Zinedine Zidane

[serghei]

How do you call parking the bus at home vs injury ridden Bayern and barely going through because the ref denied the opponent two stonewall pens?

 

[BarçaBarça]

his presence is enough. 2014 2016 2017 and he wasn't there in 2015.

You might be right

 

[Luftstalag14]

So now its luck over the last 3 seasons? Lol come on now.

I am too old to remember what happened in 2016, but last year and this year Real Madrid got into the CL final due to complete luck and injustice. Essentially the refs sent them to the final.

 

[snowy]

Ballon d'Or 2018 Power Ranking Top Spot:

Tchou-Tchou traffic police Cuneyt Cakır

 

[snowy]

2nd in line:

Michael Oliver maldito! Twist of faith

 

[snowy]

but Cuneyt is the grand fav. + he's got seniority

 

[FCBfan22]

but Cuneyt is the grand fav. + he's got seniority

You can hear Sir Alex Ferguson's blood boil in that video.

 

[snowy]

lol that's true. Great coach! his players loved him

by the way, I like Zizou too. Refs suck ballz though!

 

[Capitan Puyol]

Zizou is an average coach. Primera games every season proove that ! CL ? Even Di Matteo won the CL when you
have a lot of luck and some star players. But his tactics are horrible. Bayern totally dominated them last 2 games and could score 10 goals...

 

[snowy]

He made a deal with Galactus and used his surfboard in stealth mode to intercept Bayern's onslaught

 

[Morten]

He better not try something "smart" for the final, like playing Vasquez/Modric as rb, dropping Casemiro, and stuff like that.
Just stick with our best formation and best line-up, Zidane, no experimenting in the final.

 

[Birdy]

You really need to work on your terminology. So you're saying out of 11 knockout ties in 3 seasons where Zidane has lost none, his team won at least 6 of them undeservedly and to top it off he's undeservedly won the three CLs. I welcome you to highlight even ONE tie where the opponent deserved to go through over Madrid. Because in many people's books if you put a wasteful team vs a clinical team, you know which one did their job better.

Your anecdotal graphics and waffling on about luck means absolutely nothing in the long run. Shots, possession and 15,000 other stats won't matter if you don't make it count. Not to mention that suffering through a tie and winning it is a skill. If Bayern were so completely superior, they would've battered Madrid 7-0.

1) You last line is out of reality. Final scoreline does not reflect performance in football many times.
If you don't accept the uttermost fact, realized by many people dealing with this sport, that football is a (maybe the only !) team sport in which NOT the better team wins a game, then i don't see the point in having back-forth in this argument.
If you don't accept that, then maybe Chelsea 2012 was the best team in Europe, maybe Greece 2004 the best NT etc etc etc

2) Thank God, we live at a time when sport statistics has improved dramatically thanks to new technologies. And this means we don't have to suffer listening to every fan's 'interpretation' of a game, distorted through their prejudiced eyes.
We have objective data to MEASURE how good a team was on the pitch. And we measure that by the chances they created, which encompasses all the factors that make teams create chances (individual brilliance included).
So the graphs i posted (which, by the way, are not mine of course. I get them from professional analysts like '11tegen') show the 'Expected Goals' metric or 'how many goals worth' are the total sum of chances created by a team during the game.
This statistic is the mirror of how well a team performed on the pitch. Why? Because games are won by creating chances and not conceding chances. That's the rationale behind creating this measure in the first place. That's what coaches 'teach' to their teams.
When the actual scoreline does not match the expected scoreline, you can say it comes down to three factors only:
i) an outstanding performance by a GK, or conversely a horrifically bad one (De Gea is a good example for this in the Arsenal - ManUtd game last December),
ii) an outstandingly good or bad finishing by a team (Liverpool - Man. City 4-3 in January a good example. Liverpool had better xG by a small margin, BUt only 1.26. They scored 4 by fantastic finishing)
iii) Guess what? LUCK!
the thing is that iii (LUCK) many times encompasses i and ii, and that happens when you cannot pinpoint, with bare-eye witnessing, an outstandingly good or bad player involved in categories i) and ii).

3) So, if we use the above metric to see how deserved RM recent success is, we will see that:

i) 2016: Real Madrid faced minor opposition and took advantage of the easy draw, avoiding teams like BM or Barca that would have kicked them out (Luck creeps in again).
Notwithstanding that, it was evenly matched with both Wolfsburg (!) and City, won the ties by being lucky at the right moments.
Slightly worse than Atleti in the final, won in penalties. And this touches other issues (psychological. Metaphysical maybe?), because we know that Atleti cannot win, even at their best, against RM.

ii) 2017: Deserved qualifications against Napoli, Atleti, and Juve in the final. So, i can give you that overall last year was deserved.
BUT, against Bayern sum xG was slightly for BM, and we have to take into account the refereeing help there. So there is a shadow.

iii) 2018: Clearly undeserved vs Bayern (If you add up the two games' xG scoreline you will end up with RM 2,34 - BM 5.07 !!!!). Evenly matched with Juventus on aggregate, before the referee helping hand again. Vs PSG, overally deserved.

What does that add to? that in the total 11 double-leg or single-leg ties these three seasons you have 5 ties only won and deserved as proved by the stats, 4 evenly matched, 2 undeserved. And we wait to see how it goes vs Liverpool to sum it up.
But so far, we have 5/11 clearly deserved, and 6/11 where you were evenly matched or the worst side.
So yes, the majority (6) you were not the better side based on what you did on the pitch. in many cases you were not the worst side, but the fact that you always won ties in which you were evenly matched by the opponents, adds up to the general feeling of 'not deserved'.
And that's the reason why people are losing their minds on Zidane's luck.

