consider as a serious tournament.
 
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