Germany v Mexico .... endless space to explore .... I felt like watching a star trek movie yesterday So that's the pinnacle of modern conceptual football, of which Germany supposedly is one of the main exponents, yet their defense is quasi non-existant. The inability of tactical staff to react adequately was striking. Germany played without a right back (as Kimmich acted like an out-and-out winger) leaving endless space at the disposal of the Mexican left winger ... and nobody did anything about it. Mexico on the other hand reminded me of Inter's 1960s side, applying a very old and proven tactical approach (man-marking, catenaccio defense, quick counter-attacking). According to the modernist mantra the modern conceptual team Germany should have been easily capable of finishing off and exposing an old-style tactical approach like Mexico's ... yet the only thing that was exposed was the modernist delusion of absolute superiority.
@PDG1978 told me about a mid-1990s documentary called 'Dreaming of Ajax' featuring some famous speakers (1985 to 1996 was the 2nd 'golden age' of Ajax): "Ajax FC of Amsterdam has achieved footballing success despite modest resources. Host of this documentary Gary Lineker argues that the English game has much to learn from the intensive coaching system of the European Cup holders. " http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7eb814e1 "When Ajax won the 1995 Champions League it felt like the start of something beautiful. But really it was the end of a dream and the death of an idea – that a team of home grown wonderkids could triumph over the richest clubs in the world. The Ajax side that beat AC Milan twenty years ago contained seven players who had come through the ranks and had an average age of just 23. A 19-year-old Edgar Davids started the match while another, Patrick Kluivert, came off the bench to score the winning goal. Milan in contrast had the world’s most expensive player, Gianluigi Lentini, who at £13 million cost more than the entire Ajax squad. That Ajax team of 1995 represent the high water mark of a vision of football that reached a zenith 20 years ago – they were the greatest wonderkid team in history. Football has changed since that night in Vienna. Jean Marc Bosman had a lot to do with it. The impact his court case had on football employment law had massive repercussions. Clubs like Ajax saw their best players leave for nothing at the end of their contracts. The following season Ajax made it to the final again, this time losing out to another great Italian side, Juventus. But the dream was already over. Money started to talk more loudly – within two years half their cup winning side had gone. Europe’s elite clubs stole in and took their best players and the rest of football started stealing their methods. The world was enraptured. What was the Ajax secret? Gary Lineker made a documentary about it for the BBC – ‘Dreaming of Ajax’. As the methods of the Ajax way were dissected they appeared beautifully simple. A commitment to a set style of play through all age groups of the club, a focus on technique at early ages, exposing players to multiple positions to build tactical awareness before specialising in clearly defined roles. Rigorous scouting and constant appraisal meant that those who made it to the first team had already been tested again and again – they were the best that Ajax could produce. With hindsight what seemed revolutionary strategies in 1995 like holding a global database of talented players now appear simple common sense. But twenty years ago Ajax were outliers; the rest of the world has caught up and in many ways surpassed them. The Ajax way is not revolutionary now, but in 1995, however briefly, it seemed like the future. People would be right to point to the Barcelona sides of Pep Guardiola that won the Champions League in 2009 and 2011 with seven academy graduates as an operation with similar ideals. Barca had the cash to pay the graduates of La Masia the premium wages of the global soccer elite. Ajax, smaller and more provincial, could never do the same. So 20 years after their fantastic victory let us salute and applaud that beautiful Ajax team. We thought they would change the game but in the end it changed them. That win in Vienna was the glorious last waltz of an idea, a vision and a philosophy that was worth more than money. Ultimately though the forces of the market proved too strong and this great team were torn apart by the choking, invisible hand of capitalism that has taken over the sport in the twenty first century. As Ajax dreamed the world around them had already woken up. AC Milan would get some revenge of sorts – five of the Ajax squad would go on to play for them to varying degrees of success." Something more on that here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/a-brief-history-of-tactics.1269077/page-15#post-35886384
