Maradona is the arguably the best dribbler of all times. His fans won't tell you he was statistically outdribbled by Careca in 1989 Uefa cup and scored less than 3 solo goals in Serie A Reality: A guy like Carlitos (who i doubt even watched full games back then) will as usual ignore all context and like typical dishonest modernist with their half-sided revisionism without proper and full knowledge (like this pseudo-intellect @lessthanajke who creates nonsense threads like this https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/pelé-is-way-overrated-as-a-scorer.2028357/ or those threads and nonsense articles ,videos about Pele with halfsided stories you see from Bleacher Report or a casual like Raymar which can be debunked by anyone with proper knowledge) will give their partial-sided narrative Maradona by 1989 was dribbling less than before having deteriorated . Infact , if anyone has proper knowledge , he'd know Maradona actually reduced his dribbling and changed his role in Italian football to save his legs from violent tackles and because of team requirement , dribbled when necessary . SImiliar to Pele 1970 . Jairzinho outdribbled Pele , but Jarizinho isn't a better dribbler than pele . Because Pele in his prime was an insane dribbler and declined physically having lost pace after his injuries around 66 . About gascoigne and Maradona 1990, Maradona 1990 was playing with injury , i thought someone like you knew this lol Maradona reduced his dribbling in the Italian game and infact he could still dribble , but he was slowly getting out of his prime , and by around 1989 he was out of his physical prime (And yes some guys like you like to ignore the effect of physical conditioning, modern nutrition , facilities when they like to equate modern players with older ones) Go and check Maradona games in his younger days (there's little footage of his Argentinos Juniors days ) - boca, barca, argentina and especially till 86 and you'll see why he is regarded as the best dribbler ever by many. His dribbling numbers probably would be higher than Messi's in any period if some stats based company made the counts from games i've seen , anyways nobody can prove this now. And Dribbling has more to do with quality and capability than dribble numbers Since you love these stats like gospels, Do You consider Mane Garrincha the best ever dribbler based on his available footages of WC games then , i presume? Counting Garrincha’s dribbles during 1962’s World CupMega thread, will be constantly updated pic.twitter.com/uncV9XI7C9— Gasipo (@gasipo_opinions) June 23, 2021 R9 at his prime didn't average many dribbles in the WC 1998 when he was the best dribbler in the world . Because he was perhaps more calculative with his dribbles and did only when necessary Adama Traore completed 6.4 dribbles per 90min in 2019/20 Premier League Lionel Messi never reached this figure in a single of his league season over last decade Thanks for opening my eyes , i shall consider Adama Traore at peak a better dribbler than Messi ever has been from now And about Maradona not scoring solo goals - Maradona hardly scored that many solo goals like Pele or Messi during his period in Boca , Barca and Napoli. Those two players played much closer to goal than he did . And he usually got his shot saved or Passed the ball to the teammate in lot of his runs like this one: He scored more solo goals when he played further up the pitch in Argentinos Juniors days Goals like this whose footage aren't there : Similiar to Pele's goal de Place against Fluminense where he dribbled past 7 players beginning from his own half or what they say his best goal ever :
I swear i have never heard any Van Basten fan claiming he is the greatest finisher ever lol And finishing has got to do with how efficient you are , how good you are in finishing off chances lol. Your completeness in goalscoring /repertoire in finishing is another thing. Messi is more efficient / better finisher than CR7 Cr7 is a superior goalscorer than Messi because messi compared to him is more one-dimensional or lack resources in his scoring . Anyways as i've said , never heard anyone claim Van Basten is greatest finisher ever lol .
With all due respect legolas you arent going to 'teach' me about Maradona Nor is Trachta10 with his autistic stats and half baked truths This goal was scored in a meaningless friendly against deportivo Pereira I talk about juventus and Milan and you talk about deportivo Pereira in a mid season friendly? The footage was grainy for a reason 1980 or not believe me if that held match had any sort of remote significance it wouldn't be filmed on a camera from 1583
Adama traore(even with his limited football IQ)is one of most devastating ball carrying threats of all time He would force into premature retirement many defenders in 1980s Serie A. Believe me The sheer volume of goalscoring chances he would create for himself( back then )would be completely obscene even if he does absolutely nothing with them(14~ goals in 200~ games) There is no man marker from that era who could completely nullify his athletic advantage. No one End product is a different discussion
With due respect, i have seen across other threads how much you have understanding of his gameplay or role. And seriously, do you even read properly or try to understand what someone is saying? "Goals like this whose footages aren't there" Did i say this particular goal? Here is just a glimpse of some https://www.lanacion.com.ar/deporte...-reconstruccion-cuatro-goles-nid2492464/#rojo And my point has always been linear, its not my fault you fail to understand . I literally said he operated deeper than pele and messi away from the box, and even when he did usually passed the ball to teammate , or in some cases got his shot saved or something. And crying about friendly. Maybe you forgot about the goal of the century lol
He did? Maradona vs England 1986 World cup quarter final Messi vs Juventus 2015 Champions league final https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/815974/Live/International-FIFA-World-Cup-1986-Argentina-England https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/9...-League-2014-2015-Juventus-Barcelona#heatmaps
Damn what an incredible bad argument. ''Messi fanboys will claim to you that Messi destroys Real Madrid everytime he faces them , Madrid's Nightmare blah blah....'' This is at best an extreme exaggeration of something ''messi fanboys'' say just so you can have a easy counter, since ofcource he hasn't destroyed them everytime he faces them. Yet this by no means chances that he is the player that has hurt Madrid the most in its history. Just looking at the share amount of outstanding and game deciding moments he has had against Madrid and the fact that he is the El clasico all time topscorer, is he not Madrids nightmare? The arguments (i you can call it that) you make are nothing but ridiculous. Varane having more goals them him in a cup tournament does not chance the fact that Messi is the all time el clasico topscorer. Four finals lost in the copa and supercopa yet none of them had the same impact or importance of the 2011 UCL semi final where he single handedly kicked them out of the tournament. Again using a series of clasicos where a player has not scored against him whilst having the most goals and goal contributions in that same clasico history is just dumb. Thats like holding the 1966 WC negatively against Pele's world cup legacy. Its weird to criticize a player in a area where no one has done better them him, ever.
