FourFourTwo 101 best footballers of the last 25 years

Sure, no question, but he started only 23 matches, completed 22 (of the 38). It doesn't influence enormously my estimation but in almost all of his club trophies he had a limited number of appearances. In all league titles he won a curtailed season. Dito in the only European trophy he won (the business end especially).

In some of his best seasons (1990-91 imho - there is a great game on footballia to see where he played for Montpelier against PSV and Romario) he didn't win anything big. 1990-91, 1997-1999.

That dissociation between team success and individual contribution makes his club career trickier than the one of Patrice Evra for instance. Who has for a left back an immediately outstanding club career, but isn't an as superb player imho.

 

Yeah Larsson didn't leave the club in the nicest way (his new boss at Celtic was Wim Janssen, another Feyenoord icon) but has been there at times since. He acknowledges this is the time he made strides and established himself for the Sweden national side.

https://nos.nl/l/2155753

In career progression a similar story as Luis Suarez I guess.

One of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my career, sign for a club that gave me everything!!! Ik ben altijd van @AFCAjax 💪💪💪💪💪 https://t.co/MyAxKEItpX

— Luis Suárez (@LuisSuarez9) August 9, 2019

Van Persie (who like Suarez and Ibrahimovic also worked with MvB and started to use him as center forward before Wenger did) opened the new academy a few weeks ago and held a speech. He said he doesn't want a job but even as an Arsenal and Man United player he did some things for the club. Shame of all the injuries (many of them really unlucky, like that Chiellini ankle breaker - no card was shown, or the metatarsal fracture) but he must rank among the better players the academy and city has produced.







I would have him above Van Nistelrooy personally although RvN was a better team provider and with linking up as is remembered.

Did you see this?

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/miscellaneous-premier-league-stats.2079200/page-2#post-38102099
(also note that until 2010 he already ranks top five or top three on a per minute base, here)

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/du...ation-1979-1994.1978389/page-11#post-37149224

 

Yeah, I'd noticed that post, and without looking deeply into the calculations I am not surprised about it really. Also not surprised he does well on a per minute basis in general, because he'll have had an impact as sub sometimes and had purple patches of (often match winning?) goals when he was coming back from injury etc at Arsenal.

 

Yes true... I saw now later there are some nice 'skills' videos on YouTube of his time at Feyenoord.

He has been asked by Kompany (or his management) to feature in his testimonial.

https://www.mancity.com/news/club-n...ers-confirmed-for-vincent-kompany-testimonial

Some jokes have been made about zero Belgians invited and five Dutchmen With Kompany himself out injured and the 'managers' two Spaniards (Pep and Martinez). Well planned

 

Hmm, yeah, seems like a Manchester United based opposition mainly, but yes Van der Vaart is like an 'extra' invite for example. I guess De Bruyne is being protected from injury, although two team-mates will play a small part I noticed.

 

In 2011 Pedro became the only player in history to score in 6 club competitions in a single year
Also holding the rare distinction of scoring in a CL a europa final

If iniesta is inflated beyond recognition on the basis of 3 big game goals (chelsea 09,Netherlands 10,juventus 15) then what about Pedro?

"if Pedro was Brazilian," Guardiola famously said, "he'd be called Pedrinho and we wouldn't have enough money to afford him."

 

This is also mentioned here (they make however a big mistake when they say the other two finals ended 1-0):
https://play.acast.com/s/footballramble/dcfa1172-55d8-43c9-b860-73ffefaacd0f

There are some observations I like but also some things I'd challenge:

- I like certain things as them observing Johan II playing as right-back and Johan I playing in midfield. Much more complimentary than you placing Johan among the forwards while Maradona and Di Stefano is midfielder I also like the point of current City being able to go full throttle for 90 minutes and them only for 45-60.

- I don't like things as the nod to Reynolds/Buckingham (have gone over this before, and they don't really explain this shout), and the whole amphetamine story (though they say they were very open about it, which is true) which misses the context (amphetamine was already commonplace in 1950s Manchester United, Brazilian football and Serie A). There were no rule transgressions, cover-ups or high fives with authorities, plain and simple. On the contrary, rules and testing prevented curing colds and flus during the 1974 World Cup (while other nations had a free pass, for sure, no doubt about it).

