Euro 2016

I was actually disappointed with Kroos in this tournament despite his large number of passes. He was absolutely awful against Italy and not very good against France either (the only two good teams Germany played in this tournament).

 

So tempting to make the obvious response to this

 

It is a shame that you are not warned or banned. Looks as if you are part of the preferred agendas. Secondly, I actually did not report your posts but you are a plain dishonest person.

 

This is the "Best XI" according to Germany's largest daily newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung":

 

One name on that really jumps out...looking forward to reading Cox's rationale behind including Pelle in there. I really like Cox's writing and he does tend to throw in at least one interesting selection in his best XIs. don't agree with this one though

 

I thought Eder played quite well up front for italy... better than pelle

 

I'm wondering how Lloris could get so many appearances in TotTs, he had an incredible game against Germany, but the other 6 games he didn't really stand out at all. Rui Patricio or Neuer (maybe even Buffon) would be better choices imo.

 

If i had to choose an All-Star Team:

GK: Rui Patricio/Neuer
DEF: Boateng, Chiellini/Bonucci, Pepe/Raphael
MID: Perisic (Blaszczykowski), Kroos/Özil, Ramsey, Hazard (Blaszczykowski)
ATT: Griezmann, Bale, CR7/Payet

Some unclear choices i would still have to think about here.

Honourable Mentions:
DEF: Srna (played very good, impressing if you think about his father's death)
MID: Gunnarsson (His throw-ins were much more dangerous than Ronaldo's free-kicks)
Renato Sanches (What a beast! Unfortunately he didn't play that much)
Hamsik (very impressing in the Group Stage but that is not enough for a TotT)
ATK: Giroud, Pellè, Gomez (proved that the "real 9" is far from dead)

 

The problem with Kroos against Italy was that he was tightly man-marked by the Italian forwards and was denied time and space on the ball. Against such a disciplined team like Italy, the Kroos-Ozil link is too vunlerable. Once you mark one of them out of the match, the whole team rhythm will be broken. Therefore, I strongly suggest the use of Gundogan next to Kroos in future tournaments to replicate a system that is similar to Modric-Kroos that works so well at the club level and move Ozil to the side. Gundogan is a very mobile player that has great ability in carrying the ball forward and holding the ball under his feet, and has ability to exploit spaces better up front, his off-ball movement is also fantastic. His mobility, his intelligence on and off-the-ball, his ball control makes him much harder than Ozil against a tough opponent, therefore he is a much better fit than Ozil in the middle.

 

There was no way Neuer was better than Lloris at Euro16, Neuer was at fault for the second France goal and that prooved extremely costly. Patricio has a case and possibly Buffon but Buffon as Buffon play two games less and missed a goup game he actually only played 4 games as opposed to Patricio and Lloris seven.

There seems to be a theme were Neuer gets picked as peoples team of tourments because of who he is, likewise his mistakes get ignored, I am not comparing Harter to Neuer but he s getting destroyd for his mistakes. Neuer was was saved by the ref (iincorrectly) in the Champions League versus Juventus this season and Bayern should have been out plus Euro 2016 too.

 

First of all Neuer had to go to the ball in this situation, because otherwise Giroud would have headed it in, otherwise i agree with you that he could have found a better way to clear the ball, BUT i don't think Lloris or Patrico would have done it better in this situation (or any other keeper), because it was extremely hard for Neuer to reach the ball as he even slightly collided with Giroud. So in my opinion that was absolutely not Neuers fault.

 

That doesn't mean that i would choose Neuer though, i think Patricio is a fair call.

 

I disagree, he could have punched it, instead he just palmed it down right into Griezmann's path who scored, he could even have stayed on his line, either would have been a better choice. He made a similar error in CL away to Arsenal (I was there behind the goal) he came and completely missed the ball that time and Giroud scored the header, Neuer has not got many weaknesses but I feel he has at crosses.

Impossible to say Lloris or Patricio would have done better (personally I think they would), however they could not have done any worse.

 

A bit off topic since it hasn't to do with Euro 2016.

I'm not here to defend Neuer because I agree that he does appear to be given leniency whenever he makes a mistake.
I just wanted to focus on the part I've placed in bold: That controversial offside decision and the assertion that Bayern should have been eliminated from the Champions League because of it.

For me, the offside decision that disallowed Morata's goal was not as clear cut as people made it out to be. The awkward angle of the TV replay didn't help matters.
http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/bay-juv-r.2030073/#post-33739145
When a still image is needed to prove whether or not a decision was correct/incorrect, I have a tough time placing blame on the match officials and tend to give them a pass since they have to make split second decisions without the aid of replays and stop action.