I think there's a misunderstanding here. It's not really about modern attacking style vs old-school defensive style. Except for perhaps tiki-taka (and even this is arguable) there has perhaps been no new style developed in modern football. However, whatever a team's approach is today, the methodology has evolved to whole different levels. A game like Mexico vs Germany could have easily happened 30 years ago as well. One team looking to attack, dominate, and control the game, and the other looking to defend and counter-attack at pace. There's nothing unique, new, or modern about that. However, how those two teams look to implement their strategy is completely different to how teams from decade ago would do it. The way teams like At. Madrid or Inter 09/10 defend and counter is very different to teams in the past who would do it. Or the way Chelsea would park the bus as well. If you watch something like the 1967 EC Final, when it was supposedly clinical defending vs all-out attack, it is very easy to notice all the little nuances that teams today do and teams in the past didn't. A good example is how inefficient dribbling in the final third is nowadays, despite the fact that defenders have lost so many tools to win back the ball in a 1v1. You have to really feel bad for the poor defenders who were up against someone like like Garrincha. They had limited tactical tools to combat him, so they usually either won the 1v1 or get destroyed. When you watch the best defensive teams play, you can see that they're not reliant on good defenders winning the ball back from the attackers at all. Reliance on individual defensive skills is inconsistent so the best defensive teams don't do it. The level of discipline and organization that's applied are used to minimize threat. Which is why you have so many games now where a team can have 70% possession and still be almost toothless. The way we press is different whether it is the gergen-pressing (probably impossible before the advances in modern sports science) or the half-press that Bayern Munich does (even today, getting the likes of Ribery and Robben to defend is a managerial achievement.) The advances in sports science, professionalism, and accumulation of know-how throughout the decades have made today's top level games more sophisticated (not just tactically, but at all aspects) than ever because teams that are less fine-tuned (eg. Wenger's Arsenal) get punished. Now, whether this makes the game less fun or less glorious or whatever else is beside the point. These evolutions happen for mainly one reason only, and that is to win games.
I have a question. Is Pele's 127 goals in 1959 a official record? If not then how many of those goals were friendlies?
As per rsssf, he scored 65 of those goals in official games in 1959. His most prolific year scoring wise, only considering official games, was 1958 with 75 goals.
It's always interesting to see what you have to bring to most of any discussion, but concerning the logic above, I have to partly agree with @Gregoriak when he says that there is a modernist delusion... "The only thing that was exposed was the modernist delusion of absolute superiority." I don't agree with that conclusion to the same definitive conclusion that Gregoriak agrees to, but I do agree with that sentiment in the sense that reliance on individual defensive ability might be inconsistent, but in fact it very much is the modern day standard, because it works for the superclubs. The only reason why the best defensive teams don't do it, is purely because the best defensive teams don't have Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, up front. So those teams do not attack anywhere near as much as Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Spain, which makes defending a lot easier, which makes the so-called best defenders look a lot better than they would look if they played for Barcelona, which is why those best defensive teams are not exposed enough that their defensive players are forced into having to commit to one-on-one situations. You seem to believe in a modernist ideal of absolute and therefore inevitable evolution in all eras of the game, that is, you seem to think that Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Spain, are actually and inevitably improved defensive versions of what they were a few years ago. Maybe I'm just missing the point, in which case I'd appreciate if you could point out where it is that I'm fundamentally mistaken... but it does very much sound like a full blown delusion to me. Is it logical to continue pretending that modern defending is so much more efficient and so much more sophisticated today than it was in 2006, when we see Semi Finals where Real Madrid and Bayern Munich could've easily scored a combined 11 goals in just 2 games?? Is it logical to continue pretending that the increasing disparity between a super-club and a peasant-club will not eventually have UNWANTED negative consequences on defenders