Forget about ronaldo or Messi I’ve just shown you prime dinho did not even had better end product than Frank Lampard(using the advanced statistical metric you are fond especially in Messi/ronaldo comparisons)
What about 2006 Ronaldinho which was his best year? He had 25 goals and 20 assists for Barcelona. You won't find many midfielders playing as deep as he did coming anywhere close to those stats. With that being said, I'm a bit unimpressed by his returns in other years.
Ronaldinho was a wing playmaker in 05/06 If I’m not mistaken his 26 goals in all competitions included 10 penalties(goals you are usually dismissive of) So to put this into some needed perspective we are talking about 16 non penalty goals,for such an advanced playmaker I wouldn’t say that is unheard of(even within the context of his own era) The best calendar year performance of dinho was 2005(the year he won the ballon D’Or,the year he was by his own standards most effective) 2006 had his career defining performances but his form tailed of very early that year(around April 2006 latest) The advanced statistics I posted where of Frank Lampard and Ronaldinho in the 2005 calendar year(not the 2004/05 season) So my statement still stands true In his best ever year Ronaldinho wasn’t more effective than Frank Lampard(a midfielder unless your going to call him a striker now)
I disagree. 2006 was his best season. He was rolling up to and including the CL semifinals then hit a lull in form and didn't really impress for Brazil at the World Cup. But then he had a fantastic start to the 2006-2007 season. People got caught up with Italy and Cannavaro. Ronaldinho was the best player in the world in the 2006 calendar year and it's not really debatable from what I remember. Either way, we're grasping at straws here. Yes 26 goals is far less impressive with so many penalties but then again that formation picture is misleading. Ronaldinho may have been listed as a left winger but he usually played much deeper on the pitch, deeper than what Messi plays now. CR is also listed as left winger up until this day but we both know that he played almost exclusively as a poacher in the box the last few years at Real Madrid. And yet according to the formation, 2006 Ronaldinho and 2018 CR played the same position. We both know they didn't.
I didn’t claim dinho was a winger hugging the touch line or a striker who drifts in from wide He was a playmaker positioned on the wing(not a deep lying playmaker) you claimed it was rare for a player in his position/role to produce the same end product all I pointed was he did not play as deep as you clearly insinuated in your post nor did he dictate matches(that wasn’t his role to start that was decos) Also where is the evidence for his great start to 2006/07 How many open play goals did he score do you even know?
@carlito86 At the end of the day, you cant discredit half the people on this forum. There are good points on both sides. This is a forum where we debate and try to prove our points. And sometimes, there is no one correct answer. We are all true football fans not 14 yr old youtubers in the comment section. We all saw Ronaldinho week in, week out, so we are not going off of what we saw in every game he played. In football its more than statistics. Are you going to tell the that Gerd Muller or Eusebio were better than Maradona??? Of course not. There are too many nuances in thr game. You made a good thread but I don't think there is anything left to argue
Again you are creating false equivalences that have no bearing on this debate Maradona vs gerd muller is a false equivalence Ronaldinho is nowhere near as good as Diego maradona(I repeat no way near) Gerd muller isn’t remotely comparable to CR(not at all) The difference between Eusebio and maradona boils down to a preference of styles We can say in big games at club level he was above maradona(this a fact that can easily be substantiated) From a technical perspective obviously maradona was much better and he won a WC with a similar quality team as Eusebio 66(something the latter could not do even though it is actually arguable he had to overcome higher quality English defence than maradona did) The difference between top 10 all timers actually isn’t that great Only fanboys exaggerate Ronaldinho was never at that level to start with so the difference is obviously much greater
You missed my point as well. That's my fault. It seems like you are comparing a player like ronaldo who is a goal scorer to a player like Ronaldinho who is a creator and trying to prove ronaldo better because of his goal tally. And when we tell you about Ronaldinho all you say is he had 1 goal or 1 assist. It seems like you completely ignore the rest of the 85 minutes of the game that Ronaldinho plays. That's because in football there is no way calculate Ronaldinho affect on a game. But cr7 who can be invisible for 85 minutes and score 2 goals heavily influenced by his team automatically is seen as more valubale to you. Thats why I brought up maradona and gerd Muller and Eusebio. Because you cant use the same argument for CR7 and Ronaldinho as you can for muller and maradona. Its inconsistent.
