Put it this way.. based on the overall performance in the WC there wasn’t a better player than Modric. Some can say Hazard but the difference is negligible to make it a big deal. No one here is saying Modric’s performance was on par to Maradona 86 but simply the best in this tournament worthy of recognition, as he did. The fortunate topic is pointless and I dont see the whole point in bringing it up because it is what it is.. and based on what it is(was) is how the performances were assesed.
I'm just trying to provide the full, balanced picture by putting ALL the facts out there. Everyone knows that playing 120 minutes is more taxing than playing 90. Its been mentioned 1000 times that Croatia played 3 games that went to extra time, compared to only 2 by England and Russia (apparently playing 2 ET games is piece of cake, but 3 is like climbing Everest ). But I don't think anyone pointed-out yet that Croatia had 6 days between their 2 PK shootouts. Or that their KO stage started 2 days before England's started, so England's fixtures were more condensed.
You took my sentence out of context and ran with your own narrative as if I was excusing Croatia for not beating France in the final or England in semis.
Yeah, I never went with that narrative. And no, pointing-out the rest time between games in direct response to someone else highlighting the minutes played during those same games is not taken things out of context.
Messi got snubbed because of the WC. His Barcelona season is forgotten... European Golden Shoe, top scorer in all competitions in Europe, La Liga, Copa Del Rey. Lots of huge performances against big teams like Real, Atletico, Sevilla, Juventus, and Chelsea as well. This notion is laughable. Messi in 2014: R16 vs. Switzerland: 9.41 Rating; 1 assist, 8 key passes, 7 dribbles QF vs. Belgium: 7.33 Rating, 1 key pass (led to a goal), 5 dribbles SF vs. Netherlands: 9.03 Rating, 2 key passes, 10 dribbles, scored a PK in the shootout F vs. Germany: 7.03 Rating, 2 key passes, 7 dribbles Average Rating: 8.2 Even if Argentina beat Iceland, they still would have finished second. Unless you think Messi could beat Croatia by himself.
Actually Messi was an impediment for Argentina vs Croatia. They probably would have been better of if he had not played. Compare that performance to his game against France, where he played a lot better and Argentina was able to score 3 goals, with Messi providing two assists. So no, it was not unthinkable to suggest Argentina should have been capable of beating Croatia if Messi had performed up to his standards since we all know Croatia, as a team, is simply not as good as France.
You are because I am talking about Modric and how it is normal to suggest that his form could have dropped by the time he reached SF (in comparison to first 3/4 games) since just 4 days earlier he had played 120 mins and 6 days before that another 120 mins.. while being the player who ran the most.
Again, I'm not. I'm talking on the same thing as you, just showing that Croatia weren't any more exhausted than their opponents in that easier bracket. The France scoreline was a bit deceptive. It wasn't that close really. Doubt one player could make a difference there. As for the Croatia match, who knows? If Messi could've created some great goal out of nothing to give Argentina the first goal of that match then maybe the result is different. But still a stretch to say one player could make the difference. The Argentina defense & goalkeepers just suck; I don't think they would have stopped Croatia even if Messi gave them a lead to protect.
yes because I am not comparing Modric to his opponents but to himself in earlier games. It was actually pretty close up until a point.. and players having outstanding performances does actually matter and make a big difference.. Mbappe was inspired that night, impressive run for the 1st goal which came via penalty, his great maneuver inside the area to give France the lead, DiMaria & Pavard scored golazos from outside the box and Aguero killed it with his fabulous finish from a cross inside the area. Overall it was one of the most enjoyable matches in the entire tournament.. nothing compared to the Argentina vs Croatia game.
I'm guessing that's probably why it was combined with the FIFA award. But then people complained since journalists pretty much lost most their say on who should win the Ballon d'Or.
Except in both games Argentina were losing by 2 goals entering stoppage time. Aguero's goal just made it seem more competitive than it ever was. The game was only ever in doubt for about 5 minutes when Argentina took the lead briefly with a fluke goal, before France bagged 3 goals with remarkable ease.
