Next Ballon d'Or winner that isn't CR7 or LM10 (and when)?

i think Crisitiano Ronaldo at Manchester United in his latter years and in his early years in madrid till 2012 were legitimate for him showing up in big games and i only think messi beats him in this category as you said (players of this generation). however, i do think that Iniesta has a case for showing up in more big games than CR7, though i haven't given it too much thought.

as for the golden ball, Didi actually was actually voted best player of the tournament by the FIFA technical committee and representatives of the media.
and i'm not trying to continue an argument because i think you see things in a similar manner but gary lineker scored more goals than Maradona in 86. despite the fact that maradona scored only 5 goals in the tournament, i would rank it a level above anybody else's world cup performance besides Eusebio in 66 (9 goals). which i still rate maradona clearly above but not by such a distance.

 

I need to follow your thought process to understand what you are arguing about if we are to get anywhere.


1. The discussion is about La Liga 2002-03 season in which R9 scored a total of 23 La Liga goals that you believe is on par with any of CR7's season at Madrid. Now in my response I say/said people need to take cognisant of the fact that the likes of Barca and Atletico weren't at the same level as they are now. I gave the reason that this was to prevent people from thinking these traditionally big rivals were at the same level as they are now. Proper context for comparison of that season with CR7's 2009-10 up to 2016-16 season.

Looking at your response it sounds like you don't agree with my statement that Madrid, Barca, and Atletico are historically the big teams in Spain. Also remember the season in question is 2002-03, and please forget about anything after the season in discussion (2002-03). So our focus should be; was Atletico a bigger team from AD00 - 2003?

So using your random parameters excluding anything after 2002-03 seasons as it is irrelevant since none of those seasons are the ones that you claim R9' performance was better or equal to those of CR7, and assuming your post is factually correct here is the picture; I.e. 13 seasons "1990-01 to 2002-03". Technically it can be said Atletico and Deportivo competed in 10 season during this specified period as Deportivo was in Segunda B in 1990-00 while Atletico was there in 98-00, but we'll focus on the entire 13 seasons.

According to the data you provided Atletico were ahead of Deportivo 5/13 (38.5%) seasons while Deportivo was ahead 7/13 (53.8%). During the same period both teams won La Liga once, however Atletico had already won it 8 times prior to that period vs. 0 times for Deportivo. On top of this Atletico had won CDR 9 times vs. 2 (Deportivo). Any person with a little bit of logic can decide from the above summary which team is historically bigger. However you are free to believe that someone is wrong if he says Atletico is and has always been historically bigger than the likes of Deportivo.

Lastly can you explain again how I am wrong? This time just forget about CR7 as that name seems to make you irrational. Btw all these claims that players benefitted or it was a weak era is just your imagination as I don't recall saying that rubbish.

 

r10's international career is vastly inferior to cr7's and im not even going to quote stats or trophies to back up my point

cr7 was the best winger in euro 2004 at 19 years old
best young player in wc 2006
including motm in the euro 04 semi final and wc 06 semi final

player of the tournanment in euro 2012
where are these r10 nt performances that can be compared to
cr7 vs
Sweden wc qualifiers 2013

Holland euro 2012

Russia 2004[2 goals 1 assist,1 pre assist at 19 years old]


Belgium 2007[completed over 10 dribbles, 2goals and 1 assist]

etc
??????????

 

After years of being overlooked perhaps it's time for Olivier Giroud?

 

Yeah... But only because CR7 is--out of the players who specialize in goals--the player who has played the most Clasicos. To offer some much needed perspective:

1. Raul Gonzalez between 1996 and 2001 played only 2 Copa del Rey games vs. Barcelona, and that happened because Real Madrid in those years only played 2 Copa del Rey games vs. Barcelona. Compared to Cristiano Ronaldo, who between 2009 and 2013 had already played 5 Copa del Rey games vs. Barcelona, more than double the amount that Raul Gonzalez played, in less than double the amount of time (i.e. seasons) that Raul Gonzalez required just to play 2 Copa del Rey games vs. Bacelona.

2. Raul Gonzalez between 1996 and 2003 played only 2 Supercopa games vs. Barcelona, scoring 3 goals in 2 games. Compared to Cristiano Ronaldo,, who between 2009 and 2013 had played 4 Supercopa games vs. Barcelona--double the amount that Raul played--scoring 3 goals in 4 games i.e. the same amount of goals that Raul scored in 2 Supercopa games.