@Legolas10 @Edhardy @JoCryuff98 My biggest problem with the modern game is the delusional philosophy of quantity over quality... I mean, dribbling, passing, ball retention, are primarily (and traditionally) about the quality, far more than the sheer quantity that a natural born athlete would be able to offer e.g. Cristiano Ronaldo (in his physical prime) and Adama Traore, as obvious examples of extremely athletic high volume dribblers. Real Madrid Ronaldo Era is arguably the best scoring team in history, but the reason for that is not that Barcelona could not compete in terms of scoring goals; the difference is that Real Madrid was uniquely built around an out-and-about rapist and a self-evident narcissist, Cristiano Ronaldo, who thinks that quantity is better than quality, which makes a lot of sense, because Ronaldo always lacked quality in traditional areas like dribbling and ball retention. Of course, the fundamental problem with this, is that La Liga is not a weak league; La Liga cannot realistically be won by continuously trying to destroy all opponents, in other words, quality is almost always more decisive than simply breaking the record of highest quantity of blowout wins in the history of La Liga. Real Madrid played to score a lot of goals, not because it is Real Madrid's identity as a club, but because Ronaldo's identity as a player (and probably also as a person) is to be the 'winningest' player in the league, and what better statistic is there than goals scored, if your priority as a football player (and probably also as a person) is to be perceived as a natural born winner who deserves to be worshipped as a special mentality cult of personality leader. "Messi is a better talent... But nobody in the history of the game comes close to Cristiano Ronaldo, when it comes to that killer instinct mentality of a natural born winner." This is classic cult of personality propaganda, but again, the reason why Atletico Madrid 2013/14 does better in the competitive margin games, is because Atletico Madrid is better at quality than at quantity, which is a lot more productive if your priority is to actually win La Liga, instead of merely aggressively inflating the statistics of Ronaldo FC. Fernando Redondo is one of the greatest ball retention specialists of all time, and he was dispossessed probably around 50% of the time in his legendary performance vs. Manchester United. Modern philosophy would argue that this is wasteful and counter productive, even when Messi, as one of the greatest dribblers of all time, is a perfect mirror of Fernando Redondo; Messi gets dispossessed a lot, even after adjusting for the reasonable argument that Messi might actually be the most gifted dribbler of all time. In simpler terms; modern 'modernist' philosophy actively contradicts itself, it would criticize Fernando Redondo as a wasteful and self-indulgent player, but then it would simultaneously defend Messi as the greatest player of all time, even when Messi is probably even more wasteful than Redondo. The reality is that the art of creation requires risks, and the greatest creators get dispossessed a lot, precisely because of the inherent risks that are both necessary and positive. On a similar note; Ronaldinho was off target with many of his passes, but because the majority of his killer passes are long balls, when the pass is off target it rarely ever creates a counter attack for the opponent; in other words, the good passes by Ronaldinho by far compensate versus the bad passes by Ronaldinho. The nature of Ronaldinho's end product, is of better value than Cristiano Ronaldo's end product. A) Ronaldinho, by virtue of doing objectively difficult skills, offers more decisiveness with that one great pass, even when that one great pass comes at the cost of 3 or 4 off target passes. B) Cristiano Ronaldo, by virtue of scoring a gazillion low risk tap ins, gets inflated in terms of the statistical perception, precisely because statistical pseudo intellectuals cannot tell the difference between team edge versus individual greatness; Ronaldo becomes the creator of Real Madrid's team edge, instead of the player who benefits the most, all the while not offering any actual impact in La Liga. This is why Ronaldinho's 3 years of greatness, have a lot of memorable performances against difficult opponents. On the other hand, with Cristiano Ronaldo you have too look at everything that happened in between 2008 and 2020, to be able to find the same quantity of memorable performances against difficult opponents; the quality will never match what Ronaldinho did, but at least the quantity becomes more or less equal if you compare 3 years of Ronaldinho versus 12 years of Cristiano Ronaldo. The argument that Xavi always completes his passes, has a lot to do with the fact that the vast majority of passes by Xavi are low-risk passes. When Barcelona was without Iniesta, Xavi and Messi could not unlock Inter Milan's defence in 2010. When Barcelona was without Messi, Xavi and Iniesta were dismantled by the hyper direct system of Bayern Munich in 2013. As much as I respect and appreciate Xavi, he too is overrated by the same pseudo intellectual modernist machine that created Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo; emphasis on Ronaldo. The modern understanding of statistics is just spectacularly misguided and wrong, for the most part.
