Not to offend you nor your intelligence mate, but I honestly think there is a sound possibility that the d) concept doesn't adequately merit a reason for existing as a category in the first place, more than anything else because it cannot be measured in any consistent sense? I mean, what exactly is passing technique and what measurable - demonstrable - advantage does it offer in a technical sense? I think you might be over-thinking this one, in that it sounds to me like Zidane might be getting two high grades for the price of one essentially. Method or skill combination probably if not certainly is an impossibility without the ball retention ability and creativity that is required to open up those spaces; see David Beckham as an example of an extraordinary passer who requires that the rest of his (hopefully more skillful) teammates stretch the pitch before Beckham gets hold of the ball, because he cannot create the space himself on the basis of his own ability on the ball, etc. Beckham either crosses the ball as quickly as he can (so as to not completely undo all the hard work he did off-the-ball, to find some space, and knowing that he does not have the ability on the ball to create new space for himself in the case he is closed down quickly), or delivers an easy pass sideways as quickly as he can, or delivers a long ball as quickly as he can; a very repetitive, monotonous, systematic player... he cannot dribble nor get himself out of a difficult spot as he creates a passing angle out of nothing. So with the above premise in mind, why create a separate rather confusing "passing technique" category when ball retention ability already largely if not entirely tells me which players are average or good or great in terms of combining passing ability with dribbling runs and/or with ball retention skills? Similarly, I'd argue that Andrea Pirlo is a comprehensively better passer than Zidane, but Pirlo does not quite have Zidane's ball retention - rare athletic - ability to insert himself into games in difficult conditions, without available free space, against top tier opponents, etc. Zidane is deceptively quick on the ball, deceptively mobile on the ball for a man that big in size, can dribble through the middle or through the wings, so again, it becomes rather immediately self-evident that Zidane can combine his passing and his other skills in a more varied, intuitive, and imaginative manner than the physically more limited Pirlo ever could... Which is - as was previously stressed and stated - something that I already know because Zidane enjoys significant physical advantages over Pirlo; Zidane is better in terms of dribbling and in terms of athleticism, and equal but different in terms of ball retention, so he does enjoy significant physical advantages over the more limited Pirlo; I mean, of course Zidane can mix it up in a way that Pirlo cannot. So why create an additional "passing technique" category when it essentially appears to give extra credit to more athletic players who can combine passing with dribbling, with ball retention, with wing dribbling, with just about any skill in the book? I can already rather safely assume all of that on the basis of athletic ability, ball retention ability, dribbling ability, two-footed ability (or lack thereof), and so on. Why give players like Zidane an additional credit after I have already - as I understand it - credited him for that same thing? To offer a comparison (I'm not sure if this is the best one, but this is the one that I can come up with at the present time), it would be like me giving a 10 or a 9.5 to Zlatan Ibrahimovic for "shooting technique" because he is gifted on the ball for his size, one of the strongest and biggest players on the ball of all time, all of which enables him to perform spectacular shots that the average player or even great players cannot replicate. As such, I think I can rather safely assume that Zlatan with his type of athleticism and his type of ability on the ball will almost inevitably be great in terms of shooting technique, that is, provided that he actually is good at shooting the ball... Which is again where I continue to fail to see the point of having an additional category such as "shooting technique" because it is arguably inherently impossible to separate the rather ambiguous concept of "shooting technique" from how it is largely if not completely defined by other factors such as shooting ability, and how said shooting ability is either maximized or minimized by the ball retention ability, the dribbling ability, the athletic capability, etc. Is it possible to have great passing technique if you are barely above mediocre as a passer? Probably not, and as such, why even have the surplus category in the first place? To offer a better example perhaps: if Luis Figo has great "crossing technique" (one particular branch of passing) to compete against Zidane's less specific "passing technique" (no indication nor specification of which type of pass Zidane is great at)... Is there enough merit to give Figo extra credit for the way he can mix his crossing ability with his other skills, when we know that his ball retention ability, dribbling ability, and overall athleticism are on aggregate by far the driving factor that greatly maximizes Figo's crossing ability, versus David Beckham who has amazing crossing ability but is severely lacking in terms of the technical qualities that could've maximized said passing ability? At any rate, I think that giving Figo an additional credit for "crossing technique" means, in effect, that I have just added crossing ability into a discussion about technique... I mean, the only reason why he is even good at said technique is because he is a great crosser, and he has the technical ability to greatly maximize said passing ability... but then, if I start introducing rather confusing concepts such as crossing technique, passing technique, shooting technique, header technique, volley technique, etc. I mean, then it inevitably becomes a discussion about overall ability and not only about technique, as I understand it. Instead of passing ability, the term is replaced with simply "passing technique," but the fundamental problem still is that I have essentially inserted passing ability into a discussion that is supposed to be about technique. At any rate, perhaps I'm just failing to see a fairly obvious point? Could well be the case, as I'm struggling to find the time to write this, at the same time that I'm writing this as quickly as I can.