- They mention the possible naturalization of Blankenburg. In truth, it never came to a point where he could say whether he wants it or not. It was legally not possible because he had already played for under-23 teams (interestingly, there were also inquiries from Austria). Of course, you can also try to ignore the FIFA legislation and see whether you get away with it - that is what Germany did with Bonhof. Nobody could have foreseen either that there were so many injuries among the usual defenders in '74.

 

From memories, Miroir du Football say that Ajax is first of all a counter-attacking team too. Not a team which practice a football that can be called revolutionary but is on the contrary, a capitalist team. They say that the Ajax game is wrongly called revolutionary because of the individual technique of a couple of their best individualites but that their game-plan relies before all on physical power and counter-attacks.
Contrarily to, in their view still, some teams like Hungary of the 50s, who already practiced the alternance of positions between the players, had as much technique (if not more perhaps... can't remember if they actually say this tho) but took the initiative, were more constructive. Contrarily to the brutal and destructive capitalsit football.

Something like that. I think I'm close. Their speech was precise. No sugar coating.

"Dynamic catenaccio" sounds like "middle lane" indeed.

That's interesting.

That was to add one take on the matter.

 

but I heard the word "dynamic" as something positive and perhaps I was wrong.

 

Does this make sense though? Can it be backed up?

Although there were changes compared to the club side (which had the majority of possession in each of the four finals), statistics show in '74 they had more possession than anyone else in the tournament (source: Outside the Box - a statistical journey through the history of football), including the final.

Obviously there were counter-attacking and transitional elements to it ('gegenpressing' if you like) but that's also true for the Guardiola teams at their best. Haan and JC14 were the players with the most attempted and completed passes of the team.

I notice however some consistency in Mirior's comments. They were one of the earlier ones to highlight Cruijff's brilliance and great influence on the results (early 1967) rather than the strength of the team first and foremost (the FF survey placing them top five and on top in 1969; Bobby Charlton calling them the 'team to beat' in early 1969; or this example). So if they say it's because of individuals rather than something else, there's consistency there.

The usage and conflation of the term 'revolutionary' in a cultural or political sense is always risky. There's a case to be made a paradigm was established in real-existing concepts and ideas (which was also practical).

 

Please, can you explain more what you're thinking about in this last sentence?

 

Gareth Bale is criminally underrated.

At his peak, he should be on the same level as Ribery at least.

 

It all comes down to opinions I guess! I don't really feel that way about Bale if I'm honest (not with any certainty anyway - I'm not saying in a direct comparison to Ribery I see him way behind when factoring in his 12/13 Tottenham form for example which we should recognise was often not playing as a winger but more of a free attacking midfielder under AVB unless my memory fails me!), but I definitely do about Pires lol!

 

His peak wasn't very long because he was compromised. His best position is definitely on the left wing where his explosive style can excel.

He was never going to get that position because it never made sense to maximize him over maximizing Ronaldo.

 

Always nice when people drop a statement without explanation whatsoever.

Very simplistically said: the only thing Bale had over Ribery at his peak (both in 2013, maybe Ribery also reached a peak around 2008) was goals. But he also fired 2.5x as many shots as Ribery.

Was Bale more influential at Tottenham? Maybe, but Ribery was influential in his own right (I showed the numbers) over a longer period of time for a bigger and more stacked club with a number of world champions there.

At Real Madrid, the team does a lot better without as with him in. There is a reason why managers (but not the president, seeing the marketing) don't like him.

That season there were also two other strong contenders in the EPL: Suarez and RvP.

That said, Bale has in theory still about four years to go.

 

Ok, I understand better now. At first sight I just thought that his statement was badly flawed since he could have been unwilling to take sides then, at one point, I truly believed there was very possibly like a hidden message and a deep thought in it, since Glanville seemed to make use of a sort of oxymoron (on purpose surely!).
But yes, that was just it certainly. It remains a bit puzzling though. If he wrote it on purpose in order to confuse the reader's mind, it's still a success.
"Dynamic catenaccio". What-is-that? What-does-he-mean? Ahhaha. I'll never be 100% sure, I think.