I'm sure Redondo dispossession rate was no where near 50%. If it was, he would be the most wasteful player ever. I'm pretty sure no modern fan look down on Redondo. Once again, you attribute these thoughts on modern fans that I haven't actually seen. Where are these Redondo-haters you speak of? Redondo is a bad comparison to Messi anyway. People are less critical of forwards being wasteful because it is understood that that is the price of playmaking. Messi, Neymar, Hazard, KDB, they all enjoy this luxury. The expectations for central midfielders are different. They are expected to be extremely reliable (so none of that 50% dispossession rate) while also being really good at getting the ball to the forwards in favorable situations. Plenty of players today play riskier progressive passes while still boasting high completion rate. You only have to look at someone like Frenkie De Jong. In 2021, I believe he is one of the top midfielders across the top five European leagues at progressing the ball into the final third and starting play sequences that end in shots taken. He is also 2nd only to Verratti in terms of progressive ball carrying. He boasts almost 90% passing completion rate and a whopping 85% take-on rate. So he is a very strong evidence that you can marry high level of ball retention with high level of ball progression and creativity. I'm not that interested in a Ronaldinho vs CR7 debate, but I will say this: Being the person that gives the team the edge and being the person that benefits the most from the team's edge is not mutually exclusive. Messi, for example, was probably the single biggest individual advantage Barcelona had in their prime, but he was also their biggest benefactor, as seen by all the stats he put up and all the accolades he won. In CR7's case, I'm not sure how to even go about analyzing his exact contribution to this team. However, I would like to defend the value of off-ball movement, in general. I think it's value is severely underrated via-a-vis playmaking, as if only one partner dictates this dance. For CR7, his movement is his number goalscoring tool (as it is with most goalscorers, in fact) it's not clear to me what is the value that his off ball movement creates over his replacement. If you look at his understat: Except for 14/15, he was not a particularly clinical finisher. In fact, take 14/15 out, and he's quite average. However, his xG is very high. I would argue that this is in part due to his off ball movement, which is superior to most players. Madrid was also a dominant force, of course. It takes two to make this dance, after all. I think CR7's number is also inflated in absolute terms by him taking a number of long shots which might get him at best an extra 3-4 goals, but with like 50 extra shots over the course of the season, which helps him with the goal column but hurts him in the efficiency column. In most of those cases, that type of shot was probably wasteful, as Madrid likely had a better method of creating a shot than him taking his chance with a low-probably shot, as he's not even an above average finisher statistically. When we take a look at Benzema, for example: Even after CR7 departed, his numbers obviously rose but never matching CR7's number. This is possibly in part due to Madrid being a less creative force or by your argument, they never provided the same level of focus for Benzema as they did for CR7. Now, there's a reason why Lewandowski has overtaken CR7 as the number 1 goalscorer in many people's minds in the past few years. Not only has his team won more, but the statistics back it up. Since 16/17 Lewandowski has had much higher xG stat. This is partly because he was playing at his peak, and Bayern of course being even more dominant in Bundesliga than Madrid was in La Liga. However, Lewandowski peak never quite reached CR7's peak of 15/16 or 14/15, even as Bayern was all-conquering. I'm not sure Madrid was more hyper-focused on CR7 than Bayern was for Lewandowski. The vast majority of any central midfielder since like 2010 are low-risk passes. I think you're missing the forest for the trees a bit here. Once again, you'll have to point me to the articles of the modern analysts who praise Xavi for being some sort of defense-unlocker. Not even the biggest Xavi fans use assists as an argument for his greatness. Xavi's value, since he was fully recognized, has always been about being the foundation of the team. His hyper-reliability couple with his line-breaking passes meant that the opposition had less of the ball, and his forwards had more of it in positions they could deal damage. Let's also not underrate how difficult it was for him to be that reliable. Plenty of players have high completion rate without doing anything with the ball, while Xavi always boast very high progression rate, because he was getting the ball forward. Plenty of players also struggled with the high-press while Xavi was the master of it, both as the conductor of Barcelona's own pressing, and being on the most press-resistant midfielder to ever play the game. You didn't have to cherry-pick those examples. Anyone who watched Xavi's game know. He didn't unlock the Dutch defense in 2010 World Cup either. It was ironically the guy who wouldn't make it at Barcelona, Cesc, who did.
To recap Ronaldinho the forward has never scored a single goal in a champions league final A champions league semi final A copa libertadores final A copa libertadores semi final A copa del rey final A copa del rey semi final The more you look at it he has probably 1 super performance across 90 minutes against a real heavyweight in their prime (Chelsea 2004/05) Ronaldinhos 2 goals against the shambolic galacticos in 2005 is overrated Some of the results prior to the el classico loss Celta vigo 3-2 real Madrid Deportivo 3-1 real Madrid Real Madrid 1-2 Valencia Espanyol 1-0 Real Madrid Lyon 3-0 real Madrid Real Madrid 1-1 Lyon November 5th 2005 Real Madrid 0-3 Barcelona Big game player ronaldinho December 6th 2005 Olympiacos 2-1 real Madrid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005–06_Real_Madrid_CF_season This was the la liga table after the 3-0 loss to Barcelona https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/laliga/spieltagtabelle/wettbewerb/ES1/saison_id/2005/spieltag/13 After 13 matches the 'legendary' real Madrid had 7 wins 5 losses 1 draw Big game player LOL But yes Cristiano Ronaldo needs 15 years of his career to match this
Yeah this after 30 years old In his actual prime he outperformed his xG by far(with every single body part) https://www.driblab.com/analysis-player/cristiano-ronaldo-vs-expected-goals-xg/ This combined with scoring more extremely low probability goals than anyone in Europe(almost twice as much as zlatan ibrahimovic) https://www.statsperform.com/resource/stats-performs-legends-series-part-two-zlatan-ibrahimovic/
Yes I know, and that was my point. We see that even in 14/15, statistically the last year of his prime as a 'finisher' he was over-performing by 8 goals, which was A LOT. If we go back further, then I'm sure we'd see him doing something similar. The scary part is of course the fact that his over-performance was actually quite sustainable, during his peak. In his post-peak years, as a finisher at least, he has also been very consistent at not underperforming. This is underrated. You see with Lewandowski where he suddenly had an off year where he just scored 11 goals under xG or Benzema who had a season where he underperformed by 9 goals. For a goalscorer, scoring at an average rate for a sustained period of time is actually more difficult than it sounds. Most have a year where they pop off and most have a year where nothing goes right. CR7 has been hyper-consistent over-performing during his peak, and then hyper-consistent at avoid bad years during his post-peak. I would also say that he has been very consistent at generating xG meaning his movement is almost always very good. He's been aided of course by playing for very good teams, but that's true for most great goalscorers as well. I wonder what happened in 18/19 though. Maybe CR7 and Juventus haven't quite adapted to each other yet.
@leadleader "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything." After that, all one needs is a bit of false equivalences and you could prove that Harry Kane is afterall greater than Lev Yashin. To use a bit of an extreme example lol. Football is too complex for that - not all goals, assists, dribbles etc are created equal and in fact it's not unusual to hear a fan having gone to watch Barcelona and leave more mesmerized by Iniesta than they were by Messi, Neymar, Suarez and the rest.