I think Baggio was - relative to his time - a better passer than Zidane. But then again, it depends on the type of passing... Baggio was better in my view at long balls and final passes, whereas Zidane had a greater talent for short passes in the midfield. But yeah, overall I think that Baggio had a better eye for passing, in an era wherein it was more difficult to rack up assists.
I hope I wasn't too confusing before mate, but what I mean is that normally when talking of the best passers I wouldn't be focusing just on the technique, so this 'passing technique' idea is just specifically to fit this thread (about the best players from a technical viewpoint and called 'Best technique') - I suppose I thought that's how everyone would be looking at it. For what it's worth though, I'd put Beckham's passing technique at least level with Zidane's, and Pirlo's passing technique probably higher than Zidane's I think, in my estimation (Beckham's basic passing technique superior I guess but offset by less finesse on certain short-range passes; Pirlo being very good all-round as far as his passing technique goes). In a 'best passers' overall discussion both of Beckham and Pirlo would come to mind to nominate before Zidane for me though. Whether they can work themselves space or move past players with the ball as well as him (they couldn't generally speaking I guess we'd agree) is a different matter not specifically related to the passing itself I suppose (but it can be it very much aids it in terms of providing opportunities to play team-mates in, even if at times it could also be Zidane would look to use his skills and overlook passing opportunities in doing so in certain situations and moments).
So to clarify (as explanation and apology for confusion caused!): - Method would mean the way in which the player tends to attempt passes (the style of kicking the ball, which can be honed through practice and training) - And skill would in this instance just refer to the innate ability as far as passing the ball goes (the quality of the natural technique the player possesses for passing the ball, in terms of the passes he is capable of and the regularity with which attempted passes work as planned).
Dribbling: Zico Passing/Vision/Creating Changes: Zico Goalscoring ability: Tie Touch/Control: Tie Athleticism: Romário* * even tho Zico was more agile and in his best physical form (74-79) there are very few footage, but I would say Romario had more physical strength, acceleration and maybe better top speed.
I give the point to Romario in goalscoring. Should vision and creativity be considered part of technique?
Could be. I don't know if Romário was a better goalscorer than Zico, really. Zico off-ball movement was very good as midfielder or playing more advanced on the pitch and he in his peak was mortal in front of the goal: For example: vs Vasco, 1975 0:26 Great touch escaping from the defender and Goal. vs Vasco, 1975 1:35 Fast dribble in short space and Goal. vs Vasco also in 1975 1:00 Solo Goal (over two defenders and the GK), showing his peak agility. A lot of these gols and moments are lost. Overall, I believe that if given an equal number of opportunities for both Zico and Romario to score a goal (easy and difficult odds), they would perform similarly.
good question indeed. What to include in technique? I guess, technique in the strictest scene will be direct contact with the ball. Whereas, positioning, vision and anticipation etc could be classed as something else. @Tropeiro @leadleader
I guess, it is what @leadleader commented earlier, that it depends on a case to case scoring situation. in my view, both these two players are very similar in terms of scoring ability. Perhaps, considering that Zico's positioning is a midfielder and freekick specialist, this would make him a better scorer outside the box? Yet, I have seen Romario score many freekicks and out of the box long distance goals. On the other hand, Romario was known to be very capable in the air, scoring many headers with ease. Yet, Zico, albeit overlooked in the aerial game, has also scored a few headers with great display of technique. Romario scored many sombrero goals, volley goals, chip goals, outside of the foot goals and was very famous for his toe-poke! And I am sure Zico could do all of these as well, but I think very few players in history have scored as many goals (as Romario) with so much variety. and lets not forget the ability to score under high pressure in big games. Romario's scoop turn goal vs Real Madrid 93/94 shows that he could score under pressure while keeping composure/cool headed. It is a toss for me.
But both Romário and Zico are different types of players, equally effective - imo both are in the TOP5 Brazilian Players (Pelé, Zico, Ronaldo, Garrincha and Romario) but they are different types of player to compare imo, even if Romário sometimes comes deep and Zico sometimes played as the most advanced player on the pitch. Here both in similar ages (26-27) against Uruguay. Both against Botafogo in the Final of Campeonato Carioca (1º Turno) (Zico, 26; Romario, 29) In resume, different top players. Both very technical.
Both against Ajax (age 26) Both against Santos: Zico Final of Brazilian League 1983 Age 30 Romário Final da Rio-São Paulo 1997 Age 31. etc.
I know, I have both very high on my list in this regard. I believe both would overperform their chances.