I was so convinced that Ronaldo would collect another FIFA award, and in fact, I'm honestly still convinced that Ronaldo will win the Ballon d'Or... but congrats to Luka Modric for getting the due credit that was consistently denied to him for the better part of Ronaldo's Real Madrid legacy. At any rate, I think that Modric deserves it more than Ronaldo this year, so I'm pleasantly surprised that Modric won at least the FIFA award. Hopefully he will also win the Ballon d'Or. It has been long overdue, but finally a midfielder - in an era that has been dominated and defined by midfielders - gets the due credit. Modric performed better than Ronaldo relative to the arguably poor tactical system that Modric had to play around... Ronaldo received a disproportionate percentage of Real Madrid's service, and Ronaldo did not do much of anything outside of scoring well assisted goals or scoring relatively easy assists, which means that Real Madrid's midfield was suffering the consequence of working for one player - CR7 - who wasn't doing anywhere near enough outside of scoring goals, to balance the disproportion of the service that was granted and invested in Ronaldo i.e. bad stock in this case. It's difficult for a midfield to dominate when so much of the service created by said midfield, is aimed at one specific player who doesn't do much of anything outside of scoring well assisted goals and/or outside of scoring relatively easy assists, and very importantly, when that same player scores a lot of goals but requires an absurd amount of shots-per-game to score that many goals, etc. As a midfielder, the vast majority of the speculative shots by Ronaldo, well it means that the opposing team now has the ball in their control, and it also means that Ronaldo rarely uses the service invested in him as a medium via which to advance play by means of dribbling runs (in difficult and significant areas of the pitch) and/or by means of difficult ball retention (as opposed to easy ball retention - that is, showboat ball retention - which is Ronaldo's calling card), which are essential factors when it comes to "midfield dominance." As such, I think that Modric did a better job overall, considering how difficult it is to be a great dominating midfield player when the goal scoring machine who receives all the service is not doing much with it, that is, outside of scoring a gazillion goals that Dzeko or Sergio Aguero or even Gonzalo Higuain would also score if given the same platform, etc. Luka Modric 2018 actually reminds me of Pavel Nedved 2004, in that I think that Nedved was better in 2003 and 2002 than he was in 2004, but he won the BDO in 2004 arguably as some form of career achievement... Generously inflating Euro 2004 as the pretext and as the argument, but again, Nedved's Euro performance was - in my opinion - nowhere near great enough to proportionally compensate for what was a relatively unimpressive club season by Nedved's high standards. NOTE: Modric's FIFA award further legitimizes the argument that Ronaldo started winning the Champions League, but only when he was surrounded by players like prime Luka Modric, who was arguably exactly as great in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, as he was in 2018. (And by all means, it is already refreshing to know that Ronaldo fanboys might want to shut up about "Xavi and Iniesta made it easy for Messi," because neither one out of Xavi or Iniesta ever won the equivalent to a FIFA award.)
Actually it's not surprising. Given how poorly Argentina and Messi played in the World Cup, it would be irrelevant what he achieved for Barca in the 9-10 months of the year. As it has nothing to do with Argentinian pride
This is a totally false equivalence imo Congrats to luca Modric for his award but this was a year in which no player arguably dominated Messi dominated in La Liga but was so so in the cl and poor in the World Cup Ronaldo had a strong cl but his La Liga performance was a mixed bag(poor in the first half but prolific and world class in the second half) He was also one of the stars of the World Cup groupstage Salah was strong in the league and champions league but missed the final and World Cup Neymar was injured for large portions of the 2nd part of the season Etc Nobody had a perfect resume Modric benefitted from this no doubt and played his part in a historic 3rd consecutive cl cup and captaining his country to the wc final His was the best narrative and maybe it was in recognition for what he had done in previous years BUT..let’s not get ahead of ourselves Xavi/iniesta/pirlo players who you describe as era defining midfielders competed against prime messi (the one who involved in 75-100 goals per season) and prime ronaldo who was involved in 70-75 goals per season.goals and assists not even including what they contributed to in build up play,key passes,dribbles even their presence alone was enough to scare defences across Europe And those great midfielders lost and by a clear margin Modric (any year of his career) would be challenging xavi/iniesta/pirlo/Ibrahimovic/Rooney For 3rd to 5th place(maybe even lower)From 2008-2012
I bet Balon d'Or will go to Modric. It really hurt Ronaldo that he was a no show in the SF and final in the CL.
Its not that is not legit or it is Official ate Fifa and Uefa awards They should have stay merged with Fifa awards I have no clue why the need to divide France federation is being hilarious with separating once again from FIFA award
BTW Ronaldo And Messi showed how egotistical they both are by not showing up the ceremony Ill never be fan of any the two
France Federation ? It has nothing to do with Federation. It's an award given by France Football magazine. Perhaps they didn't want to be associated with FIFA given their scandals. For me they never should have merged. I value journalist votes more than general public, NT coaches and captains. FIFA making a mess of its award by having Salah top 3, but Messi in Salah's position in Top XI. Same thing with Courtois and De Gea. Seems to be FIFA is the less legit.