Hey Carlito, looking at the stats, I have a theory as well as to why CR7 no longer overperforms his xG. I suspect that even at his peak, he was not much more of a clinical finisher than he is now, although his athleticism surely allowed him to generate higher amount of xG than he does today. I wonder if what really pushed him above his xG are the spectacular goals that he used to score but no longer does at the same consistency. When I say spectacular goals, I specifically mean goals that are very difficult to score, thus it generates very low xG. So CR7 could be attempting like 40-50 of these a year and it might add only 2 xG to his total, but at his peak, he might have scored like 4-5 of them a year, thus overperforming his xG. Just comparing his goals from 20-21 to his goals from 14-15, the latter clearly has more goals that exceed his xG model:
* @poetgooner @Edhardy Redondo is a bad comparison to Messi anyway. People are less critical of forwards being wasteful because it is understood that that is the price of playmaking. Messi, Neymar, Hazard, KDB, they all enjoy this luxury. Redondo was a midfielder playmaker, and Redondo's midfield playmaking is the thing that decided the legendary game vs. Beckham's Manchester United. I mean, not only is Redondo not a bad comparison to Messi, but you are actually doing - unironically doing in fact - the exact thing that I have accused modernist fans of doing... You have created this completely baseless work of fiction, where Messi can be wasteful because he is a forward, so for some baseless reason, forwards can be wasteful but it doesn't count against forwards, but then Redondo is not a forward, Redondo is a midfielder playmaker, and so for some magical reason it is by definition wasteful when it is not Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi. In the context of their respective eras, Fernando Redondo and Zinedine Zidane were not perceived as wasteful players, because it was understood, at the time, that midfielder playmakers could be more or less exactly as wasteful as the forwards in front of them; in fact, the opposite was true, it was Raul Gonzalez and Andriy Shevchenko who were expected to be a lot less wasteful, versus Redondo and Zidane who enjoyed the luxury of being creative midfielder playmakers. With all due respect: your argument simply has no basis in reality. Messi was dispossessed, and Chelsea literally directly scored the goal to win 1-0 in the first leg of the Champions League Semi Finals 2012. Redondo was dispossessed several times, around 50% of the time that he tried high risk ball retention (same as Messi's dribbling ability, to be clear), but not a single one of Redondo's dispossessions was as reckless as Messi's dispossession. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo enjoy a luxury that has no actual basis in reality; it is probably the essence of the modernist delusion; it is a modern religion of pseudo statistics. At any rate, the truth is that high quality creativity is by definition high risk, and there is no actual reason why only forwards should enjoy the luxury of being wasteful with justification. There is no evidence or proof of that ever being the case, in any era, but perhaps especially in the modern game that is increasingly dominated by systems, not by wasteful forwards. I'm sure Redondo dispossession rate was no where near 50%. If it was, he would be the most wasteful player ever. I will admit that maybe the way I phrased the argument, was not ideal. But again, you are missing the point of what I think was a reasonably obvious argument; when Redondo tried to do something difficult, something that required risk-taking, he was dispossessed around 50% of the time, in what is one of the most impressive performances by a defensive midfielder. In perhaps simpler terms: the high risk skills that elevated Redondo, were only actually efficient around 50% of the time, in a game that is one of the all time great performances by a defensive midfielder. Of course, I didn't even explained that context, because I thought it was implicitly obvious, to sufficient a degree that literally explaining it in explicit terms, would be perceived as arrogant of me; Redondo was not dispossessed 50% of the time, because Redondo most of the time is not doing high risk abilities, because Redondo is a defensive midfielder, and defensive midfielders are not supposed to be taking high risks all of the time; not even Redondo could do it, and Redondo arguably is the most gifted defensive midfielder of all time. My point is, to be abundantly clear; Redondo was not truly outstanding from a defensive point of view, in his legendary performance vs. Manchester United... Redondo's high risk ball retention was the thing that marked the difference, and it only was efficient around 50% of the time. Modern football, and especially modern fans, would define that performance as overrated and wasteful, all the while ignoring that Messi in many of his better games is virtually identical. With all due respect, you actually unironically are a modernist, and what modernists tend to do is quite literally just look at the totality of whatever is being discussed; for example, if yellow cards happen to be the central thesis of the discussion taking place, then you instinctively look at the total number of yellow cards, and after that one thing you proceed to immediately refute my argument as nothing less than stupid bias. I mean, true to your modernist religion, you failed to even entertain and understand the most fundamental essence of my argument, which is why you feel entitled to define my argument as irrational, because the totality of yellow cards demonstrates that... because more yellow cards are shown... the argument makes no sense. Modern referee protection creates more yellow cards, but that does not change the fact that the modern game has evolved to a point where it is the norm to simply circumnavigate the obsolete yellow card; you need to understand the subtleties of context, in order to see the method behind the alleged madness. At any rate, looking only at the totality of yellow cards, is irrational. And by the same principle, looking at Redondo getting dispossessed 50% of the time that he touched the ball, is also irrational, because it is virtually impossible for a player of that class to get dispossessed 50% of the total time that he was on the ball. My choice of words was obviously not ideal; I obviously made the mistake of overestimating your understanding of this sport. I mean, I made the mistake of thinking that it was obvious that my whole argument was that Redondo was dispossessed 50% of the time that he tried to do a high risk ability; because it would be stupid to think that Redondo, in a game where he gets dispossessed 50% of the time that he touched the ball, was not wasteful. As usual, you have a bad habit of looking at the totality of whatever is being discussed; Redondo was dispossessed 50% of the time that he touched a ball, in total... When my obvious point was that Redondo's high risk abilities were only efficient half of the time. Same as Messi's dribbling. When Messi does it, it is wasteful but arbitrarily justified because Messi scores goals and is a forward. When Redondo does it, it is wasteful but arbitrarily not justified because Redondo does not scores goals and is not a forward. There is no actual basis in reality, to even begin to justify the above bias as an objective statistical fact of reality that should be respected or interpreted as demonstrable; self-evident; verifiable, etc. It literally is a faith-based religion at this point; reality is shaped by fiction, in a world where Donald Trump has convinced a good portion of the world population, that reality doesn't matter if your words are delivered with enough style and conviction. I mean, the one thing that modern football does well, is reflect the real world that pays for football. It is a faith-based religion system, where reality is actively ignored, and where there is a pathological necessity to justify baseless conspiracy theories, protected by the cloak of pseudo intellectual statistical rhetorical theatre that is used to justify the core principles of the modernist delusion. I'm pretty sure no modern fan look down on Redondo. Once again, you attribute these thoughts on modern fans that I haven't actually seen. Where are these Redondo-haters you speak of? I attribute these 'thoughts' to modern fans, and the fact that you personally have not seen this, does not change the fact that modern fans actually behave like that, by and large. I mean, honestly, I just don't understand how much of a self-absorbed person you would need to be, with all due respect, to not see the self-evident reality of how the vast majority of modern fans behave. Is @Legolas10 also delusional when he says that modern fans are absolutely unhinged and