But, that's if you wanna see it as a 3-yr whole.
If we see it in terms of seasons, it is easier to assess: I will give you that you deserved the 2017 one (given also that probably -based on what they showed - none of City, Monaco, PSG, and the other teams that went out earlier would have been able to knock you out). Only Bayern was not worse than you.
But both 2016 and 2018, you were not the better side in most knock-out ties. So, for both these seasons it is undeserved overall.

 

[El Gato]

[MENTION=4451]Birdy[/MENTION]
Okay, lemme just say that I appreciate long explanations that people have put their thoughts into, especially with data to back it up. It's nice and sports science is indeed a great tool these days. So let me refer to some things here:

1) You last line is out of reality. Final scoreline does not reflect performance in football many times.
If you don't accept the uttermost fact, realized by many people dealing with this sport, that football is a (maybe the only !) team sport in which NOT the better team wins a game, then i don't see the point in having back-forth in this argument.
If you don't accept that, then maybe Chelsea 2012 was the best team in Europe, maybe Greece 2004 the best NT etc etc etc

(...)

... And this means we don't have to suffer listening to every fan's 'interpretation' of a game, distorted through their prejudiced eyes.
We have objective data to MEASURE how good a team was on the pitch. And we measure that by the chances they created, which encompasses all the factors that make teams create chances (individual brilliance included).

Firstly, I've really grown to dislike using these relative terms like "best team", "better play", "better style of football". People make this annoying mental shortcut thousands of times and expect fans to have the same baseline of what is considered "good football". Especially it's the arrogant idealists who think they cracked the formula on how to play the game, because they're being reassured by their peers that a certain style is pleasing to watch for any given fan (note, not "average" fan, that term is different too). Load of bollocks. There is no one style in a way which football SHOULD be played. Not one style is perfect. Not one fan will ever dictate that idea to the others. Which is an idea ingrained in a certain demographic of people holding liberal ideas across the globe that somehow translates to football and its rules...

There is a baseline that's common to all teams in competitive football though, no matter the skillset - you want to win the game. Something many statistics ignore, because many of them, like the ones you quote below...

So the graphs i posted (which, by the way, are not mine of course. I get them from professional analysts like '11tegen') show the 'Expected Goals' metric or 'how many goals worth' are the total sum of chances created by a team during the game.
This statistic is the mirror of how well a team performed on the pitch. Why? Because games are won by creating chances and not conceding chances. That's the rationale behind creating this measure in the first place. That's what coaches 'teach' to their teams.

... assume that you NEED to create a chance in every single given game. Not true.

Because success in football is measured only by the outcome, the final result, a quantifiable constant that can be evaluated in past, present and future, and ends with an award. That's why there are no awards for being "The most passing team in Europe" or "the team with most chances". Nor can you combine these variables to evaluate who deserves an award more than the team that has simply scored more. Not to mention the simple fact that you're basing your entire argument on a single metric...

You can bitch and moan about variables that are completely random i.e. the dreaded luck, refereeing, injuries. Doesn't change a thing in the equation unless the random variable overwhelms the time constraints. And in a Champions League 2 leg tie it never will. The elements you control that lead to you winning a game football are the elements that make you a more deserving winner. It's not as simple as who won - rather who did what they needed to do to win AND won. In every case of every game ever played.

Again, there is no tie in the past three years where Real Madrid and the mentality Zidane approached the game with was not right for the occasion. It's part of his brilliance in big ties. He barely ever makes flat out incorrect calls and they do not happen in the CL. You can argue the lack of Casemiro a few days ago, but dude individually has been bad in the whole season and the correct personal choice was made with Kovacić. The one example to the contrary of that man management is the Copa starting 11s versus Leganes.

i) 2016: Real Madrid faced minor opposition and took advantage of the easy draw, avoiding teams like BM or Barca that would have kicked them out (Luck creeps in again).

"Would've". LOL. Retrospect science is the best science.

Do a bit of probability calculation on how likely it is for a given club to win the Champions League 3 times in a row. See how that compares with the probability of your "easy" draw and "minor" teams beating a "team like BM" and what conclusions you can draw purely from these numbers. Since you enjoy probabilities so much

.. that implication where being evenly matched automatically means you're not a deserved winner... Based on a personally chosen stat to represent that. Fuck. Me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Takeaway point? And slightly philosophical one - if you're getting the benefit of random variables, it has to be ignored, because as a group of players you still have to conform to what you've decided to follow (by the manager or collectively) and try to do the same job - win the game. Works the same way if you're on the wrong end of the stick. Life isn't fair. But fairness doesn't equate to the level of outcome. The responsibility is on the individuals to persevere through the suffering. You can break down and cry about it if you don't get the random events your way, or you keep your head up. But VAR trying to make the game fair is the absolutely right choice, but not because it improves fairness of calls either way. It'll just remove doubt gradually over time, which will make people focus on the elements that ACTUALLY matter i.e. what you can control.

I do like the discussion though. Better than most you can get on here.

 

[serghei]

Wolfe is one of those guys who don't think Mozart is a better musician than the best beatboxer because there's no such thing as better music. Just music.

 

[KingMessi]

As much as Wolfe says he dislikes Mourinho, he sure sounds like him.