Agree on Larsson's capabilities, and Borg (if I had to nominate a best Scandanavian Sportsman it would be him I guess). Not Michael Laudrup as best Scandanavian Football Player though?
If you're interested: http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014...himovic-greatest-swedish-sportsman-bjorn-borg http://www.dn.se/sport/150-framsta-svenska-idrottarna-genom-tiderna/ edit: I see that some have doubts about the list. For ex. of ice hockey / NHL players they rank Forsberg over Lidstrom and that's a contentious call indeed: "Don’t get me wrong, Forsberg was great in his own right, but Lidstrom is arguably the best defenseman in NHL history (along with Orr and Bourque). I don’t think many people would have Forsberg in even their top 10 centers of all time." Either way, Zlatan wasn't happy
One should be happy - for the development of the sport and new players - that not all good players are concentrated at a handful teams. It is a way of thinking I don't like. In terms of 'proving' himself it is also a moot point because his scoring record in Europe shows that he could score regularly against the big teams for Celtic - not a small feat. In addition to his overall game as others have said. Count the number of big teams between 1997 and 2004 and see his 'percentage' so to speak. http://www.rsssf.com/players/larsson-in-ec.html In his best season he scored 35 league goals and a better number is only avalaible in 1961 or earlier (McClair also scored 35 in 1987). Although between 1975 and 2000 there were 10 teams instead of 12 (before 1975 it consisted of 18 teams).
11 - Only Ruud van Nistelrooy (12) scored more goals in his first 16 PL apps for Man Utd than Ibrahimovic (11 - also RVP and Cole). King.— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 17, 2016
Can you show that maybe? Still feel that he was individually better in his early PSG years (an overpowered club but defensive league) but he was younger of course with quicker feet. He's now much more dependent on service although his hold up play is excellent.
Ibra being a CL big game no-show isn't a myth. His CL knockout goalscoring performance is disgustingly bad. It's so bad that it makes you question if it's even real. Sorry for not giving you the exact #, don't have it right now, will post it later. Don't quote me on this, but two years ago IIRC it was something like 0.15 GPG despite playing extremely favorable matchups on great teams.
I wouldn't mind it so much if his team didn't do so well without him in the UCL. His record looks particularly bad because Barcelona won the UCL before and after he played, and Inter won it after he left.
Ironically it was with Barca when Ibra finally scored in the KO phase. And ironically again, the game in which he scored didn't really convince anyone that he had turned the corner in the CL. It was an incredibly one-sided match where he should've scored more. It took at mistake from the Arsenal 'keeper to finally get him on the board (granted his second goal was nicely taken).
is there any actual reasoning or thoughts on why he hasn't performed so well in the KO of the CL? How does his assists look compared to his goals there?
Ibra is great to watch when at his best imo, and I assume that most people would agree to that. On the other hand, my main criticism against him, is that his style of play consistently seemed to simply FAIL against top tier opponents: I'm not speaking about his ability to win games vs. top tier opponents, but rather his ability to at least look influential and generally "good" vs. top tier opponents. Where an extremely different player, such as Valderrama, consistently proved competitive vs. strong opponents such as Argentina 1987-93, Brazil 1989-91, West Germany 1990, Marseille 1990-91 (i.e. one of the teams that played the European Cup Final), Real Madrid 1991-92 (i.e. the team that SHOULD have won La Liga), Romania 1994; with Ibra it seems to be the opposite, with perhaps only Euro 2012 to show as an example of him being good against relatively strong opponents, but otherwise consistently failing to show his strengths against the strong teams. (And to be honest: France 2012 and England 2012 and Ukraine 2012 hardly qualify as "top tier" national teams.) This seems by most accounts to be true at both NT level and club level.
09:20 on above link, took out three defenders & perfectly weight, MoTD analysts were drooling, I must admit from where I was sitting it looked better live but still pretty decent on this link.
I don't know of those Swedish stars of the 50s and don't wanna disrespect them but what Zlatan has achieved so far being from a small nation (not to mention he wanting to quit school at 15, dude can speak like 7 languages fluently). To me he is a Legend.
Who remembers this against Bologna only a genius would attempt to score these types of goals let alone score them (If I remember correctly he also did it for psg and also against Italy in a European championship qualifier but this ranks as one of my favourite all time strikes)
I'm not going to lie, his excellence in the Premier League this season is making me revise my opinion on him. The man is 35 years old, playing in a very tough league, and he's scored 13 goals in 19 apps in the league, and 18 goals in 28 apps overall. Those are impressive numbers, incredible when you consider his age. He has now had >20 goal seasons in 10 different seasons, and it will almost certainly be 11 by the end of this one. He's done so in four different countries (Italy, Spain, France, and England).