irrational?? In fact, I will give you a very recent dose of reality: modern England fans, they first booed Italy in the Euro Final, during the national anthem, and then they left the stadium almost literally completely empty, in what was an absolutely horrible display of anti-sportsmanship. These are modern fans. This is not some fanciful elaborate delusion that I have convinced myself exists. Please stop being a narcissistic modernist who is far too invested in this vulgar version of football, to the point that you cannot even concede the fact that modern fans are more or less exactly like I have described them. Watch just about any youtube video of Redondo, and there always are a lot of modern fans complaining about how the overrated Redondo took 3-4 touches to do what the average modern midfielder does with 1 touch. Zinedine Zidane is also the target of the same exact criticism by a majority of modern fans. The fact that you asking me for evidence of this, says more about you, than it says about me, as this so-called proof or evidence is literally all over the place in youtube. In fact, it is literally the reason for why midfielders like Zidane and Redondo no longer exist in modern football. That type of midfielder playmaker creativity tends to become an obstacle against the super clubs that have simplified the game, and the fans obviously have been indoctrinated to agree with the powerful people who have shaped the rules of the modern game. The result is one-sided and obvious; the flow of the modern money has created unprecedented disparity, and the fans have been 'educated' to see this as some form of positive inevitable progress, instead of the death and decline of a sport that used to be better and far more diverse. I will respond to the rest of your argument when I find enough time, but given the fact that you do not even appear to understand the basic elements of my argument... I doubt that the rest of your argument is going to be any good; you are just agreeing with opposite ideas simultaneously, as most modernists do, because you want to celebrate modern football, at whatever the cost. I mean, perhaps because you study medicine, and that is always a difficult reality to adjust to; perhaps you just need to perceive modern football as one of the few things that functions well in the real world, but again, outside of your little bubble, a lot of young ex-modernist fans can see the forest for the trees.
* @poetgooner I will merge my previous comments into this less rhetorically aggressive, longer, and better structured response. The limited time that I have to write my responses, is a big obstacle for me; I apologize if I have needlessly insulted you, in the process of explaining why I so strongly disagree with the essence of your modernist view of the world. I'm sure Redondo dispossession rate was no where near 50%. If it was, he would be the most wasteful player ever. Of course, Redondo's dispossession rate was not literally in total terms 50%. My point was that, when Redondo tried high difficulty, high risk, ball retention; he was dispossessed around 50% of the time. In fact, remarkably similar to how Messi gets dispossessed around 50% of the time that he tries to complete his signature dribbling runs. Redondo and Messi; their efficiency rate, when understood through the prism of the high risk abilities that made them iconic as players, even for the most gifted players of the respective ball retention and dribbling arts; the best case scenario is more or less 50% efficiency. This was my argument. Modern football always by definition destroys the meaning of reality, in such a way that football doesn't really make any sense, due to the fact that there is no clear-cut observable external reality to anchor the football. Of course, I didn't even explained that context, because I thought it was implicitly obvious, to sufficient a degree that literally explaining it in explicit terms, would be perceived as pedantic of me; Redondo was not dispossessed 50% of the time, because Redondo most of the time is not doing high risk abilities, because Redondo is a defensive midfielder, and defensive midfielders are not supposed to be taking high risks all of the time; not even Redondo could do it, and Redondo arguably is the most gifted defensive midfielder of all time. At any rate, I made the mistake of assuming that a person as intelligent as you appear to be, would immediately understand that my argument was never that Redondo gets literally dispossessed 50% of the time that he is on the ball; but rather that Redondo's iconic ball retention is only efficient around 50% of the time, even in his better games; just like Messi's legendary dribbling is only efficient more or less 50% of the time, even in his better games. Redondo was not truly outstanding from a defensive point of view in his legendary performance vs. Manchester United... Redondo's high risk ball retention was the thing that marked the difference, and it only was efficient around 50% of the time. Modern football, and especially modern fans, would define that performance as overrated and wasteful, all the while ignoring that Messi in many of his better games is virtually identical. I mean, with all due respect, you actually unironically are a modernist, and what modernists tend to do is quite literally just look at the totality of whatever is being discussed; for example, if the function or lack of function of yellow cards happens to be the central point of contention, then you instinctively look at the total number of yellow cards, and after doing only that one thing you proceed to immediately refute my argument as nothing less than foolish nostalgia-induced propaganda i.e. bias. I mean, true to your modernist religion, you failed to sufficiently entertain even the most fundamental essence of my argument, which is why you feel entitled to define my argument as irrational, because the totality of yellow cards demonstrates that... because more yellow cards are shown... the argument makes no sense. And of course, while it is true that modern referee protection obviously and deliberately creates more yellow cards; that does not change the fact that the function and relevance of the yellow card is virtually obsolete in modern football. In simpler terms; looking only at the totality of yellow cards is irrational because it needlessly ignores the actual function of the yellow cards, in other words, it almost completely ignores what yellow cards are doing to incentivize and protect creativity in the first place. For example, if yellow cards are in fact incentivizing easy yellow card resistant tactical fouls, that are easy as a direct result of the modern hyper-condensed football pitch; then overrated ball magicians like Redondo and Zidane become extinct, because the incentive for them exist is itself driven into extinction. More yellow cards and at the same time more yellow card resistant tactical fouls, are not mutually exclusive. You could easily have more yellow cards in terms of the totality, but at the same time a diminished proportion of yellow cards in terms of yellow cards shown per tactical foul; that is, both documented and undocumented tactical fouls have increased at a far greater rate than the actual yellow cards. Of course, undocumented fouls are demonstrable fouls that are ignored or forgiven, not documented, not official, not to be found in the statistical digital papers, as a result super club referee bias. Summary 1: You are exclusively and conveniently looking only at the totality of yellow cards, all the while you are also willfully ignoring the density of yellow cards in relation to the quantity of tactical fouls... That is a self-fulfilling prophecy of confirmation bias; on one hand, you want to pretend that players like Redondo and Zidane have not become extinct, and simultaneously you also want to forcibly pretend that modern yellow cards somehow do a better job of protecting the exact ball magicians who have literally been driven into extinction. Redondo and Zidane have become extinct, directly and precisely as consequence of the fact that yellow cards do not do anywhere near enough to protect the incentives that created said type of players in the first place; with the incentive becoming extinct, so did the players. That is the truth. That is obvious, if we are honest to ourselves. But for whatever the reasons you might have, you have created this bizarre echo chamber of contrary beliefs; you are unironically agreeing with opposite ideas simultaneously, as most modernists do, because you want to celebrate modern football, at whatever the cost. You will celebrate the extinction of ball retention magicians like Redondo and Zidane, as an inevitable and positive part of the progress towards modernity; to your eyes, that means that the classical wastefulness by the overrated ball magicians who lacked end