Actually I wanted to apologize to you, as my rant-length analysis was somewhat pedantic, or at least could come off as pedantic. The quoted clarification is appreciated, by the way. Having said that, I'm not sure I agree with the concept of a "passing technique" blanket statement/branch, because I don't think it can be consistently measured as an isolated technical ability, for example, if it doesn't in fact help Zidane be more productive in terms of assists, pre-assists, and key passes (compared to other world class players with allegedly inferior passing technique), then how does one go about measuring such a skill as an inherent isolated technical ability? Personally, the only way I can somewhat roughly measure said ability is if I insert Zidane's midfield short passing ability into the discussion... and then it becomes a discussion about how innate ability on the ball complements with innate passing ability/creativity. Not withstanding, I can see the usefulness of a category such as "passing technique," but personally I think the innate passing ability of a player is largely measured by the range of impact in terms of open play assists, open play pre-assists, out of nothing genius passes, cross-assists, potential assists that were not converted, midfield passing with the primary purpose of either dictating the tempo of the game or facilitating the coherence moving forwards, etc. Which is why I find it inconsistent to have an extra category such as "passing technique." I mean, those short creative passes that Zidane and Valderrama do in the midfield areas, when operating inside small pockets of congested spaces in and around the midfield areas, without breaking the natural flow of their movements with the ball... How do you do that without being creative at an intuitive and/or intellectual level? And if we add this type of fluid creativity and coherence as an extra technical ability... then is this still a discussion purely about technique, or is it now a discussion about technique as it logically complements with other not-necessarily-technical abilities such as passing creativity/intuition? That is my main confusion, albeit again, I can certainly appreciate how "passing technique" serves at the very least as a useful guideline... But again, I think it might cross the line between what is easily understood as ability on the ball and what is not necessarily defined by any of the basic branches of what ability on the ball is traditionally understood as.
No problem - I didn't think the post was pedantic, but was just concerned I'd been confusing so tried to clarify where I was coming from. I think I was just thinking about things from the point of view of, like greatstriker suggested, touches on the ball only....and also trying to rate the technique in isolation from ingenuity and vision etc....but like you say it is hard to do and certainly harder to back it up with numbers for example.
This of course is intended to be slightly humorous It popped up on my feed and has upwards of 2 million views in 3 days I thought the thumbnail was clickbait but Damn Wenger is 70 years old with a better technique than some professionals who play for top class teams(lukaku?) Wenger was saying in a exclusive interview with talk sport that he runs 10 km every single day at 70 years Looks can sometimes definitely be deceptive
I never saw Zico vs Ajax until now. Thanks for sharing it. I think Romario match vs Ajax 88/89 and 90/91 were both better than vs Ajax 91/92
@Tropeiro Zico's header at minute 0:40 looks very similar to Romario's header vs Botafogo. Funny to see both scored those headers while playing for Flamengo
Even though I keep saying I don't want to add more names, it's so hard to try to use numbers etc lol, I have ended up thinking of some more! I will try to stop now I think, but these were all in my mind anyway (and several were being mentioned as prominent names by others as top contenders too), even though I could easily have others come to mind and other names mentioned on the thread make sense among fair calls in a technique discussion too. Yet more players have ended up with 35 points, and if anything with Baggio I'd feel more inclined to go up from there rather than down maybe, although despite understanding others putting him in their top 10, I still don't feel taking the numbers out of the equation that I'd necessarily replace Stojkovic, or Laudrup, or Del Piero, or Best for example in my own 10 selected names. I think I'd be adding them in approximately this order anyway, but it wouldn't be that I'd call them all certainties for my definitive top 20 or something like that. I felt particularly unsure about the two Uruguayans (Schiaffino being an older player, and not having seen a huge amount of Francescoli in full games). While I felt Messi, when really 'on point' with his skills in his top form, could arguably go higher for controlling the ball (as I suspect could be suggested) but then again purely from a technical perspective I'd consider coming the other way with shooting overall maybe, so it's almost like if increments of 0.25 were used I'd meet in the middle with those two categories as far as he was concerned (and I don't