who are not tested regularly enough to be prepared for when they actually play against other super-clubs?? Maybe the reason why Real Madrid and Bayern Munich looked as defensively unimpressively as they looked in 2018, maybe that's the long term result of super-club-defenders not being tested by a league format that does not regularly exposes them to enough problem solving so as to be sharp for the big games?? The attacking players who play for the super-clubs are arguably getting tested as a result of the super-club disparity, because the average defender (or more precisely, the defensive tactic copied by the average club) is arguably getting better as a result of the long term exposure to the super-club phenomenon... because the lesser clubs have been forced to play defensively against the super-clubs, and the resulting excess of video evidence, the resulting abundance of collectively shared and passed on and improved upon video evidence that results after the long experiment of trial-and-error by the lesser clubs, in the form of lesser clubs systematically copying each other and therefore improving on the basis of which defensive tactics seem to work best against the dominant super-clubs that are buying off all of the attacking talent... The average defender (or more precisely, the defensive tactics copied by the average club) arguably benefits from that dynamic... The attacking player who plays for the super-club arguably benefits from that dynamic... But how exactly does the average defender who plays for the super-club benefit from that dynamic of disparity? It's difficult to see how that player benefits from playing against lesser clubs who sell their best attacking players before said players even begin to develop into world class players. Maybe the unchecked disparity that continues to spiral out of control, maybe it isn't universally positive in all areas of the game? Which brings me to my next point: I think that the World Cup, the Euro, and the Copa America, offer a counter-evolution to what is happening at club level. The lesser national teams appear to be benefiting from the excess of video evidence that exists thanks to the disparity created by the super-clubs, that is, the less traditional national teams directly copy the club tactics used by the lesser clubs, on the other hand, the more traditional national teams have the better players but those players suffer from the "system addiction" created by the superclub phenomenon. In other words: the lesser clubs and the lesser nations have a fundamental thing in common, which is their intent to literally or figuratively park the bus against a more talented opponent. In sharp contrast, the superclubs and the supernations have a fundamental thing not in common, that is, superclubs enjoy an almost limitless capacity in terms of how efficiently they can facilitate and therefore magnify Ronaldo's or Messi's specialized roles, on the other hand, supernations have a very limited capacity not only in their capacity to facilitate Ronaldo's or Messi's unique roles, but also in terms of their limited practice time. At the World Cup, the Euro, and the Copa America, I think it is becoming more and more difficult for star players in general but especially for star players who play for the supernations, to shine as brightly as they could in the increasingly distant past, back when the super-clubs had not yet inadvertently created the excess of trial-and-error knowledge that the less traditional national teams are currently benefitting from. The disparity that helps the superclubs is at the same time playing against the supernations. We are basically witnessing opposite reactions or opposite evolutions, at club level vs. national team tournaments. The rich continue getting richer at club level, but the poor continue getting less poor at national team tournaments. Spain 2014-2018 have so far conceded 14 goals in 5 games vs. Netherlands 2014, Chile 2014, Croatia 2016, Italy 2016, and Portugal 2018. Almost 3 goals conceded per game. Spain 2008-2012 conceded only 1 goal in 10 games vs. Italy 2008, Germany 2008, Portugal 2010, Germany 2010, Netherlands 2010, Italy 2012, Croatia 2012, France 2012, Portugal 2012, and again Italy 2012. The best defensive record of all time, if I'm not mistaken. Modern day Spain has an atrocious defensive record. Clearly, Puyol's sensational ball-winning abilities at Euro 2008 and at World Cup 2010, have been sorely missed. Pique's better younger years, have also been sorely missed. The notable absence of Xavi-Iniesta's monopoly over the possession, has also made it more difficult for the defense. Pique's bad relationship with Ramos, is not working out in favor of Spain, certainly not defensively. And also the superclup phenomenon has arguably played against national sides like Spain. I see no indication that Spain has benefited from some form of defensive progress or improvement ever since 2008.
