Now you're just being overly nitpicky because you have no argument. Fine, I said something that you could perhaps read as saying that the award is 100% about the World Cup. That's not what I meant. By saying its "about the World Cup," I meant that it is easily the biggest factor, not that it's literally the only factor. Anyways, onto the actual point, you seem unable to comprehend how big an effect on awards the World Cup has. Paolo Rossi won the Ballon D'or while only playing 17 matches for his club that calendar year. Fabio Cannavaro won the 2006 Ballon D'or, despite not being all that good for his club that season. Your argument seems predicated on the idea that, in a World Cup year, the Ballon D'or would never go to a player who wasn't super great for his club that year. That's just manifestly false. Since it is false, your oblique attack against DBS Calcio ratings fails.
Hyperbole or inconsistency? He argued that Zidane's World Cup performance was the reason that he got the award. However, when I pointed out that CR7 got it the last time around, apparently the World Cup was no longer important. Clearly, it couldn't be in that case because CR7 was less than stellar in the WC to be generous. But again, we're going to pick and choose the importance of awards and statistics. That seems to be the way we argue our points here.
? Who??? If you mean gumbacicc then he is not my own compatriot. I am from Romania, I have no idea where that guy is from and I don't care either. We just happen to share the same opinion on the xavi vs pirlo subject, and frankly speaking I don't 100% agree with everything he says. For instance, he says that zidane has been consistent all the time (or at least that's what I understood from his saying), but I disagree here, and not because of the retarded stats that someone posted on this thread, but because I have watched over 90% of zidane's games for RM (in all competitions) and for France, and I saw with my own eyes how inconsistent he was. So yeah, I disagree with gumbacicc here, and I actually agree with the other guy (that I keep contradicting with, anyway) on the zidane aspect
Ugh. Does the fact that a German player didn't get the Ballon D'or in 2014 mean that no one has ever gotten the Ballon D'or due to the World Cup? Are you trying to argue that Paolo Rossi didn't win the Ballon D'or because of the World Cup??? You're just wrong here.
Xavi won the Player of the Tournament at the Euros prior to ever playing a single match for Pep Guardiola. More generally, he wasn't given the reins of the midfield for Spain until Euro 2008 and for Barcelona until Guardiola came. It's no coincidence that he became much more talked about when he finally became the primary midfield playmaker. Pirlo had that for club and country much earlier.
The fact that a team believes that a player will soon decline does not mean that a player is inconsistent. This does not support your point. Regarding Xavi, again, you misunderstood. I argued that saying that Pirlo was inconsistent because Milan decided not to offer him an extension is the same as arguing that Xavi was inconsistent because Barcelona did not extend his contract. It's a stupid argument. The reason why the two players left their respective clubs had nothing to do with allegedly inconsistent play.
Again, with this statistical nonsense? I would suggest you take up baseball. You are following the wrong sport if you are going to tell me statistics matter in football. It's clear that I am debating a fanboy; someone who uses players like Baggio and Zidane as examples of inconsistency. That tells me all I need to know. I seriously wonder if you've ever watched or played the game or whether you spend time behind your computer crunching numbers.
Oh my god. I've explained this to you like 5 times already. How do you think declines manifest themselves?? Players start getting more and more inconsistent. Great players who are declining still put in great performances sometimes, it just happens less and less. Thus, they are more inconsistent. So when you see inconsistency in a player who is the wrong side of 30, it's reasonable to figure he's declining. If Milan says they made a mistake, then they clearly think they could've signed him back. Why do you think they didn't re-sign him if it wasn't due to inconsistent performances that lead to the inference that he was on the decline?
DBS Calcio ratings aren't statistics in the sense that you are criticizing them. Multiple newspapers have people watch every match and give each player an overall rating based on how they played. DBS Calcio just puts those ratings together to get an overall average rating. So yes, it's a statistic in the sense that it's a number. But it's not vulnerable to the criticism that it doesn't take into account all the unquantifiable things in football. It is, in fact, based on professional peoples' ratings of how the player played overall. This inherently takes into account everything one sees on the pitch, not just goals and assists.
I know exactly what you meant. You are amending your meaning to support your arguments where convenient. As an aside, if you think that Cannavaro was not good for his club, namely, Juve in 2006, you don't have a clue. That was the year he moved on to Real. I take it that you believe that Real are in the habit of signing players who were not that good for their previous sides?
You're all over the place. You brought up the World Cup as the reason that Zidane won his award. The World Cup does take on added importance in the voting; however, it is not the sole reason a player gets the award. Zidane got the award that season because he was the best player in the world; which undercuts the stupid rating system you are using to support your argument.
Germany had Thomas Muller, who was arguably the best player of the group stage. He wasn't as dominant in the knockout phase but still had some very good matches, particularly against France and Brazil. I feel the reason he lost the Golden Ball award was his flat performance in the final, where he was nearly invisible. While Zidane had a higher peak in WC98 especially for his performance in the final, I don't think that you can ascertain that Zidane had an overall stronger tournament than Muller. In any event, this discussion is way too much about "semantics" rather than actual football. Teams, even the great ones, make mistakes. River Plate refused to spend a few thousand dollars on the young Messi and let him go to La Masia, it was a mistake the same way AC Milan thought Pirlo was past his best by 2011.