Did CR become a big game player in 16/17 or did he actually have a career previous to this Is Arsenal 2008/09 is objectively worse than Milan 05/06(forget the star name players if you can momentarily and consider this was a team that finished 3rd in Serie a 18 points behind league champions inter Milan) Is Roma 06/07 worse(bearing in mind this was a team that finished above Milan in Serie a during 2005/06 and 2006/07) Arsenal 2004/05 (FA Cup final ) Atletico Madrid away 2011/12 The Netherlands (EC)2011/12 Barcelona 2010/11(copa Del Rey final ) Barcelona 2012/13(copa Del Rey SF) Are these teams good enough? Outside of goals he definitely wasn’t “absent” in any of the big games I’ve listed
Of course. CR7 did have a career before Madrid. I actually kind of forgot. In any case, to me CR7 is a top 10 all timer. You cant be that high without showing up in big games. But I still hold the case that Ronaldinho was more capable of providing chances for his team and himself than CR7 was albeit only 2 years. And in terms of having an overall effect against tough teams Ronaldinho is better in my opinion. I'm not saying he is better than CR7 but his peak could break down tough defenses better. HOWEVER, at man u and even some games at Madrid Ronaldo has played excellent all round games in big matches. This cant be denied. I just think Ronaldinho did it better
I am gonna put this out there and I think @carlito86 may have a fit. But it can be harder to score against certain teams that may be 3rd or 4th in a league than against the top team based on the tactics they use. As an example Chelsea were 3rd in EPL 08/09 and 6th when they won it in 11/12, but when they setup like they did vs Barca for example, it was extremely hard to get a goal from them. Barca had an easier time with the EPL champions in the 08/09 Final than in the SF. We can see this a lot also in the WC where even minnows nowadays can create headaches against the traditional NTs by setting up with 11 players behind the ball for most of the game.
This is fine but i still don’t understand how you limit a players prime to a handful of matches Even if I was to agree with you re dinho being more impressive in big matches(just to be clear I don’t) what about the other 35-50 matches played throughout a season we know as a pretty much established fact that playmakers are notoriously inconsistent (Zidane/Ronaldinho/iniesta/laudrup are examples of this) Ronaldinho in his prime either didn’t have the fitness or mentality(or both) to be consistent throughout a whole season This is clearly evidenced by his relatively low end product compared to a technically boring midfielder as Lampard or a more stylish one like riquelme during 2004/05 https://www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11668/2358084/ronaldinho-better-than-lampard https://www.xtratime.org/forum/156-world-football/175730-thierry-henry-ronaldinho-lampard.html It’s amazing how a player with a such a legendary peak as Ronaldinho was routinely compared to Lampard/Henry/deco during his best ever year CR in his prime was a machine with guaranteed end product(the stats aren’t everything but they are actually too hard to ignore in his case) With Ronaldo we are talking about a player who completely decimated mid table to low end teams with ruthless consistency for several years Against bigger teams his strengths were magnified more often then not through his goalscoring ability than all round creative influence Even if CR was just a gerd muller type big game player(effective as only a goalscorer) He certainly wasn’t that type of player against the lesser teams he faced throughout the course of a season which account for the vast majority of games played in his prime Ronaldinho also did not play in the era of super teams So is a bit disingenuous that you are comparing his big game performances against Madrid 05/06(with an average age of probably 30+ and many old players suffering from arthritis,weight issues,complete loss of form etc) against superteams such as Bayern Munich under jupp heynckes or Barcelona under pep Guardiola I don’t think dinho ever played teams of this quality in his whole career Even atletico under Simone 14-17 is in all likelihood just as good a team as Chelsea 04-06(it’s not something that can be proven but their achievements arguably outstrip those of Chelsea under mourinho)