product, has been replaced by something better, thankfully and inevitably as a result of the cold hard numbers reality that drives modern football. You will simultaneously celebrate the increase in yellow cards, as evidence of the alleged fact that ball magicians like Redondo and Zidane are somehow better protected by the era of football that literally drove them into extinction. In other words, like most conspiracy theorists (the bad kind of conspiracy theorists), your conspiracy can only work if you simultaneously agree with opposite realities; and you are so invested in your conspiratorial modernist bubble, that you cannot even see the fact that you are agreeing with mutually exclusive theories; you will celebrate the increase in yellow cards, as nothing less than irrefutable evidence of how Zidane and Redondo would be better protected today; but then you simultaneously celebrate that modern football does not have time for the wasteful overrated players who have been driven into extinction. At any rate, looking only at the total increase of yellow cards is always a pointless exercise of bias confirmation, if you ignore how said increase in yellow cards actually relates to the overwhelming increase in tactical fouls. Similarly, the idea that Redondo was dispossessed literally 50% of the time that he was on the ball, is another pointless exercise of bias confirmation, because the argument doesn't make any sense, because nothing I said would even begin to justify such a irrational conclusion, etc. I mean, why did you think that my argument was that Redondo, one of the all time greats in terms of ball retention, gets dispossessed 50% of the time that he is on the ball?? Your counter argument makes me sound like a statistically illiterate person, and this is not the first time that you do this, so I have to begin to question if you are a bad faith actor looking for an easy "slam dunk" against my general premise. Of course, my obvious point was that Redondo's high risk ball retention abilities were only efficient half of the time. Same as Messi's dribbling. When Messi does it, it is wasteful but arbitrarily justified because Messi scores goals and is a forward. When Redondo does it, it is wasteful but arbitrarily not justified because Redondo does not scores goals and is not a forward. There is no actual basis in reality, to even begin to justify the above theory as some objective statistical fact of reality that should be respected or interpreted as demonstrable; self-evident; verifiable, etc. It literally is a faith-based religion at this point; reality is shaped by fiction, in a world where Donald Trump has convinced a good portion of the world population, that reality doesn't matter if your words are delivered with enough style and conviction. I mean, the one thing that modern football does well, is reflect the real world that pays for football. It is a faith-based religion system, where reality is actively ignored, and where there is a pathological necessity to justify baseless conspiracy theories, protected by the cloak of pseudo intellectual statistical rhetorical theatre that is used to justify the core principles of the modernist delusion. Redondo is a bad comparison to Messi anyway. People are less critical of forwards being wasteful because it is understood that that is the price of playmaking. Messi, Neymar, Hazard, KDB, they all enjoy this luxury. Redondo was a midfielder playmaker, and Redondo's midfield playmaking is the thing that decided the legendary game vs. Beckham's Manchester United. I mean, not only is Redondo not a bad comparison to Messi, but you are actually doing - unironically doing in fact - the exact thing that I have accused modernist fans of doing... You have created this completely baseless work of fiction, where Messi can be wasteful because he is a forward, so for some baseless reason, forwards can be wasteful but it doesn't count against forwards, but then Redondo is not a forward, Redondo is a midfielder playmaker, and so for some magical reason it is by definition wasteful when it is not Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi. In the context of their respective eras, Fernando Redondo and Zinedine Zidane were not perceived as wasteful players, because it was understood, at the time, that midfielder playmakers could be more or less exactly as wasteful as the forwards in front of them; in fact, the opposite was probably true, because it was Raul Gonzalez and Andriy Shevchenko who were expected to be a lot less wasteful, versus Redondo and Zidane who enjoyed the luxury of an artistic license. With all due respect: your argument simply has no basis in reality. Messi was dispossessed, and Chelsea literally directly scored the goal to win 1-0 in the first leg of the Champions League Semi Finals 2012. Redondo was dispossessed several times, around 50% of the time that he tried high risk ball retention (same as Messi's dribbling ability, to be clear), but not a single one of Redondo's dispossessions was as reckless as Messi's dispossession. Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo enjoy a luxury that has no actual basis in reality; it is probably the essence of the modernist delusion; it is a modern religion of pseudo statistics. At any rate, the truth is that high quality creativity is by definition high risk, and there is no actual reason to justify why only forwards should enjoy the luxury of being wasteful with a cause. There is no evidence or proof of that ever being the case, in any era, but perhaps that is especially truthful in the modern game that is increasingly dominated by systems, not by wasteful forwards. I'm pretty sure no modern fan look down on Redondo. Once again, you attribute these thoughts on modern fans that I haven't actually seen. Where are these Redondo-haters you speak of? In fact, I will give you a very recent dose of reality: modern England fans, they first booed Italy in the Euro Final, during the national anthem, and then they left the stadium almost literally completely empty, in what was an absolutely horrible display of anti-sportsmanship. These are modern fans. This is not some fanciful elaborate delusion that I have convinced myself exists. Please stop being a narcissistic modernist who is far too invested in this vulgar version of football, to the point that you cannot even concede the fact that modern fans are more or less exactly like I have described them. Brexit 2016. Cambridge Analytica 2016. Donald Trump 2016. Boris Johnson 2019. Zinedine Zidane 2016, 2017, and 2018. Jurgen Kloop 2019 and 2020. Thomas Tuchel 2020 and 2021. Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid 2014. Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid 2016. Liverpool v Tottenham 2019. Chelsea v Manchester City 2021. The disparity between the natural born winners versus the natural born peasants - the rulers, versus the oppressed - has reached science fiction levels of absurdity. I mean, what invisible ethical line needs to be crossed, before modernists like you get to concede that something is seriously, terribly, profoundly wrong with how modern football operates on the basis of infinite speculation?? My point is not that modern fans are inherently evil and morally corrupt; my point is merely that the modern world is being aggressively dismantled by an underrated, misunderstood, neo conservative radical ideology, "I am not racist, I am merely an empiricist." The modern world is full of that double-speak, and unfortunately, modern football has not been the exception to that cancer. Watch just about any youtube video of Redondo, and there always are a lot of modern fans complaining about how the overrated Redondo took 3-4 touches to do what the average modern midfielder does with 1 touch. Zinedine Zidane is also the target of the same exact criticism by a majority of modern fans. In fact, it is literally the reason for why midfielders like Zidane and Redondo no longer exist in modern football. That type of midfielder playmaker creativity tends to become an obstacle against the super clubs that have simplified the game, and the fans obviously have been indoctrinated to agree with the powerful people who have shaped the rules of the modern game. The result is one-sided and obvious; the flow of the modern money has created unprecedented disparity, and the fans have been 'educated' to see this as some form of inevitable progress, always in a positive light, as if progress by definition was always positive, instead of the decline of a sport that used to be better and far more diverse. I mean, perhaps because you study medicine, and that is always a difficult reality to adjust to; perhaps you just need to perceive modern football as one of the few things that functions well in the real world, but again, outside of your little bubble, a lot of young ex-modernist fans can already see the forest for the trees.