Sampdoria 1991/92 finished 6th in Serie A and made the European Cup final were they narrowly lost to Barcelona The partnership of Mancini and Vialli was known and feared by many teams in Italy They were backed up in defence by Vierchowod,mannini and midfield anchor Cerezo Winning the title in 91 was one of the most improbable scenarios in Serie A history considering the level of opposition they faced but beat them all including saachis Milan twice,inter,napoli There were many average teams from bygone eras that were capable of playing enthralling football,the type of game that you would call tactically proficient or perfect The golden age of football was 90s Serie A Every team had a star and every star had his own unique style No clones,nobody modelled their game on another player Your god Lionel Messi could not score 1 open play goal against Milan’s declining backline In several attempts A 35 year old nesta comfortably dealt with his dribbling threat that looked so potent against these so called amazing La Liga defences We can only imagine how he would suffocate playing under the stringent man marking of a baresi who wouldn’t let him breathe Or a Goikoetxea hacking down his scrawny legs La Liga has been a heavily stacked league in terms of offensive players but is filled with inept defenders Diego godin would just be one great defender from amongst many in 90s Serie A Real Madrid (the other great team in La Liga) has been cost the La Liga title on many occasions because of their lacklustre defence that got exposed many times on the counter under mourinhos tenure as manager Always bear this in mind Football in decades gone by may look comical but today with all these tactical improvements,fitness techniques,medical advances etc nobody can seem to defend So as they say there are two sides to a coin and there is simply no guarantee Messi would look so devastating playing for a top team in Italy in the 90s and early 2000s
I hear this often, but was it really that hot? I've been to Mexico City a couple of times during the summer months and its never really that hot. Quick research shows that the average high is mid to upper 70s and rarely exceeds 86 degrees farenheit. Was the 1970 summer an anomaly?
haha yeah, he just did this: you literally cherry picked one shot block, said he didnt score and conclude he was bad. Messi doesnt need to score to make an impact. He tortured them in many ways and not because this single run either. Also your comprehension skills are not very best are they,... prior to 1990.. and i am yet to be convinced Sampdoria played in any way tactically brilliant football,.. give me a full match of their best performance, i will gladly, objectively watch it, but i doubt it. I've seen plenty of matches of the time and everything directs toward my conclusion... Van Basten agrees with me: https://www.goal.com/en/news/7209/n...uventus-can-beat-barcelona-but-they-must-stop It's not really that difficult to see it either And your circular logic of them beating everyone AT THAT TIME in European football doesnt make their case, of being briliant, any stronger.. is that really that difficult to understand why? Baggio is inferior in every single way to Messi and he routinely find the back of the net with whoever he played, more so than Maradona. Put Messi in any top 6 attacking teams (80s, 90s whatever, Serie A), at worst season of his prime (like 2015/16) he gives you 20, bare minimum (taking pks), but that's like awful season. More reasonable assumption is 7,8 high 20s seasons (26-29 goals), with one or two breaking 30 landmark,.. yes, even in 34 games format. Put him in Pep's Barca there and you would hardly find any difference.
At the very best, i could see Messi in 90s in Serie A, like Messi vs Simeone's Atletico every single game, but that's a huge overstatement for majority of Serie A teams, nor Messi's record vs Atleti's defense is bad at all, quite contrary.