1) Iniesta was as consistent as it gets over his period with Guardiola. him and Xavi. you cant have 1 team so dominant with a central player being inconsistent. Iniesta is a number 8, don't judge him on goalscoring. that Barcelona would not be as great as they were, winning that many trophies if Iniesta was not consistent. 2) no one compares henrys peak to ronaldinhos. no one compares lampards peak to ronaldinhos. we are here discussing ronaldinhos peak vs CR7. there will be times where even the greatest players will be compared to other great players. -Do you want to seriously tell me that Modric was a better player than Messi and Ronaldo in 2018??? -Do you remember Ribery being tipped to win WPOY along with Messi and CR7??? -Do you remember CR7 in 06-07 (a world class season according to you) coming 2nd place to Kaka???? -what about CR7 missing out in the WPOY in 2010 due to Xavi, Iniesta, and Sneijder??? Its no knock on Ronaldinho that he was compared to other players in his time. He won WPOY in 05 and 06, enough said. this is correct. this is why over the course of a whole season, it would be better to go with CR7 over Ronaldinho. but if we are talking about Champions League play, where consistency week in, week out is not required, it would be better to go with Ronaldinho, arguably. I always find this argument laughable. because of a lack of super teams, one could make the case it was harder to perform week to week because of the small difference between every team. whereas when you play for real madrid or Barcelona of the last 4 years, you are only competing in 2 games each year, el classsico. of course, this has changed in the last couple of years. but from 09-16 this was the case. so you could actually say that it was easier for CR7 to rack up the goals because of the super team that he was apart of. He only played Barcelona 2-4 times a year, every year with world players playing beside him every week so that his responsibility was not as great. weak argument.
excellent point. we can look at a team like Manchester united in 2009 and 2011. after Barcelona, one could make the case they were the 2nd or 3rd best team in the world at that time. but do to Manchester united nature of playing an open game, it made it much easier for Barcelona to impose their will. and each CL game final against a top Manchester United team appeared to look like a mismatch from the outside.
Firstly Since when were World player of the year awards incontrovertible proof that the said player was the undisputed best player in the world May I remind you in case you forgot that you are one of the biggest contributors to Zidane overrated threads and this was a player who actually won that award on 3 separate occasions Dinho won the ballon dor once in his career and that was the only year his case for best player in the world status was legitimate Secondly you are going off on unrelated tangents that essentially don’t challenge the crux of my argument(regarding playmakers being inconsistent players) For your info Iniesta was inconsistent in his prime In 2009/10 castrol listed him the 50th best player in Europe Whoscored ranked him outside the top 20 best players in La Liga Check his DBS calcio ratings https://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/e...om-special-la-liga-team-of-the-season-2009-10 Finishing in the top 3 ballon dor 2010 is iniestas greatest ever magic trick a trick that even Zidane couldn’t pull of in 2006 CR was ranked below iniesta in 2010 because of BS ballon dor politics that favour World Cup winning players Nothing to do with who actually was the best performer in 2009/10 Iniesta wasn’t remotely comparable to cronaldo 09/10 not even close Thirdly I don’t understand how you could make sweeping statements that contradict well known established facts Henry was compared to Ronaldinho in his prime If You want I can tag you to a dozen threads from 2004-2006 discussing this very thing Only in the post revisionist YouTube era did Ronaldinho become much greater than Henry. during their playing careers they were widely considered to be close Zidane And R9 were the only players from the 1995-2005 era who were considered to be a step ahead of their peers Everyone else including Rivaldo,Luis figo,Henry,ronaldinho,nedved,Del piero were considered to be roughly at the same level at one point or another Fourthly It was a theory I was developing nothing set in stone(re dinho never being tested against superteams) I said it was arguable and even if it isn’t it doesn’t change my argument which you have not addressed A players prime is not by defined isolated matches against teams that you have designated as being big and untouchable It is indisputable that over the course of a season cronaldo was way more consistent that Ronaldinho I’m not even talking about Madrid cronaldo who redefined what consistency is meant