3. Raul Gonzalez's numbers were better in the La Liga Clasico: 7 open-play goals out of 8 games, between 1996 and 2001. Compared to Cristiano Ronaldo's 5 open-play goal out of 14 games, between 2009 and 2016.

Conclusion:

Raul Gonzalez scored 7 open-play goals out of 8 La Liga Clasico games, between season 1997-98 and season 2000-01, that’s 4 seasons of playing against a very competitive Barcelona team. Rivaldo scored 5 open-play goals out of 8 La Liga Clasicos game, playing against the Real Madrid team that won 2 Champions League and 1 Liga in the space of just 4 seasons. Cristiano Ronaldo scored 5 open-play goals out of 14 La Liga Clasico games. The reason why CR7 has scored the most goals in La Liga has close to literally nothing to do with unbelievable efficiency: CR7 simply is the only legendary goal scorer who has played 5 Copa del Rey games vs. Barcelona, added to another 4 Supercopa games vs. Barcelona, in a matter of just 3 to 4 seasons. No other legendary goal scorer has come even close to plating that many games vs. Barcelona in just a matter of 3 to 4 seasons.

Hahaha. Most goals in the Group Stage and the Round of 16 and the Quarter Finals, but what has he done in the Semi Finals and Finals that Real Madrid has won and/or lost? Reality check: (1) Thomas Muller scored 3 goals vs. Barcelona 12/13 in a Semi Final; (2) Lewandowski scored 4 goals vs. Real Madrid 12/13 in a Semi Final; (3) Messi scored 2 goals and was MOTM vs. Real Madrid 10/11 in a Semi Final; (4) Di Maria scored 2 goals and was MOTM vs. Barcelona 16/17 in a Round of 16 (and PSG should have eliminated Barcelona, if not for terrible refereeing); (5) Neymar scored 2 goals and was MOTM vs. PSG 16/17 in a historic Round of 16 comeback against a top tier team. Only Cristiano Ronaldo has gone consistently missing in the Semi Finals and Finals. Only Cristiano Ronaldo has repeatedly failed to produce a widely agreed "legendary" performance against the top tier teams. Big game player my ass.

 

No offense mate, but it really is almost like you guys want to sound dumb at times. My "thought process" is actually very simple: 15 to 17 years of other teams being consistently better than Atletico Madrid is not "every now and then." How exactly is such a simple statistic completely lost on you? Michael Laudrup, Stoichkov, Romario, R9, Raul, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldinho, Riquelme, prime Xavi, younger Iniesta, younger Messi, younger Cristiano Ronaldo -- not one of them played in an era in which Atletico Madrid was a top tier Liga team. I don't think it's logical to say that all of the great players of the early 1990s, late 1990s, early 2000s, and late 2000s, all benefited from playing "in an era in which Atletico Madrid was weak." It was not one era: it was 15 to 17 years worth of football, back when football players were not as protected as they are nowadays i.e. back when footballer had shorter primes and shorter careers.

Bullshit. You wrote the following words:

"When you take into consideration that this was in a period when traditional rival like Barca (6th) and Atletico (12th) were struggling surely scoring 23 goals as a main striker is not phenomenal. I know some might want to argue that he was contributing in many other ways which I call bs. This is because at that time the likes of Figo, Zidane, and Raul were actually contributing more to Madrid compared to later years."

Yes, you did in fact discredited great players of the past precisely and specifically because Atletico Madrid was 12th place in the past. You did in fact stated, implicitly or explicitly, that certain players benefited from an era in which Atletico Madrid was just another 12th place punching bag. Please try to measure the meaning of your words before you begin to feel aggravated by the fact that posters like myself actually understand the meaning of words. You did say that rubbish, and I called you out for said rubbish: it definitely isn't my fault that you apparently have difficulties understanding your own words.

 

Why exactly do you keep harping about 15-17 years? Again even assuming both teams (Atletico and Deportivo) were founded in 1990 ending 2003 to give your theory a chance, refer back to my previous analysis and see whether it holds. I won't repeat it here. Names you mentioned are actually irrelevant to the point of contention here as they got nothing to do with Atletico being a bigger team than Deportivo.

This is puzzling. Where exactly do you see me discrediting past players in that statement? And which great players of the past did I discredit in that statement? Basically in your entire post is just usual rubbish that you've been dishing out here. The fact that you sound like an unstable idiot makes your veil insults pointless.

 

This is the first time in over a decade that CR7 is very arguably not the best Portuguese player. Bernardo Silva has arguably been a Top 3 player in Europe this season. Incredible.