I just fact-checked this on whoscored.com but sadly they don’t seem to have the 1989 UEFA cup in their records. Indeed I’m not sure any of the professional dribble counters were alive at the time.
The final two matches we have recorded are both from Napoli’s successful campaign in the 1989 UEFA Cup: the 3-0 win over Juventus in the second leg of their quarter-final and the 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the first of their semi-final. Maradona is only 28 at this point but arguably just 18 or so months away from the end of his serious top-level career. he attempts only five dribbles and completes just one in these two matches in 1989. Andrea Carnevale and Careca do the majority of the dribbling on this Napoli side. https://statsbomb.com/2020/04/decoding-diego-maradona-by-the-numbers/
* @poetgooner Being the person that gives the team the edge and being the person that benefits the most from the team's edge is not mutually exclusive. With all due respect; why is that statement a revelation or even relevant at all?? Of course, being the player that allegedly creates the team edge, versus being the player that benefits the most from said team edge, it is not mutually exclusive. Of course your statement is reasonable, but also, super obvious. Of course, my argument always obviously was that Ronaldo became more impactful, when he lost the athletic ability to bully Real Madrid into submission; Ronaldo reluctantly had to accept a far more traditional role in the club, and the club benefitted from this, immediately. The problem with physical prime Cristiano Ronaldo, in my opinion, is that he coerced Real Madrid into playing on the basis of team edge superiority; there is a big difference between playing on the basis of superior tactical cohesiveness, versus playing on the basis of superior team edge; that is, an automated system that you expect will mechanically and inevitably overwhelm the opponent, if nothing else, because of Real Madrid's vastly superior team edge. When an opponent, strong or weak, was of high quality in terms of tactical cohesiveness, Real Madrid's superior team edge was simply not enough to compete against Barcelona; and Ronaldo's goal scoring form in the vast majority of games that are not won by 3 goals or more (read: superior team edge system of play) reflects this reality. When superior team edge is not a significant factor, in other words, when games are not won by 3 goals or more, Ronaldo has less goal involvement than Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I mean, I honestly do not understand how you could possibly even begin to entertain the idea, that Ronaldo is the player who creates the team edge, but then Ronaldo's amazing impact evaporates in the vast majority of games that are not won by 3 goals or more... Why is Ronaldo's superior impact uniquely defined by games that are won by 3 goals or more?? How can Ronaldo possibly be as valuable as your argument requires him to be, when his impact evaporates in the vast majority of games that are not won by 3 goals or more?? Barcelona 1993/94 played 8 blowout win games. Barcelona 1993/94 played 30 competitive margin games. AC Milan 1988/89 played 7 blowout win games. AC Milan 1988/89 played 31 competitive margin games. Real Madrid 2011/12 played 15 blowout win games. Real Madrid 2011/12 played 23 competitive margin games. Real Madrid Ronaldo Era played, on average, literally more than double the average of blowout win games as AC Milan in their glory era in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The analysis could be more thorough, but let's just decide on doing two basic things; periods of 23 competitive margin games and also periods of 30 competitive margin games, as the two standards for the analysis. For modern players like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mesut Ozil; because of the hyper abundance of blowout win games, the games to be added to complete the 30 competitive margin games, will be games that take place directly before the winter break. For example, if 7 additional games are needed in order to complete the 30 competitive margin games; it will be the 7 games that are played directly before the winter break. The reason for this is that La Liga tends to be extremely competitive just before the winter break, as most clubs want to finish half the season in the best possible position. Of course, the cherry-picked rationale behind this, is that the league season is long, and clubs are not exactly as "well oiled" as would be ideal in the first games of the 38 round league format, which could work against modern players; so to circumnavigate this potential disadvantage against the modern players, I think it works better if these additional games are cherry-picked in such a way that the most competitive period of the season is selected as the standard. I do not have the time to do a more comprehensive study at the moment, so the list of players to be analyzed is very short: Romario 1993/94. Zlatan Ibrahimovic 2009/10. Cristiano Ronaldo 2011/12. Mesut Ozil 2011/12. Messi 2011/12. Diego Costa 2013/14 After 23 Competitive Margin Games: Romario La Liga 1993/94 18 non penalty goals 4 assists 22 goal involvement 32 points by Barcelona 36 goals by Barcelona * without Romario's goal involvement 14 goals by Barcelona Messi La Liga 2011/12 12 non penalty goals 7 assists 19 goal involvement 46 points by Barcelona 43 goals by Barcelona * without Messi's goal involvement 24 goals by Barcelona Zlatan Ibrahimovic La Liga 2009/10 + Serie A 2008/09 13 non penalty goals 5 assists 18 goal involvement 55 points by Barcelona + Inter Milan 43 goals by Barcelona + Inter Milan * without Zlatan's goal involvement 25 goals by Barcelona + Inter Milan Diego Costa La Liga 2013/14 14 non penalty goals 1 assist 15 goal involvement 52 points by Atletico Madrid 38 goals by Atletico Madrid * without Costa's goal involvement 23 goals by Atletico Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo La Liga 2011/12 10 non penalty goals 4 assists 14 goal involvement 40 points by Real Madrid 32 goals by Real Madrid * without Ronaldo's goal involvement 18 goals