to be I’m talking about a 21-23 year old Cristiano ronaldo at Manchester United who was WAY more consistent than Ronaldinho ever was at Barcelona In 06/07 he outscored/assisted more than every single winger in Europe’s major leagues In 07/08 he outscored Every one in europe was the undisputed best player in every single club competition he played 04/05 Ronaldinho lost the La Liga MVP to riquelme His end product was in the same ball park as Frank Lampard who finished runner up in the BD during 04/05 https://www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11668/2358084/ronaldinho-better-than-lampard This was an impossibility for cronaldo No EPL player could touch him and they all knew this We are talking about world class players such as Gerrard,scholes,drogba,prime torres,cesc Fabregas,Ashley Cole,John Terry,xabi Alonso,Lampard Non of them were on his level and at 22 years old serious analysts were already considering the possibility that he was the best EVER player to play on English soil Btw These are facts not my so called biased opinion
i actually think zidane deserved his WPOY awards. all it means is that no one else was better than him. it doesnt mean he was playing against the likes of a ronaldinho, messi, or ronaldo or even kaka. remember in 2001, i think beckham was a top 3. so the competition wasnt that great. all ballon dòrs are not of equal quality. 2 of zidane`s ballon dòrs came in major tournament years for the NT just like modrics, WPOY is worth 1 month of performance not a calender year. Ronaldinho never won a major international trophy, so his ballon dòrs are going off of club performance only. to make the point: when a player wins a major international trophy it can tend to mean very little a lot of the times. like we know, xavi and iniesta were not better than ronaldo in 2010 but they won the WC, only messi matched Ronaldo that year. HOWEVER, Ronaldinho never won a major international trophy, so it was only based on club form. not a 1 month performance. nice. of all the 4 seasons, 08-12, you manage to pick a season in which he was plagued with injuries to judge iniesta`s consistency. who was not even sure if he would be in the WC. i rest my case, inesta was consistent from 08-12. as consistent as you can hope a number 8 player to be, on arguably the greatest team in the history of the game that relied heavily on its midfield 3. we can start a thread topic and see how many people think iniesta was not consistent in that period. i have no idea whenever the topic of ronaldinho or cr7 comes up, you show us clips and want to show us references of what happened in that period. i assure you, every one on this thread is above 14 years old. we all know what happened. its still fresh in the memory. you saying ronaldinho was compared to henry in 04 even though he won WPOY is like saying Ribery was compared to Ronaldo in 2014 even though Ronaldo won the WPOY. AND THERE WAS A LOT OF DEBATE ABOUT THAT! no less that ronaldinho and henry in 04. i dont see your point. or else you are trying to make the point that neither ronaldinho or ronaldo deserved to win the WPOY in those respective years. again, Ronaldinho never won a major international trophy in either year if you wanna make this damn case about super teams then you might as well discredit every player in the history of the game before 2010!!!!!!! if you discredit ronaldinho for this, then you discredit the many great players who came before him. its a ridiculous argument!!! this is the one point i can completely agree with! yes, cr7 and messi took consistency to a whole nother level. and because of this alone, we can agree that CR7s was better. which is a valid case. HOWEVER, you don`t need to be consistent for a whole season to beat top defenses in the CL. Drogba did it in 2011/12 and CR7 did it in 16/17. maybe not with great performances but with big time goals/plays to help the team win good case, again. i am not surprised that riquelme could out do ronaldinho in a la liga vote because its about consistency. ronaldinho can pick and choose when he decides to show up. but in CL against the tough defenses, riquelme was no where near ronaldinhos level. and like i said, this is CR7s best case for his prime being better and it would be very hard to debate. it`s a fair case in all honesty as his prime being better than Ronaldinhos