Yeah.none of that matters to me Individual rewards in team sport do not really matter to me Especially Ronaldos achievements For me he is just a robot Messi at least has humane expressions [emoji23][emoji23] I honestly was surprised that the midget did not show up also Meh who cares The likes of Ronaldo da Lima ,Zizou,Raul,Puyol,Iniesta will always be dearer to me than the likes of Ronaldo.Actually its a well known fact that i dont really like Ronaldo.i cant put Messi in the same bracket cos the guy is complete footballer and not as selfish. And you can tell that he at least has some compassion or other players around him. I expect Ronaldo to become a real cry baby by the end of his career
Nedved did not win the 2004 ballon dor that was Andriy shevchenco Nedved won the 2003 ballon dor for his 02/03 season and that was contentious to say the least(ie 2003 was the best year of Thierry henry and the highest peak of any striker since r9 in 1997 imo) Nedved had big ko stage performances in the champions league but Henry was completely dominant at league level (best league performer in Europe bar non)and also great in the confederations cup(not sure how much that would’ve swayed voters but it clearly did wonders for Neymar in 2013 -check his overrated ballon dor ranking) I’m struggling to see the correlation between Modric 2018 and nedved 2004. I don’t believe anyone truly believed ronaldo would’ve won the fwpoty (he probably didn’t himself-maybe the reason he didn’t go?) if you can try your hardest and not mention zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo from 3 consecutive posts you will have made great strides In treating your chronic obsession with these two players https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/index.shtml
It's a stretch to say that. Argentina didn't lose a in a nail-biter with Messi struggling. They lost 3-0 and it could have been worse with Perisic missing an easy chance. It was a blowout loss. A complete annihilation and I was one of the few who called it. I told a few of my friends that Croatia will destroy Argentina and they didn't believe me.
I stand corrected on that... but again, Andriy Shevchenko in 2004 arguably received a career achievement award, because 2004 was not his best year was it?? Andrea Pirlo was AC Milan's best player in the 2003/04 season, and in the 2004/05 season Shevchenko was arguably not even the best player in his own league, let alone the best player in the world. The correlation is indeed difficult to see given the fact that Nedved 2004 did not win the Ballon d'Or. Perhaps Shevchenko 2004 is a better correlation, I mean Shevchenko 2004 was barely better (if at all) than he had been several times in the non-distant past, but he won the BDO in 2004 on the basis of what I assume was some form of career achievement? And yes: a lot of people expected that Cristiano Ronaldo would poach another one of these awards... This is a fact that was based on Ronaldo's known history of winning awards that he doesn't deserve e.g. 2013 and 2016 being then most obvious ones. Ronaldo's bar is so absurdly low at this stage in his career that he can feasibly win any award in any year, especially any year in which Ronaldo happens to win the Champions League. In conclusion: you and I both know that if Ronaldo had won the FIFA award, you of all people would've been one of the few Ronaldo fans in this thread, actively propagating the idea that Ronaldo's award was not unreasonable. As for the reason why Ronaldo didn't go? Because - unlike any average non-casual fan not connected to powerful insiders - Ronaldo probably knew in advance who was going to win, which very probably is why he didn't go. And I have to say... I cannot imagine Messi not going to the ceremony if Iniesta or Xavi had won the award. Modric being a Real Madrid player and Messi himself getting underrated by FIFA, are already enough comprehensive reasons for Messi not going to the ceremony... But how much of a greedy bastard does Ronaldo need to be to not go to the ceremony of a player who was his teammate for 7 years? As a true fanboy you just can't resist the urge to personally attack me for no good reason whatsoever. By the way: Before you try to understand slightly complex concepts such as 'chronic obsession' you might want to educate yourself about far easier matters, such as Ronaldo's "winning goal" in a 5-0 aggregate win in the Champions League. But if you can't understand what an aggregate score is and ergo the impossibility of Ronaldo scoring the winning goal in a 5-0 aggregate win, then I'm afraid you won't understand the futility of your claim - personal attack - of me being 'obsessed' with Ronaldo when I barely write anything these days in this forum. Chronic obsession and lower participation rate are difficult things to reconcile, and of course, I also don't expect you to see the wealth of irony that is you calling me obsessed, you - a chronic Messi hater and quite possibly the most dedicated Ronaldo dickrider in the internet - calling me obsessed.