feel like I should be going back and adjusting all the scores using 0.25 increments anyway...especially as we've said it's hardly a precise method to hand out scores but more like personal judgement/estimation). Hagi likewise I'd think could go up for controlling the ball, but then I could consider lowering either passing/crossing or moving with the ball which would compensate for that too anyway. I think after Baggio, I'd be slotting Pele and Cruyff in among these contenders anyway, in the queue behind my other 10 players I named before. Controlling the ball - R.Baggio 9, Hagi 8.5, Messi 8.5, Totti 9, Schiaffino 9, Van Basten 9, Rivera 9, Francescoli 8.5 Moving with the ball - R.Baggio 8.5, Hagi 8.5, Messi 9, Totti 7, Schiaffino 8, Van Basten 7.5, Rivera 8, Francescoli 8 Passing/crossing the ball - R.Baggio 8.5, Hagi 9, Messi 8.5, Totti 9.5, Schiaffino 9, Van Basten 7, Rivera 9, Francescoli 8 Shooting - R.Baggio 9, Hagi 9, Messi 9, Totti 9, Schiaffino 8, Van Basten 10, Rivera 7.5, Francescoli 8.5
There is no foolproof algorithm that can be used to determine which players technical skillset is more valuable This is a topic where almost every opinion is valid because even the word technique is broad and there isnt even a consensus here on what it does and doesn't entail Yes some cases are clear as day but when it comes to comparing the differences between some of the most skilled players ever the differences are minimal and fan boys tend to exaggerate in favour of their preferred player Like I said there is no perfect method but pes stats database is a very useful but also not perfect Abilities on pes stats database are ranked from 1-99 90-94 is elite world class(or orange tier) 95-99 is legendary (or red tier) (Dearman in fact borrowed his evaluation of players skill sets from pes stats database and he freely admits this) For the purpose of this thread ill only be listing "red tier" legendary technicians Players highlighted in red below are grossly overrated IMO Players underrated are highlighted in blue Technique Players rated 95 out of 99 Lionel Messi 2008-2010 Cristiano Ronaldo 2007-08 Alessandro Del piero 1997/98 R9 1995/96 Francisco totti 2000-2004 Gheorghe hagi 1992-94 Cristiano Ronaldo 2011-13 Micheal Laudrup 1990-1993 Antonio di natale 2009-2011 Johan cruyff Ceasar cueto(borderline) Chris waddle Raymond kopa Socrates Luis figo 2000-01 Lorenzo insigne 17-19 Paul Gascoigne Giuseppe meazza Patrick Kluivert Alfredo di stefano Jimmy Johnstone(?) Eric Cantona 1993-94 David Silva Abedi pele 1990-1993 Karim benzema 2011-2014 Zlatan ibrahimovic 2014-16 Players rated 96 out of 99 Rivaldo 1997-1999 Matthew li tissier Rivelino Ronaldo 1996-97 Thierry Henry 2002-2006 Roman Riquelme 2005-2008 George Best Andres iniesta 2009-11 Antonio cassano 2003-04 Zlatan ibrahimovic 2004-2007 Isco 2013-2016 Bernardo Silva garrincha Ronaldo Luís Nazário 1997-1999 Players rated 97 out of 99 Ronaldinho 2011-2013 Lionel Messi 2014 Pelé 1961-1965 Zico Zlatan ibrahimovic 2011-2013 Lionel Andres Messi 2014-2015 Djalminha Enzo Francescoli Romário 1993-1994 Dragan Stojković Ronaldinho 2000-2002 Lionel Messi 2016-19 Ademir Da Guia(?) Alvaro Recoba Lionel Messi 2011-2012 Pelé 1968-1972 Lionel Messi 2010-2011 Matthias SINDELAR Players rated 98 out of 99 Zinedine Zidane | 1993-96 isco 2016-2018 Roberto Baggio 1993-1994 Ronaldinho 2008-2010 Roberto Baggio 2000-2004 Players rated 99 out of 99 Zinedine Zidane 2003-2006 Antonio Cassano 2008-2010 Zinedine Zidane 2002-2003 Diego Armando Maradona 1984-86 Dennis Bergkamp 1996-1999 Mágico González Diego Armando Maradona 1990 Diego Maradona 1979-1981 Zinedine Zidane 1998-2002 Antonio Cassano 2011-2012 Ronaldinho 2003-2006 Dennis Bergkamp 2002-2005
Like I said I'm not the most familiar with Francescoli but I tried if anything to err on the side of generosity with his numbers maybe (not to say I can't have under-scored him still). I do think though that it's likely I'd score both Cantona and Le Tissier, from early Premier League years, slightly higher, and I probably would lean towards putting them above him in a technique-based list if anything I'd think too.
I don't know whether the Football Manager game definition is more appropriate? I'm not sure there are websites where people discuss Football Manager ratings for all-time players though, except threads like @poetgooner starts on here for example! PES does have a separate stat for shot technique (and also shot accuracy as well as shot power) of course.
Also not the most team oriented player around, or living the professional lifestyle... drugs etc. But his ability is undeniable. Probably only his passing wasn't ridiculously good. His control, dribbling, shooting were really great. The skills and trickery are as good as anyone I've seen.
Looking at that latest attempt again, what I would be thinking of adjusting would be possibly moving Rivera up to 8.5 on moving with the ball (I think I'd keep his shooting technique number at 7.5 but he definitely had enough to score some quality goals...as did Laudrup to be fair), and Van Basten either up to 8 on that or 7.5 on passing/crossing (it seems particularly conservative to choose the lower value when in doubt for both those for him).