Zidane won the ballon dor only once in his career(like Ronaldinho) And he won it competing against the greatest ever version of R9(1997/98) Whether or not he was a deserved winner is a different question but what you said about him only having to beat “lower class” players such as Beckham is inaccurate As a side point and I’ve raised this before Players that won the WPOTY award without the ballon dor or the BD without the WPOTY award don’t strike me as players who were widely considered to be the clear cut best player in Europe When there is a consensus re any player he more often than not sweeps all individual awards Like CR 2008 Messi 2009 Ronaldinho 2005 Baggio 1993 There are questionable choices as Kaka 2007 who wasn’t the clear cut best player in his own league,never played in the copa America but still won(marketable Brazilian I guess) https://www.xtratime.org/forum/7-italian-leagues-cups/215447-xt-player-year-awards.html As you noted in a tournament year the rules are completely changed and 1 good performance in the World Cup KO stage is effectively worth more (to voters) than half a club season of world class performances i have no doubt that Zidane 98 would’ve still won the ballon D’Or competing against prime Messi/ronaldo Just look how close iniesta 2010 in his so called worst injury hit prime season got to clinching the ballon dor of Lionel Messi He was Closer (in votes) than CR ever was in all his BD runner up positions Iniesta was a great player but if you cannot accept that a great player can also be overrated in certain moments in his career then you are just a fanboy It’s amazing how you can play the role of objective analyst with CR but you cannot even bring yourself to admitting that iniestas ballon dor ranking in 2010 was farcical Even funnier that you insist on equating iniesta with Xavi Xavi was at a GREAT level in 2009/10 La Liga and also amazing in the champions league Every single relevant source placed him above iniesta in 2010 Check fourfourtwo top players 2010 Whoscored DBS calcio Trofeo Di stefano There was a consensus on this I guarantee it 1 goal in a World Cup final, a load of tears and shirt swinging can change the whole narrative in an instance
I mixed it up. I meant WPOY award. Fact is zidane won it twice in 98 and 2000 which were major international tournaments he won. We agree it has nothing to do with yearly play. Of course zidane would win it over Ronaldo in 98. Modric did it in 2018 without being outstanding and he didnt win world cup. I'm assuming you can agree on some level with the other points I made since you did not bring them up. Including 1) discrediting ronaldinhos WPOY in 04 when many thought Henry should win it when the exact same situation happened to Ronaldo and Ribery in 2014. 2) trying to discredit Ronaldinho for not playing against super teams because you would then have to discredit every player in the history of the game before 2010. BUT we do agree on one thing. CR7 because of his consistency throughout a whole season from week to week is a good reason for CR7s prime to be better. HOWEVER, I also acknowledge that ronaldinhos prime could be better for winning a champuinsions league tournament as consistency over a whole year is not required to excel in such a tournament. And its been proven by big goals and plays from Drogba in 11/12 and CR7 in 16/17 This is the one big debate we have left. I find it so funny how you think that my opinion that is different from yours is always baised and irrational. You started a thread on CR7s and Ronaldinhos prime trying to prove how irrational I am yet several educated people on this forum side with me. And I never said your opinion to say that CR7s prime was better was irrational because it was different from mine. I think its legite, it's just that I have a different opinion. If you want we can start anothet thread to see if Iniestas was inconsistent from 08-12 and see where this forum stands. I will make a say right now that both iniesta and xavi were extremely consistent from 08-12. But we are specifically are talking of Iniesta. I dont know why you brought xavi in the conversation seeing that you brought up iniesta as being inconsistent in one of your earlier post