A side way pass assist against a joke Milan team 2012 and suddenly we are all meant to spunk in our pants LMFAO You really are a insufferable Barcelona fanboy. milan has been a complete joke in the champions league since 2011 if not before Just look at their backilne in 2012/13 for Christ sake 2011/12 nesta was on a walking stick and Messi couldn’t score goal from Open play against this defence It is painful listening to you try and convince yourself Milan was even comparable to the aged/overrated team they had from a few years previous or what they had in the early 2000s Messi did not score more than 10 goals against legitimately great defences in his career PERIOD Against Chelsea when they were legitimately a great defensive side in the champions league he couldn’t score a single goal from open play in many attempts and even missed from the spot His record against simeones Atletico between 2014-2016 when they were the best defensive team in Europe is also VERY poor Against inter Milan in 2010 he couldn’t score once Before you bother listing matches that I watched live Real Madrid never had a great defence in the past 10+ years their strength is based in the midfield and attack Arsenal...well their just Arsenal We only have literally a HANDFUL of goals scored by Messi against a great defensive duo of vidic and Ferdinand or against Philip lahm/boetang /Alaba for Bayern Munich Even with the benefits of playing in a super team that at their best averaged 70-80% of the ball enabling Messi to see more of the ball and express himself more than any legendary player before him he still could never score against a legitimately great defensive Italian team in his scoring prime 2009-2012 or even better against the English equivalent (Chelsea) Messi is VERY arguably not a better finisher than Gabriel Batistuta who regularly scored 25-29 goals in Italy for a mid level team Nobody of his time in Italy could do this not Del Piero,R9,crespo Only shevchenco matched his record in Italy as a consistent scorer because he played On a stacked Milan team(with the best defenders in the league at that time) Batistuta also has a higher gpg average for his country than any of these players and even higher than Messi(or ronaldo for that matter) Batigol never scored 30 goals in a single season in Italy (all competitions) So I’m almost certain Messi would never score 30 goals playing for a Udinese/Fiorentina/Parma team in the 90s even if he took ALL the penalties and FKs and even if he concentrated all his efforts on scoring goals to the detriment of his other qualities he still couldn’t do it
Yeah come on, don't be shy, tell us that CR would destroy Serie A in any time, playing for a Udinese/Fiorentina/Parma team . Some people here are a fanboy of Messi but sometimes I feel that you hate him and praise Cristiano as hell
It really depends on the tactics of the given team For a team like Udinese CR7 would’ve been a HUGE upgrade on Oliver Bierhoff and he would score a significant amount of goals with his head which Messi could not do It depends what version of ronaldo you want If at his best (ie physical prime) let’s say 2008-2012 he was a dead ball specialist (very arguably the best at FKs in Europe between 07/08 and 09/10) He was great in the air,so even on a team with not a lot of possession and not a lot of chances to score he would EASILY get 15 goals in a season just from set piece situations (Ie penalties,headers from corners,direct FKs) He was also a legitimately great dribbling/solo goal threat (in one of best seasons in Spain he scored 6 solo goals in 35 games) So let’s say he’d get half of that (3) we’re on 18 goals even with his wild shooting at times it it feasible he could score 15-18 normal goals (left or right foot or from distance) Overall in his best seasons for a Udinese he could score 35 goals in all competitions EASILY It has nothing to do with him being a better overall player than Messi It’s just ronaldo is such a complete goalscorer that can score in too many different ways that it is hard to see him not being prolific even in the ultra defensive Serie A Messi in his goalscoring prime 2009-2012 was extremely reliant on one twos with a iniesta/alves and possession play im not convinced he could excell in a system or a team that averaged 30-40% possession Alex Ferguson: Ronaldo could play for Millwall, Queens Park Rangers, Doncaster Rovers or anyone, and score a hat-trick in any game. I’m not sure Messi could do that. “Ronaldo has two feet, is quick, and is also good in the air. He’s brave and, of course, Messi is brave too, but I just think Messi is a Barcelona player.” All the qualities highlighted in red would be even more noticeable and utilised for a defensive team that relied a lot on set pieces to score You can argue that Messi brings more to the game outside of scoring than ronaldo but this is only true of his playmaker version (2014- He would be a massive upgrade on a rui Costa for Fiorentina or even a totti for Roma (Messi is one of the most if not THE most versatile attacker in history In 2014/15 he played RW with a freedom to roam where he played Multiple midfield roles/attacking roles interchanging between positions For a mid level team in 90s Serie A Messi would excell more as a playmaker and ronaldo as a goalscorer At least that is my opinion
