I mean if someone recorded all of my matches and made a compilation of all of my best passes, I would look decent as well. I've never liked judging players based on highlights.
Strikers with 35+ league goals in a single season since 2015/16 Robert lewandowski 2020/21 Harry Kane 2023/24 Luis Suarez 2015/16 Gonzalo higuain 2015/16 Ciro immobile 2019/20 Erling haaland 2022/23
The point of football is to score goals but every goal is not a product of just finishing. There are many elements in sequence that must happen to lead to goalscoring chance. Scoring goal is not just product of effort by player who ends up on scoresheet. Haaland is a player that operates at the tail end of goalscoring sequences therefore, value that he brings to his teams is easily measured by his stats. Evaluating the rest of impact is more difficult but in no way less important. You will say that a goal wouldnt be scored if it werent for a movement and a finish by a goalscorer, which is true. But it is also true that the goal wouldnt be scored if it werent for the final pass or the pass before that and the one before that, etc. Any goal is never an effort of a single player and credit is spread out across multiple players and action and it is not necessary for finish to be the most valuable effort. Usually finishing is the most important, bit not necessarly. Limiting conversation to goalscorers is silly. You will say that goalscorers are by far the most important players in scoring goals and that might be true (arguable tho), but consider this. If it was true that a great striker is basically all you need to score goals because they are the most important piece of the puzzle, why then trams dont play with 5, 6, 7 strikers at the same time? Why do managers today decide to play with one goalscorer (at most two) if quality of goalscorer is an overwhelming factor in scoring goals? Furthermore, as I think Ive mentioned already, the argument that Guardiola is using Haaland solely as a goalscorer and Haaland is "doing his job" is not as strong argument as you think. The fact that Guardiola doesnt have trust in Haaland's ability to be a primary goalscorer and still impact the game in other ways is an argument against Haaland. Guardiola would never tell Messi to just wait in penalty box because scoring is the most important aspect of the game. Great players naturally occupy the role of great responsibility because they are that good. It is better to score goals and make other impact than just to score goals and make no other impact whatsoever. Players with limited roles on the pitch have limited roles for a reason. So Haaland's lack of impact in other areas of the pitch can not be excused by "it is his role." In short, making less impact, makes you worse player. Period. From that it follows: the best player is the one that makes the most impact. When it comes to awards such as player of the season, what matters is an accumulative impact. Number of games matter as well. Having said that, Haaland's actual impact in the last two seasons is great, but nothing unheard of. What makes Haaland an interesting player is that he is unique case in modern football, but in terms of being the best player in the league. He is not. Due to lack of overall impact, he would have to outscore 31 NPG record by quite some margin to be considered in the same realm.
Haaland is Lewandoswki's successor as the best pure striker in the world. Inside the box, they're lethal and have a huge volume of goals, but outside the box they don't do much. The classic center forward. They're not center-forwards capable of creating their own goals, like Ronaldo Nazario, Luis Suarez etc. This classic style may not appeal to everyone, who is more demanding when it comes to choosing the best in the world. I think that's the point. Some want a more complete player. Many don't have a strong opinion in this debate, and what would make the difference would be the performance in the UCL. If Haaland had destroyed in the UCL, his critics would be in the minority. Since he didn't succeed, the critics of Haaland's lack of skills are gaining more traction
How exactly Haaland didn't succeed in the UCL? He were UCL top scorer in 2 of the last 3 editions and has 41 goals in 39 games in UCL. Ronaldo Nazário and Luis Suarez that you mentioned were chokers on UCL. Especially the former
Haaland's ability to stretch defenses, create space for teammates, and draw defenders out of position are invaluable contributions that often go unnoticed on the scoresheet. These actions, though not directly resulting in goals, are the invisible threads that weave the tapestry of team success. Imagine a skilled chess player who, through strategic maneuvering, forces their opponent into a position of vulnerability. While they may not directly capture the king, their actions create the opportunity for a decisive move. Similarly, Haaland's off-the-ball contributions, though not directly leading to goals, set the stage for his teammates to shine.