 

This one's tough. While I can believe that Bernardo Silva has been more impressive than CR7 (although we must keep in mind that La Liga is a much tougher league than Ligue 1) it is a different argument altogether to say that Bernardo Silva has been a Top 3 player in Europe this season.

 

He's arguably not even the top 3 player in France this season. Sure, he's in contention, but benficafan is going mightily overboard on his Bernardo Silva admiration.

 

I was admittedly a few scotches deep when I wrote that. Agree with you after having slept on it

 

Neymar I guess

 

Neymar has surely thrown himself into contention with the PSG miracle. For once it wasn't Messi saving the day, but Neymar. Suarez is not being mentioned in the same sentence.

That said Barcelona seem to have thrown La Liga in the meantime, after suddenly creeping back.

As it stands everything is still up in the air, but CR7 and Messi suddenly have an aura of vulnerability.

 

Back to the title of this thread, how about Neymar this year if he continues the form vs PSG ? which fair enough would be very hard, he is also to of whoscored.com ratings, but as I have said before I am not a fan of these one match rating averages as no weighting towards big games.

 

to be honest, i think people are really over blowing his performance against PSG. in terms of performance, meaning in addition to goals, he didn't perform all that well. take the last 7 minutes out of that game and nobody is mentioning neymar. don't get me wrong, sometimes as a great player, the decisive moments is what you are paid and expected to do, which is great!!! but to me it's rather moments of brilliance rather than a great performance. i suppose this is the same reason why CR7 won the world player of the year award last year. because of his 3 goals against wolfsburg despite doing zero for the rest of the game and not showing up in the semifinals or in the finals (don't get me wrong, i know it's not that simple and he had some other important goals as well throughout the year)

maybe it's just me. my definition of performance includes what you bring to the game throughout the 90 minutes.
on the flip side, i do believe that since january, neymar has been the most consistent player for barcelona.

 

I agree. But the only thing everyone will remember come November is that he scored 2 and had an assist, thus resulting in a miracle win. No one will remember how poor he was earlier or that he shouldn't even have been on the field, because he should have seen red.

It's game like this that though that form his legend and make him a popular vote contender.

 

I just don't follow this reasoning. So in your opinion which of course you are entitled to, it is possible that some random player who made passes or tackles that led to nothing significant is more deserving of being a standout performer (a.k.a. Mom) than a player who scored 2 goals and an assist that actually helped his team to progress in a knockout game!!! On top of this another random player out of 11 or 21 players probably did more than a player who scored a hattrick in a 3-0 match that helped his team to progress in a knockout stage.

This logic sounds more like there is something special about just passing the ball around or defending compared to scoring or creating goals for your team!!! This begs a question, why are goal scorers or good strikers so expensive? Is it because football managers or presidents don't really understand which players are relatively more important , or they simply just don't understand football?

 

I see your point, but an argument is as a forward his job is to make an impact re scoring and creating goals, he did that spectacularly. Aesthetically it may have looked better had he 6 or 7 mazey runs, fancy cross field balls etc... but in terms of effectiveness when it matted he very much was.

I do agree with your point and did not watch the game and think, wow he was amazing, other than the free kick and the through ball at the end, and it was more when I went back over the game and calculated the impact and though he had a big impact in five goals.

Agree re Ronaldo point ( and also watched the Wolfsburg game and though lucky b*stard with at least one of the goals!) but Neymar's rating re whoscored.com, they are far above Ronaldo's last season, but there is no international tournament to play in. Barca winning and Neymar having a big impact in semis and finals could see him run Messi (my current favourite to win) very close, I do feel though Barca will struggle with Juventus in the quarters the way they are defending.

 

do you know what happen to real madrid, when makelele was there and immediately after he left???

do you know what happened to leceister city when kante left???? do you know what happened to chelsea when kante went to the team????

you must be new to the soccer scene.

i will be the 1st one to tell you that more often than not an attacking player should be voted the best player in the world. but as a football fan who has encountered exceptions to this rule, then i am fully aware that football is a game in which, defending and stability in the midfield can be as important as scoring goals.

 

Complete ignorance of the first part of my response or lack of any supporting arguments tells me you acknowledge that your thinking is flawed. Only crazy people or some football hipsters will try to make an argument supporting the idea that a player who had similar contribution to that of Neymar (PSG) or CR7(Wolfsburg) somehow deserves less credit than a random player that contributed nothing significant to decide those games. By the way hopefully you still remember we are talking about MoM not player of the season or something.