Stupid quotes. At club level Ronaldo always played for TOP 1-2 teams in the league ( except one year in Sporting ). He would do nothing playing for Doncaster against top rival. Let alone 35 goals for Udinese His better goalscorer than Messi ONLY in QF and SF of UCL. And is worse player in every other aspect of the game. Lucky Euro 16 and UCL 16&18 made him better than he really is
@carlito86 Nobody destroys sides that are great defensively. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CONSIDERED GREAT DEFENSIVELY... CR faced Atletico for three straight years in the CL from 2014 to 2016. How many goals did he score from open play in those matches? And good job citing Alex Ferguson as if his opinion is everything. Just about every other manager said Messi is the better player and/or compared him with Pele and Maradona. Guardiola (after he left Barca) Klopp Conte Wenger Allegri Heynckes Mourinho (yes even him!) Every single method of goalscoring you mentioned for CR, Messi can do and many of them (solo goals, give and go) he can do much better. The only thing where Messi is significantly worse than Ronaldo is heading the ball. As I've pointed out many times, they are comparable goalscorers and then there is the rest of the game... Playing for Udinese, Messi would be the better player because he is a more complete footballer. This stupid notion that playing for one team diminishes a player's legacy is the worst of all. First of all, loyalty is a good thing. With hindsight, every manager would rather build a team around a Messi then a Ronaldo for the simple fact that one of them has shown to be loyal. Secondly, staying for the same team doesn't in any way show that someone is a "one team player". There isn't a single player still playing on Barca that was there when Messi started his career and there are only two members of the team that were there for their 2009 CL and 2011 CL runs and still are, Pique and Busquets. Messi may have played under a single banner but he has played for many very different teams. And off of the top of my head many different coaches as well.
In general, I agree with you, but Jose is actually a bad example. He was downplaying CR7 specifically for his own good. It's the whole 'Pep has the better player in Messi, which is why he's beating me, and I only have CR7.' He used to call CR7 the best or equal to Messi IIRC, but after losing to Pep in the La Liga, his narrative changed. Or maybe he just changed his mind
Maradona was slightly more flashy, creative and spectacular but Pele was a more destructive force of nature on the pitch. From all of the players I've seen clips of only Pele and Messi have a large number of solo goals where they dribble past multiple players. Other players like Maradona, Cruyff, Ronaldo9, Ronaldinho, Best were amazing dribblers but they rarely scored after beating many defenders, I guess a lot of composure is required and only Messi and Pele displayed it. Pele being so good with his left foot meant he had more attacking options than Maradona who would always try to work the ball to his left. I would say Pele was a combination of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, he had the dribbling and creativity of Messi and the speed, aerial and two footed ability of Ronaldo. That's how good Pele was.
Exactly. I even argue that Pele was more creative, spectacular and flashy in we take into account not only dribbling, but shooting and desicion-making. A lot of "not-flashiness" of Pele has a lot to do with black-white awful quality of tape impression. With todays 4K videos he would be awesome to watch. He was more direct and has much more impact. Joga Bonito isnt football. Or Ronaldinho and Neymar would be best ever. I suppose Pele could be more flashy and had the ability to past multiple defenders with sombreros and run circles around the pitch like Ronaldinho, Maradona or Garrincha, but he choosed result. From impact to team winning standpoint only Messi is comparable to Pele.
Yes you make a good point about how he chose to be more direct but he was capable of the flashy, this ball control at 0:34 is spectacular We also have to remember most of his game time was not even recorded or the footage has been lost. There was a goal where he sombrero'ed 3 defenders in a row and then also the goalkeeper, here is a simulation of it. He's probably done more sombreros than Maradona, Ronaldinho and Neymar combined, often in the penalty area with defenders breathing down his neck.
Pelé and Maradona comparison was stronger in the 90s and early 2000s, before YouTube, sofascore, etc. I believe that the FIFA election in 2000, in which only a younger generation participated, will always be the peak of this dispute. Maradona will always have his fans due to his style of play, but the tendency is for this debate to decrease in intensity. Since Messi has risen as the main Argentine player in terms of titles and statistics, and Pelé's achievements have proven to be durable, such as data from opta, statasbomb etc.[in the 90s, many thought that Pelé was just a goal scorer they were unaware of his eight assists in 14 world cup matches, for example]