Total Goals (games) Zlatan - 410 Henry - 360 Sheva - 321 Suarez - 320 Goals to Game ratio Suarez - 0.6625 Zlatan- 0.5816 Sheva - 0.4954 Henry - 0.4545 >20 goal seasons Zlatan - 10 Henry - 8 Sheva - 7 Suarez - 7 >30 goal seasons Zlatan - 5 Henry - 4 Suarez - 4 Sheva - 3 I know that stats can be misleading at times, but I thought it'd be interesting to compare (IMO) the four best strikers of the 21st century. Note that Zlatan and Suarez haven't gone through their "older player decline" yet, so their goal to game ratio might lower as time goes on.
what's really more impressive is how Zlatan has done it across multiple leagues which is kinda rare even his numbers at Barca are quite good considering he was 2nd fiddle to Messi
While I still can't rate him that highly because of his poor UCL record, I think there is a case to be made that he is the single greatest league striker of the 21st century. He has won the league with every team he's played for since Ajax (obviously the Juventus ones have been taken away.) If he wins it with Man Utd as well, I don't think it's even up for debate.
Yes, Ibra is an amazing striker. But what is his record in Big tournaments/Crucial Matches？We can't always use that"weak teammates" as an excuse, as his teammates at Inter, Barcelona and PSG weren't all that weak. Many players who have played in similar "weak teammates" situation or even worse have achieved substantially more than him. For instance, in 2011/12, Drogba with a relatively weak Chelsea side won the UCL and he scored crucial goals in both the semi-final against Barcelona and final against Bayern Munich. In 2012, Pirlo led a relatively weak Italian side to the Euro 2012 Final. In 2014, Messi led a relatively weak Argentina side to the WC final, and In 2016, CR led a relatively weak Portugal side to the Euro Champion, even beating France in their homeland. Just because he is now performing superbly in EPL doesn't change my "long-term" perception of him. For me, Ibra is an amazing striker, nothing more and nothing less and I really don't understand "hype" around him. I just can't happen to rate a player who has yet to achieve crucial titles and who disappears in crucial matches at both Club and national team levels too highly. He obviously can't touch Messi/CR, nor can he be placed in the same category as Xavi/Pirlo/Iniesta.
Ibrahimovic 'should' have done better in the UCL, no doubt, but other than Barcelona he never played for a top five/six team in Europe. Some of those examples you mention were clearly among the best six rated teams in the competition. The strange thing is that for his national team he has done fairly well, and also his record against the strong league opponents is fairly decent (when I checked at least above 0.40). Very strange that the production is suddenly switched off at UCL level (below 0.15 - 0.10 per game). Maybe it's one of the one in one-hundred instances where the dices fell wrong - maybe not. Maybe evening matches as a problem? (doubt it)
Actually, his UCL record looks bad precisely because the best teams he played with won the UCL without him. His chances at the UCL came with Inter and Barcelona. Inter won it after they sold him. Barcelona won it both before and after him. This is why is UCL record looks particularly bad. That's not to say he's the reason they didn't win, but it looks bad. Compared that to a lesser talent like Eto'o. Eto'o won the UCL with three different teams, essentially. He was also a key member if all three campaigns.
I agree that it looks bad at first thought, but generally is blown out of proportion, and is in my opinion not so relevant at all. I think you need to put it in a context to make a fair assesment. What people tend to forget is that Inter Milan before and after Ibra left were two different teams. Except for the Zlatan and Eto'o swap, they had 5 new core players that season in Pandev (winter signing), Thiago Motta, Wesley Sneijder, Lucio (formed a very strong MB pairing with Samuel, which moved Chivu to LB) and Diego Milito. All of these players started the UCL final against Bayern Munich, with Milito getting MOTM and Sneijder fans MOTM. So basically the whole front four, and Lucio (their best MB - got into the World XI that year) were new signings that season. Basically leaving only Julio Ceasar (GK), Maicon (RB), Zanetti (CM), Samuel (MB) and Cambiasso (CM) at the same position as the season before (Chivu stayed in the linup but moved to LB). That squad, neither counting Zlatan nor Eto'o is a lot (I would say so atleast) better than the one from the previous season. Add to that, probably a few players having career years at the time (Sneijder, Maicon, Lucio and Ceasar) And despite all of these improvements I would not bet on Inter Milan coming that far again if we were to redo UCL 2010. And the year before when Zlatan actually played there they had an even lesser squad. Barcelona winning again in 2011, probably have alot more to do with them still being the best team in the world than Ibra's abscence.
It isn't nearly as bad as his raw stats suggest In 2012/13 he scored 1 goal and 1 assist in 3-3 quarter final aggregate loss to Barcelona He made the difference against Chelsea in 15/16 And I'm sure he has also scored against arsenal in a crucial CL ko match but I just can't remember which season it was Having said this I agree his good moments in the champions league KO stages are too far in between At league level however it is a complete different story
i believe it was 09-10 with Barca he scored like 2 goals against Arsenal which club did he perform the best in the CL for? I think the obvious is PSG but I'd wanna guess it was Inter