There is a night and day difference between Lewa and Haaland technically. Lewa is a great technician: great ball control and capable of very good passing game: He is excellent with his back to the goal and with cheeky lay off passes. He does lack explosivness in dribbling and can be absent in progression, but this is where similarities end. Haaland is a more extreme case than Lewa. Haaland technically struggles with the most basic ball control and short passes and for a player of his size, you would think he is a great target man, but he is ineffective at using his physical presence in a consistent manner. Haaland does have some qualities that Lewa doesnt, primarily Haaland is sometimes literally unstoppable when starts running in open spaces. In this case he uses his top speed and strength to his advantage. You like to use that argument to make it seem like there is some substantial value added by this, but it is not true for few reasons. 1. This applies not only to Haaland or a player you specifically focus on for the sake of argument, but to every single player on the pitch. Everyone, with their presence on the pitch, stretch opposition's defense in some way and add this intangible value to the team. So the question here is not whether Haaland adds value by drawing opposition's defense to themselfs, because everyone does that, but how well does he do that compared to any other player. As I said previously, Haaland is technically not great player and possess no playmaking threat 40, 50 meters away from goal so to suggest that teams need to pay close attention to Haaland in a way that would stretch their defense is optimistic. The fact that he possess no playmaking threat and is easily pressed, even if he dropped deep, teams have no incentive to actually press him and disrupt their defensive structure because he will do nothing. He will make a short pass to his teammate and move forward with nothing happening. Haaland is one dimensional. The threat he possess are decent runs behind the defensive line (which is the most useful in a counter attacking team - unlike City) and clever movement in and around the penalty box. This is only area and situation om the pitch im which you cam argue he has this intangible, invaluable impact of stretching defensive structure. Even in this area of offering runs behind the back, I dont think Haaland is tactically particularly intelligent player and his acceleration is unimpressive. He has a great mentality of perseverance and working hard and he is naturally great at timing and finding spaces to recieve passes close to the goal. Overall, the one-dimensional threat he possess doesnt make him this insanely impactful player off the ball as you might suggest. Furthermore, stretching defenses and positioning is mostly a function of tactics and formation. For example, Doku's normal positioning out wide, due to the tactical nature of his role, creates a lot of value to his team. The same way, most of drawing in defenders by Haaland is down to the general role of a striker to pin defenders rather than some ingenius tacticla understanding of the game by Haaland. 2nd point. You like this argument for Cristiano. And in all honesty, in the case of Cristiano this argument has a merit. Cristiano possess all around threat on the pitch with his dribbling, passing, vision and intelligence. What should be noted here is that Haaland is no Cristiano and with his movement he doesnt affect defense nearly as much as Cristiano. Cristiano is also more intelligent with his runs and more proactive in his movement. Overall, Haaland's off the ball imapct on the game is limited to the penalty box and the area around it due to his goalscoring threat. Because of lack of threat in other situations and areas of the game, his indirect impact on the game is minimal If anything, teams want Haaland to recieve ball far away from goal because he is easy to press and there are good chances he will miscontrol the ball or make an inaccurate pass. That is why I say Haaland's impact is basically measured by his stats alone unlike any other top player we have recently seen in football
Lewa is much better imo better with his back to goal and one the ball haaland has more pace but a prime Lewa is a monster imo
@PDG1978 For dribbling/scoring combination Roberto dinamite I think could make a top 25 he is a player with 500+ career goals too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_footballers_with_500_or_more_goals an elite category with only 24 players 8 of those players debuted before the Second World War And another 5 debuted between 1940-1950 Mario Kempes I don’t think can touch him his playmaking abilities also seem to be a lot closer to a Ronaldinho/Rivaldo/Neymar then to Romario/R9 Maybe he was even a better passer then he was a dribbler TBH at least that’s what the clips in the comp seem to suggest
If he was, that would make him seriously one of the best players of all time. It is rare that the same player is an all timer in two separate categories between goalscoring, dribbling and playmaking. Oh you meant combined top 25 in both, not separately. Regardless, it is rare.