No, I take it that Real Madrid are in a habit of signing players who were fantastic at the World Cup (see, for instance, James Rodriguez, who RM would never have signed without his WC performance). And no, I'm not amending my meaning. You are basing this idea that I've contradicted myself on your own interpretation of an ambiguous statement by me. I didn't say "all about the World Cup." I said "about the World Cup." Unless you're someone who is losing an argument and is desperately looking for a thing to feel like you're right about, it's just silly to vehemently act like that's particularly inconsistent with saying that the World Cup is easily the biggest factor. You're reading an ambiguous statement a certain way and using that reading of the statement to say that I've been inconsistent. Well, guess what, the statement was ambiguous and I am telling you what I meant. So you have nothing here. Moreover, the idea that the World Cup is an incredibly important part of Ballon D'or voting in a World Cup year is just patently obvious. It boggles my mind that you're trying to argue against it.
The fact that you "explain" illogical arguments does not make them true. I'm done with this topic. I've explained the Milan point ad nauseum. Some of you just don't get it.
2014 Ronaldo (not on the winning side; lousy WC) 2010 Messi (not on the winning side, criticized for his WC performance) 1994 Stoichkov (not on the winning side) 1986 Belanov 1978 Keegan and so on... There are multiple instances that demonstrate this award is not always about the World Cup. The World Cup is considered, just as the player's club performance would be.
Thomas Muller was perhaps Germany's best player, but many people thought Neuer was their best player. They split votes. That's kind of my point. There wasn't a clear player on Germany who was their best player. Thuram probably could've been that player in 1998, but that leads to my second point: Thomas Muller isn't the superstar that Zidane was at the time. It helps when you are considered to be your team's biggest superstar going into the tournament and your team wins. People assume and convince themselves that such a player led the team to victory more than they do for a player like Muller. He's a star, but people don't think he led Germany to a World Cup win. Also, perhaps most importantly, people just didn't think that Muller had been THAT good in the World Cup. He didn't win the Golden Ball over Messi, who people had criticized for his performances. And most people who disagree with Messi's selection seem to gravitate towards saying Robben or James Rodriguez should've won the award, not Muller.
For this point the question that really matters is whether Muller 14 is or is not better than Zidane 98? For Zidane missing two matches plus his very poor semifinal against Croatia, it is going to be difficult to rate him ahead of Muller despite the highest peak in the final. Also, in reality Zidane did not place in the individual awards at WC98, Muller was voted Silver Ball.
This just shows your ignorance of these awards. In 1994, 1986, and 1978, the World Cup was won by a South American team. South Americans were not eligible for the Ballon D'or in those years. Please tell me about all the years that a World Cup winning team with players actually eligible to win the award did not have one of their players win it. Guess what? Prior to the award changing to allow players and coaches to vote as well (and it's obvious that players/coaches vote less on who won big titles than reporters do), there were 7 Ballon D'ors where the winning team's players were eligible to win the award. A player from the winning team won 6 of those 7 times. And the one other time was Cruyff winning the award in 1974 after putting in one of the greatest World Cup performances ever but not winning the finals. He won the award for best player in the tournament, so that award wasn't contrary to the idea that the World Cup is easily the biggest factor either. Sure, Messi and CR7 got the award despite not winning the World Cup. But the award's voting has changed recently in a way that makes this more possible (as explained above). And Messi/CR7 were uniquely superior to other players in a way that was hard to ignore. That's not usually the case. Moreover, in both years, there wasn't an obvious best player from the World Cup winning team. Xavi and Iniesta split votes and barely lost to Messi. And there was no one who particularly stood out from Germany (though Muller and Neuer seemed to ultimately get the most votes).
The 1998 Golden Ball voting happened before the finals. Also, it's not so much whether Muller 14 was better than Zidane 98 as much as it's about whose performance would lead to more votes. Obviously, how well they actually performed is a big part of that, but there are other factors. For instance, being an established, well-marketed superstar helps, because people assume you must have led your team to victory. Being particularly good in the finals helps, because that match carries the most weight. This all is especially true in an award voted on by journalists, who probably didn't actually watch every match.
Xavi had a 'safer' approach than Pirlo, Verratti, Thiago. And I'm not just talking risk in terms of passing but some of the ways in which those guys play out of trouble, especially Verratti. At Barca alone Messi and Iniesta have less mistake-ridden matches, but I don't see it as something overly impressive considering Xavi's chosen style after 10-11. For example, were there any on-the-ball mistakes by Xavi when Bayern beat Barca 4-0? I can't remember the match to that detail, but he possibly went about his business as usual.
That's a sensible point, but Pirlo did consistently made bad/sloppy "easy" passes in 2012-13 and 2013-14. The type of passes that Xavi (arguably at any point in his career) virtually never slacked on. As for said 4-0 defeat. We could say that Ibrahimovic was at the top of his game at Euro'12, yet his team finished in last place (in the group). Football is a team sport at the end of the day.
Was Zidane a superstar at that point? He had failed at Euro96 and been rather muted in the CL final earlier. I believe it's the WC performance, particularly against the two previous WC finalists, that catapults him into superstardom. @Estel @AD78 @SayWhatIWant @carlito86 @gumbacicc