Further...
At the time of the disallowed goal, Juve were leading 1-0.
Juventus would eventually get a second goal but this doesn't mean it would have been 3-0 had the 'offside' goal been allowed.
If the 'offside' goal had been allowed to make it 2-0, it changes things at that point. We cannot assume Morata would have made that incredible run that eventually turned into the 2-0.
Imo, the moment that changed the outcome of the match was the open chance miss by Juve right before halftime that would have made it 3-0.
And btw, Thiago was booked for removing his shirt during his goal celebration in extra time. Had he been booked back in the 90th minute when he ran onto the pitch as a sub after the goal to make it 2-2, his goal celebration would have seen him sent off. Or, most likely, he would have kept his shirt on while celebrating his goal.

So I agree that Bayern should have been out. But I blame Juventus, not the officiating.

 

Garrincha,platini and Romario are way to high imo I was thinking more along the lines of

Top 20
1.)diego Maradona
2.)Pele
3.)johan Cruyff
4.)lionel messi
5.Alfredo Di Stefano
6.)Cristiano Ronaldo
7.)franz Beckenbauer
8.)puskas
9.)Eusebio
10.)Zico
11.)platini
12.)Ronaldo fenomeno
13.)George Best
14.)Garrincha
15.)Gerd muller
16.)Micheal Laudrup
17.)Roberto baggio
18.) Zinedine Zidane
19.) Marco van Basten
20.)Romario

 

How would you compare Cristiano with Puskas?

 

I have always found it hard to properly assess puskas's career
He was goat scorer in his home country(averaging over a goal a game over many seasons)but just how strong was the hungarian league?
I literally haven't seen even 1 second of footage of puskas playing for Honvéd so I can only guess and assume what kind of level he was at and what kind of opposition he was playing against.

For me what really counts when I look at puskas is 3 things
His career in real Madrid at 31 to 39 years old . despite being seemingly overweight and in his 30s his goal ratio in la liga was the highest for nearly 50 years until Messi and Ronaldo came along

La liga highest ratio
Cristiano Ronaldo 260 goals in 236 games ratio:1.10
telmo zarra 251 goals in 278 games ratio 0.90
Lionel Messi 312 goals in 348 games ratio 0.89
puskas 156 goals in 180 games ratio:0.86

So you have zarra with a highly impressive ratio but who played a sizable chunk of his career during ww2,nothing needs to be said about Messi and Ronaldo that hasn't already and last but by no means least puskas who came to Spain physically unfit in his early 30s which I can imagine was old in them days(relatively speaking) and he STILL managed to have a top 4 all TIME la liga ratio playing well over 150 games

you only have to look at r9 who most would argue came to real Madrid past his peak and overweight(exactly like puskas) but there is only 1 winner
R9 scored 83 la liga goals in 127 games for real Madrid ratio:0.65 which is very impressive all things considered but not even remotely close to puskas who was also older than r9 in addition to being overweight.

I also have to take into consideration his European cup record winner of 3 trophies albeit on a team that was arguably the most stacked in history(even more than Barcelona( 2009- )
he was probably the best player in one of those wins(1960) a hattrick against Barcelona in the sf and again in the final is epic to say the least
nobody has scored more in ec/cl finals than puskas which if Ronaldo and Messi can't break then nobody even stands a chance

and the third and last thing I take into consideration in his international career
first you have his goal record which I believe only der bomber has a higher ratio in football history but bearing in mind puskas played at least 20 more games than muller and it is a lot closer than it seems
then you have his success dominating the world stage for nearly 6 years and puskas was their star/best player in addition to being a Wc finalist(and scoring in a Wc final -yet another big game that he scores in)

Now I can compare puskas and cr7 at club level easily both were elite players and both played on stacked teams(puskas's teammates at club level were more talented but you get the point)

the difficult part is comparing international,the core of the mighty magyars(kocsis,bozsic,czibor etc) played with puskas in hondev. in the hungarian league his ratio was a goal a game and at international it was very close(84 in 85) cr7s ratio in real Madrid is over a goal a game so what happens if the core(let's say benzema,bale,modric) are Portuguese Ronaldo definitely would average a goal a game or probably just under it . so imo comparing their international careers isn't fair to say the least

at club level as I believe I have already mentioned Cristiano Ronaldo is in a very elite category being the best player in 3 different champions league winning teams once with Manchester united and 2 with real Madrid
2008,2014,2016

only 3 other players managed to do this in European football history
Cruyff(won 3 ec and was the best in each occasion)
71,72 and 73

Messi(won 4 and was the best in 3 campaigns)
2009,2011,2015

Alfredo Di Stefano
(won 5 and was the best player in 4 campaigns )
1956,1957,1958,1959

Ronaldo has consistency at the highest level which is unsurpassed
(10× uefa team of the year as a forward/winger) Messi is second with 7 appearances and Thierry Henry with 5
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Team_of_the_Year
You also have to take into consideration Cristiano Ronaldo is a 3× ballon dor winner playing in the same era as Messi which is a VERY special achievement.