The fact that I find your statement ridiculous has absolutely nothing to do with whether I am new or old to football scene.

Now on your Makelele and Kante simpletons' analysis. Either you are just lazy to actually analyse any situation or you are one of those people who take everything that comes from the media as some gospel truth. Do you honestly want to attribute one factor to the success or failure of team? How much would you attribute the departure of Del Bosque and appointment of a very defensive minded and then out of depth Queiroz? Players' revolt after the sacking of Del Bosque? Flops signings? etc.

And Leceister! Did you honestly believe Leceister had a chance of repeating their last season or perhaps you think if Kante was there they were going to do better? Do you think Kante was going to fix defensive frailties we've been seeing from the likes of Hugh and Morgan that were not there last season, especially on set pieces? Was he going to score or create chances as Mahrez and Vardy have been off the whole season? Was he going to influence the coach to stick to the same formation that won them the league or maybe make Musa the player he was for CSKA? There are just way too many things that might have influenced the type of season Leceister is having. Kante might be one of them but to attribute everything to him is ignorance of the highest order. I am sure you are also aware that the very same Chelsea that is running away with the league did the same thing with Mourinho only to stank the joint immediately the following season, and there was no Kante in that team that won the league! The common thing is that Hazard and Costa are performing again.

You might not believe it but football is won on goals, and scoring a goal remains one of the most difficult thing to do in a game. Until FIFA decides that passes, tackles, etc. are going to be the main objective of the game goal scorers will continue to be the most important players for their clubs. This doesn't mean other positions are not important, it is just an animal farm situation.

 

One thing: Shakespeare took over from Ranieri, reverted the team back to the formation that won them the league last season. And guess what? Since Shakespeare took over they started on a four match winning streak with wins over Sevilla, Liverpool, West Ham and Hull. The only player that changed in the starting line up is Ndidi for Kante.

In some areas Ndidi is even an upgrade from Kante (passing, goal threat, aerial dominance), although he obviously doesn't have the same engine. But its sort of like comparing Vieira to Makelele. Different players.

Watching Leicester these past four games they look just as good as they did last season, so I'm convinced that Ranieri messed up when he decided to change a winning formula.

 

just so i get this straight... you're saying that it is ridiculous that i refer the games of Neymar against PSG and Cr7 vs wolfsburg, a game of moments of brilliance rather than spectacular performances?
never did i once, say that any other player was more spectacular than neymar or cr7 in either of those games. i merely said that they did not perform brilliant in these games

if i accepted everything the media says as the gospel truth then i would be thinking just like you. the fact of the matter is that jamie vardy and mahrez were voted above kante in the world player of the year list in 2016, which i believe neither player was more important than kante (but also not less important). i would have also agreed with the fact that CR7 should have won the world player of the year award in 2016, which i disagree with. because unlike most people, just because someone scores the most goals does not mean that they were the best player unless goals and performances are put into context. the problem is that most people see 60 goals and assume it has more value than another player with 50 goals without taking anything into context.

for all of these reasons that you are giving to discredit the value of kante and makelele, do such reasons apply for attacking players or do they only apply to midfielders???

did you not see where i wrote 'more often than not, i would vote for an attacking player as the best player in the world but there are exceptions'?

fifa doesn't have to decided anything. barcelona losing 4-0 to PSG in the 1st leg tells you all you need to know about the importance of defending and effort.

do you really want to make a point that there are not times when midfielders are just as or more important than goal scorers? because if you want to, then we can start a thread about this, and i would be glad to finish this debate with you. and i'm not saying this in a threatening way (unfortunately, you cannot hear my tone of voice). and make sure you understand what i am saying. i'm saying that there are times, when a midfielder is just as or more important than the goal scorer or more attacking player. and i'm very open to the fact, that i could be wrong just so that i do not remained biased in my thinking.

when i was a little kid, i always idolized the attacking players and the fancy players and the players who get all the glory and that's typical of little kids. and most little kids would probably agree with you if not all. but as i understand the game more, i have begun to appreciate the immense importance of midfielders and defenders. i'm not saying you are a little kid because more often than not, i believe that your statement is correct, but i do believe there are exceptions. and of course, when you and a little kid make the statement that attackers are the most important players then there is a much better understanding when an adult says that versus when a kid says it.

because as much as it is true that goals and attacking players win games, there are teams that have won not based on their attack but on their stability in defense and midfield, and it could be argued that the defenders and midfielders were more important than the attacking players because of the lack of attacking prowess.

 

@carlito86 you don't seriously agree with this comment do you?