Dinamite has 157 assists presumably Opta (counted from newspapers) and 33 Non-Opta Team goals assisted% Zico: 24.78% Neymar: 23.14% Ronaldinho: 21.64% Kaká: 19.71% Rivaldo: 18.71% Dinamite: 18.57% Vinícius Júnior: 17.44% Ronaldo: 15.44% Romário: 14.48% (for Ronaldinho, Kaká and Rivaldo I cannot confirm that the source is 100% reliable) Other: Suárez: 21.47% Henry: 21.18% Ibrahimovic: 20.86% Benzema: 16.40% C.Ronaldo: 16.36% Haaland: 14.40% Lewandowski: 11.85%
I was really referring to the most talented players who combined both goalscoring and passing Thierry Henry being one of those without being even a top 100 overall passer in the history of the game(a list that will be ultimately dominated by midfielders) Harry Kane will be another from this era but if you factor in dribbling he may not make the list at all whatsoever Roberto dinamite legitimately looks like he was world class in all forms of attacking play That is extremely rare for sure but then he was directly to Zico who was another mercurial talent. even the ball retention under pressure with players almost bouncing off him is something I didn’t touch on. He looks like a mixture of Hugo Sanchez(his acrobatic ability ),Romario(his clinical ability in the box),Mario Kempes(his ball carrying/dribbling ability),rivelino(his range of passing) and he had an absolutely thunderous shot on him That is a devastating player and Trachta10 has him with just shy of 700 career goals/assists he was the complete offensive package for sure If he had the explosiveness of R9 would could even begin making comparisons with the great Pele(in talent) greatness is something else though Roberto dinamite never had real/extended exposure in front of a world wide audience(the World Cup being the only real platform for this in the pre internet era) 1974-1978 I think was a transitional period for the Brazilian NT and neither did he set the world alight during his short lived stint in Europe(playing for your club)
Erling Haaland is a player who would have to break the 1000 goal career goal bracket to make my top 25 players ever list. for nearly other elite striker not named Haaland that will not be the case The bar would be considerably lower due to what they offer outside of goals
I remember another Brazilian guy who posted not long ago rated him highly IIRC, but I'd be interested to know the thoughts of @Wiliam Felipe Gracek about Dinamite. For sure he evidently has a pretty complete skill set. I don't tend to think I'd think of him as better than Kempes in dribbling/goalscoring, but in passing/goalscoring maybe so. It's hard to know if he'd seem worse, or somehow seem better actually, if he played in more modern times with more intense pressing from opposition for example I guess (but potentially the same could be said about Socrates and others too). He has some parallels with Ibrahimovic in terms of being a ball player with a big physical stature, and still in essence a centre forward, I suppose doesn't he (seemingly having more general involvement in the game in deeper positions though?)....
................. about Roberto Dinamite ...................... Clearly he is not in the Top 25 forwards of all time. examples he has very good numbers due to most of the time he plays regional championships like the Carioca Championship, I mean, the level of these championships over the years has dropped precipitously .
Thanks for your thoughts mate: you actually taught me a new English word (and I am 46 years old) too haha - precipitously! I see it is not directly related to precipitation (rainfall) exactly, but probably comes from the same Latin roots which is why it has a similar spelling (anyway in this case I understand you mean there has been a steep fall/decline in the level of the Carioca and local Brazilian championships in general over the years).
................................ .... Roberto Dinamite was very good, for sure. I think about him from the Top 75 to 125 attackers in the World Ranking !
.......................... Roberto Dinamite was like Willie Van Hanegem for Cruyff, a kind of antidote in Dutch Football, making it as difficult as possible to win all possible titles within Dutch Football. Roberto Dinamite was the same against Zico's Flamengo, making it as difficult as possible for Zico to win all the Rio championships at that time in the state of Rio de Janeiro . so Roberto Dinamite === equals to Van Hanegem for less it a littlebit .
Another strong point of Dynamite is his aerial game, with 69 headed goals, an average of 0.085 in a team that scores 1.68 goals per match. Additionally, if we add 75 free-kick goals to that, we are talking about a player who is on par with Zico in terms of free kicks and on par with Pelé in terms of aerial play.
I think sometimes (as in this case)it doesn’t boil down to just numbers Zicos freekicks were more often than not pure artistry dinamites FK technique was more like a Signori(power with less emphasis on the placement) there are not many examples of freekicks scored by Zico where you felt the goalkeeper could’ve done better
While Dinamite had good numbers, he wasn't in the same league as Henry, Ibra, Suarez or his national teammates Reinaldo and Careca. He was more of a physical player. In 1978, he was Reinaldo's backup, but won the starting spot because the pitches were bad and Brazil NT needed a more physical style of play. In 1982, he was Chulapa's backup, who was in better form than him. He's one of the efficient scorers of the 80s, who spent almost his entire career in Brazil, was the idol of a big club and achieved great numbers. But he wasn't seen as a superstar, like Careca who was MVP of the brazilian league in 1985. Maybe like Van Nistlerooy, a great scorer, but not a superstar. Less skilled than Henry and Van Persie, for example. At least the way I see it