You said and I quote “Iniesta And Xavi were as consistent as it gets under pep Guardiola during 2008-2012” This is a media created myth constantly equating them together as though they were at that same level Xavi was one of the best players in 2008 including Euros Arguably the best player in 2009(lead in assists,voted best playmaker in the world) Top 5 performer in 2010(above iniesta clearly here particularly in the champions league) Iniesta was inconsistent in 2010 through injuries or whatever In 2008 he didn’t even receive any votes for the ballon dor Xavi,Torres and David Villa finished in the top 10 ranked players Xavi was consistently world class and deservedly ranked in the top 5 best players every single year between 2008-2012 He was after Messi,Barcelona’s most valuable player over this stretch of time No dispute about this having said all of this I don’t know why you only picked on what I said about iniesta being inconsistent(which is a fact) You just completely bypassed my mention of Zidane being inconsistent (who had considerably more ESM rankings than iniesta) prime Ronaldinho also has considerably more ESM rankings than iniesta Very strange Just so we clear this up Zidane won the ballon D’Or once in his career (1998) He won the FWPOTY 3 times a joint record with R9 from the previous generation His only Only BD award(not 2 as you claimed) came in a tournament year(1998) Zidane lost the BD to Luis figo in 2000 even though he was the clear standout performer in Euro 2000 He was allegedly the clear favourite for both awards(inc WPOTY)up until his headbut incident against Hamburg in the champions league honestly out of all this was zidanes most deserved year to win the ballon dor(even more than 1998 or 2001) He was at his absolute peak here
We can go back and forth. At the end of the day, we disagree on whether iniesta was consistent from 08-12. The fact is, you think he was inconsistent and I think he was very consistent. Xavi is irrelevant. We can start a debate about this. I didnt bypass anything. The reason I did not bring up zidane or Ronaldinho is because I agree. Unless you think I should outwardly state every time I agree with you. It was not worth mentioning. How is that strange? Outside of zidsne international success, I dont see him as one of the greatest ever but rather one of several great players in history. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ronaldinho was also not the most consistent week in, week out. And it was only about 2 years anyway. This case is done. I meant WPOY not golden ball.
Iniesta was consistent compared to whom? I think we need to set out some guidelines or parameters for what does and what doesn’t constitute as a consistent world class level Xavi is relevant here because you are constantly equating him with Andrés Xavi never had a bad stretch of form between 2008-2012 If I remember correctly he was never injured for any substantial periods This is something not even CR can claim(he was injured in the first half of 08/09 and his form was iffy until feb-March of 2009) Iniesta was not even amongst the top 20 performers in Europe during 2008 09/10 he was underwhelming for one reason or another(and not just due to injuries ,his close friend who played for espanyol died and even he admits to this effecting his form) He deserves sympathy no doubt but it is one thing to be sympathetic and another to concoct a false narrative in which iniesta was as consistent as Xavi This is not reality As a consistent elite world class performer iniesta can bring to the table 2008/09 2010/11 2011/12 Other seasons by him had stretches of world class form but not long enough(not consistent enough) to warrant an inclusion amongst the very best players in Europe Btw don’t think I underrate iniesta,having 3 seasons where you are amongst the top 5 undisputed players in the world is amazing(that is in the same territory Luis figo,Luis Suarez,arjen robben,stoichkov,Zidane,Ronaldinho etc) just slightly below the consistency of Henry/Neymar/KHR/Xavi that have had 4-5 seasons in that top bracket of course some of these players had higher peaks than others(to what degree is also debatable) What is not is iniesta was never as consistent in the way Xavi was during that 4-5 year stretch pep Guardiola was in charge.
You pretty much made my point. And in 09/10 when iniesta was available he would perform. I dont want to argue too much about this because I dont think this topic will go anywhere. Iniesta was a key player for arguably the greatest team ever. And in all honesty, I think it woukd be a waste of a thread. So I dont mind ending it here
Iniesta was available in 42 appearances( 31 starts ) Which is a whole seasons worth of performances if you happen to play for a team that fails to qualify for European club Cup competitions Iniesta 09/10 wasn’t a top 3 performer on his own team Pre WC10 there was a consensus he wasn’t one of the better performers that season Post WC10 the narrative completely changed dani alvez,Lionel Messi,pique, Xavi( just from Barcelona )had better seasons Castrol listed him the 50th best performer in 09/10( inc World Cup) Effectively The whole Spanish NT featured above him which eliminates any suggestion or possibility of.anti Barcelona bias by media sources