 

As I said, this is a good start (google translate if necessary):
https://web.archive.org/web/2019010...s-alive-and-well-just-not-in-the-netherlands/
https://spielverlagerung.de/2016/03/24/traineranalyse-johan-cruijff/
https://spielverlagerung.com/2014/11/26/juego-de-posicion-a-short-explanation/

You can say a paradigm or ideal type was constructed of a team playing 4-3-3/3-4-3, sweeper keeper, offside line, triangles, third man running, pressing, positional play, positional defending in midfield, flexible players (in their zone) etcetera. This was done in a conceptual way, and previous elite teams like 1930s Austria or Uruguay don't really fit that template.

Michael Cox wrote those teams "promoted this approach so successfully that football's modern era would be considered in relation to the classic Dutch interpretation of the game."

One clear example of this is Vitor Frade (the professor behind Mourinho, AVB) in Portugal telling his students who want get a coaching license to make a study of this. From Fieldsend his book on the European game: "When on UEFA Pro License courses, coaches are tasked with creating a thesis of study. They often seek advice from Frade. He tells them simply to study what Johan Cruyff did at Barcelona as the ideal game model. "This passion of Cruyff's game is not for nothing. We are talking about someone who was a milestone in the qualitative evolution of football." [Frade his own words] Is this also the case for 1950s Hungary or 1920s Uruguay, studied as a starting position? I think not, and it has largely to do with concepts and how they fit together.

Thus it is an ideal-type, paradigm or template to work from. In the 1970s some things were still work in progress and evolving; there are interviews with Cruijff and Krol himself from the late 70s and early 80s where they say the sweeper will become obsolete in 10 to 15 years time (here this is strongly implied as well) - and you can say he as a trainer didn't use Verlaat, Blind or Koeman in the most orthodox way (Verlaat - about the same age as Winter and Bergkamp - later at Stuttgart playing in a zonal flat back four with success, under Joachim Low).

Cattenaccio is another ideal type, and in modified form also that is still studied today at places like Coverciano. Antonio Conte is the modern day representation of this 'school'.

 

Also, in your own list on the website (I really like you took the time to make descriptions) you write as first sentence:

"Cruijff – The developer with Ajax and Holland of what would be the pattern for the resolutly modern football of the 70s and quite still is today. A refined striker endowed with a deft technique (exquisite dribbling with instantaneous stops and starts and changings of direction, exquisite passing, all of that with an astonishing fluidity) who quickly mutated into a midfield general who participated in all the actions in every corner of the field (but to the detriment of his ability to score vital goals at times). The true player-coach. Then guide of the new great Barça in the late 80s-early 90s called ''Dream Team'' (for the club's first European Cup win in '92), as a coach. Inspirator, of the great Barça of the already legendary 2005-2015 era."

Traces of this in the things on Neeskens, Gullit etcetera as well. So don't think there's much light between our perceptions.

 

Just as Kompany lining up four orange players and no compatriots for his testimonial (farewell match), I also found this quite funny (but - without agreeing with the statement - can sort of see the idea four Premier League years, and international years, are enough to have a picture)

'I would give it to Virgil van Dijk!' 🏅

Ahead of Vincent Kompany's testimonial match at the Etihad Stadium, we've been asking you for your opinions on the greatest ever Premier League centre-back, here is Kompany's answer...

Watch live on Sky Sports PL from 7pm! 📺⚽ pic.twitter.com/uWeb292OXv

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) September 11, 2019

To be fair, also Sergio Ramos (with a more stacked trophy cabinet as anyone) has said it "will be on merit".

Virgil Van Dijk deserves the #BallonDor, says Sergio Ramos 🏆#LFC pic.twitter.com/4rkZmUEKMH

— Sport360° (@Sport360) September 11, 2019

1171758449669136387 is not a valid tweet id

 

Thanks @PuckVanHeel . I almost finished to read everything (the translator works very well for the second link).

Also, I greatly appreciate that you read it all.

Ah, nice expression.

 

Scholes was a far better player than pirlo