Platini won 3 ballon dors without having to compete with maradona and zico who where not eligible for being south American
IF the ballon dor was a European player only award Ronaldo would be a 7× winner more than Platini+van Basten put together
He would win in
2007,2008,2009,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015 and who knows maybe even 2016
in 2007 he came 2nd to kaka a south American and in 09,11,12,15 he came second to Messi also a south American plus the 3 he has won=7× BD

If under these circumstances which were perfectly acceptable barely over 20 years ago Ronaldo a potential 7× ballon dor winner would definitely go down in history as a better player than puskas even taking into consideration that the ballon dor was created when puskas was around 30 years old

as far as natural talent goes this is another unfair comparison . Ronaldo is a player who we can scrutinise carefully and have 100s of his games available to watch the same cannot be said of puskas.

puskas had greater playmaking abilities than Cristiano Ronaldo probably although this isn't something I can verify,he was the pioneer of a skill move (the drag back)which was definitely ground breaking in the 50s and 60s but in the 21st century you can probably find 50 average joes who can do the same thing.
If you ask me I would give Ronaldo the natural talent edge

now to conclude all things considered I would say they are VERY close and that is definitely an honour to Cristiano Ronaldo after all puskas was voted the greatest goal scorer of the entire 20th century pre and post war and against very stiff competition(Pele, muller,Arthur friedenreich,Fernando peyroteo,Eusebio etc)
when it comes to top 10 lists 5-10 are all pretty close in talent it is only 1-4 that are the anomalies(players that come once every 20-25 years Pele,Cruyff,Maradona,Messi)

 

The problem when you compare current players to players of the past is that people generally think the past is better for some reason whether we are talking about football or just life in general failing to realize that the present is just as good

Stats don't lie. What is truth though is what your personal opinion is about that play or maybe he's a better Shooter or a better passer or maybe he is better at quick turns like Johan Cryuff was

 

Nostalgia,I don't mind it when it comes to music or even movies but I can stand it when it comes to football
But don't worry in 50 years from now or hopefully even less when another genuine goat candidate emerges there will be many old aged pensioners on forums similar to this saying that player x (the goat candidate) doesn't even have 10% of messi's ability (or even c.Ronaldo for that matter)

Just look at it like this Zidane a really fantastic player I would go even as far as to say he is a genuine legendary European player but he is NOWHERE NEAR to being the goat or a goat candidate.
Barely 10 years after his retirement and you'll see him in many "all time lists" right next to Maradona and Pele.

And Ronaldinho...don't get me started he hasn't even retired and the YouTube propaganda campaign has been going strong since at least 2008
In 2005/06 at his absolute peak the best you'd hear is he is a wonderful player,elegant,entertaining etc in 2016 despite having done nothing noteworthy in 10 seasons he has become either
A.)the goat
B.)an all time great technician
C.)a legendary dribbler

And a few other things I can't think of at this specific moment in time

 

Overall a fair idea. You make a few calculation errors here and there (CR7 would have won 8 Ballon d'Ors with Europeans only) and some things are not so clear but I get the general gist.

It's a very fair point in favor of Ronaldo that Puskas played for even more stacked/imbalanced teams, that had a huge edge in everything (training hours, stadium, hypermodern facilities). Also the other Ronaldo played for some stacked club teams, with not nearly the same success. Inter is debatable but his Galacticos and 1996-97 Barcelona (it demonstrably spent more than the 9 seasons prior combined) would be stronger arguments. Of the range you identify, only Eusebio, Zico, Platini and Garrincha played for significantly and decisively less stacked/superior club teams (relative to peers).

Personally I'd say Cristiano is an anomaly, albeit in a slightly different way (e.g. what are the tendencies of the 'football economy', as identified by reputable institutions). Of course the irony is here that the same economy has helped him to rack up 8 virtual Ballon d'Ors. Either way, a credible narrative can be constructed that he's an anomaly as well.