by Real Madrid Mesut Ozil La Liga 2011/12 1 non penalty goal 11 assists 12 goal involvement 37 points by Real Madrid 32 goals by Real Madrid * without Ozil's goal involvement 20 goals by Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Ozil both have nearly identical goal involvement, after 23 competitive margin games; this literally happened in the same La Liga 2011/12 campaign. Keep in mind that Ronaldo allegedly is the best European player of all time, and Mesut Ozil was not even a generational great; just another world class midfielder playmaker, but his impact was not great enough to say that he was a generational great like the likes of Gabriel Batistuta, Fernando Redondo, Luis Figo, Thierry Henry, etc. Cristiano Ronaldo is literally below all the other forward players, after 23 competitive margin games. Cristiano Ronaldo's statistical record gets actually worse, as you add more and more competitive margin games. Why do you think this happens?? I mean, I could - if I had enough time to do the work - add many other forward players into the analysis above, and the result would always be one-sided against Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano Ronaldo uniquely requires the games that are won by 3 goals or more, in order to become an equal against Messi, and in order to inflate himself as a superior talent versus all the other generational greats that were referenced in the analysis. Could you explain to me why Ronaldo only ever creates the team edge, only in the minority of games that are won by 3 goals or more, but then his alleged statistical impact never actually materializes in the majority of games that are not won by 3 goals or more?? In conclusion: it is almost like Cristiano Ronaldo is a toxic player who brings with himself, in addition to his goals, a culture of team edge superiority; team edge superiority is not a factor in games that are not won by 3 goals or more, which is why Ronaldo's goal involvement is literally worse than all the other forward players referenced in the analysis. Ronaldo's inferior goal involvement. Real Madrid's inferior points. Barcelona and Atletico Madrid superior points. Messi's superior goal involvement. Real Madrid's superior goal scoring ability. Everything is one-sided. Everything indicates the same thing; Real Madrid plays to score as many goals as possible, not because it is a good strategy to win as many points as possible, but because Ronaldo wants to score as many goals as possible. 1. Ronaldo was a coercive and toxic element in La Liga, especially when he was in physical prime, especially when he was heavily involved in the build up play of Real Madrid. 2. Zinedine Zidane was intelligent enough to greatly reduce the sphere of influence of Ronaldo; the great and mighty Ronaldo was immediately reduced to a mere poacher of goals, and the results are there to speak for themselves. Somehow, this became Ronaldo's personal accomplishment, instead of Zidane's accomplishment as the manager who actually stood up against Ronaldo's toxicity. Juventus suffered the consequences of that; that was obvious to see, if you actually watched the games. This is not some elaborate conspiracy theory; Cristiano Ronaldo simply doesn't add the statistical value that is perceived to be his average form. This is especially obvious in La Liga, where Ronaldo played for 9 years without ever demonstrating the statistical impact that was long ascribed to the Ronaldo brand. No amount of propaganda will ever sufficiently mask nor hide this reality. After 77 Competitive Margin Games: Messi La Liga 2009/10 + La Liga 2010/11 + La Liga 2011/12 + La Liga 2012/13 58 non penalty goals 30 assists 88 goal involvement 156 goals by Barcelona * without Messi's goal involvement 68 goals by Barcelona Zlatan Ibrahimovic Serie A 2008/09 + La Liga 2009/10 + Serie A 2010/11 59 goal involvement / 77 games 36 non penalty goals 23 assists 59 goal involvement 122 goals by Inter Milan + Barcelona + AC Milan * without Zlatan's goal involvement 63 goals by Inter Milan + Barcelona + AC Milan Cristiano Ronaldo La Liga 2009/10 + La Liga 2010/11 + La Liga 2011/12 + La Liga 2012/13 57 goal involvement / 77 games 41 non penalty goals 16 assists 57 goal involvement 134 goals by Real Madrid * without Ronaldo's goal involvement 77 goals by Real Madrid I would need to track down the points won by the clubs after 77 competitive margin games; this is an old analysis that I did, and at the time, I unfortunately overlooked the importance of points won by the club; but again, there is no concrete reason to believe that the points per game data, will not align with the one sided conclusion to be drawn from the 23 competitive margin games. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is playing Serie A with Inter Milan, and then La Liga with Barcelona, and then back in the Serie A but this time with AC Milan... and he is still doing better than Cristiano Ronaldo, a player who played 9 years with the highest scoring Real Madrid of all time; coincidentally the highest scoring club of all time, quite probably. I mean, Ronaldo allegedly is a ceiling raiser player... so why was the roof not raised in La Liga, and why was the roof not raised especially in the competitive margin games where it is a lot more difficult for star players to inflate their statistics?? In conclusion: the rules conveniently apply differently to Cristiano Ronaldo, even when it is so abundantly obvious that Cristiano Ronaldo is simply overrated; a statistically inflated talent who benefitted from team edge statistical farming systems for literally a complete decade, if not for longer.
Given his known inconsistency in this year I’m surprised you’re extrapolating from two games. Thanks though, you laid the path for me to extrapolate from 2 games, England and Belgium, and say therefore he IS the best dribbler ever
Looking at statsbomb’s expected goals statistics in those games where he had one shot, just makes me think how seriously flawed these statistics are. Comparing a player who has 10 shots in 1 game with a player that has 10 shots in 10 games (1 shot in each) and giving both scenarios the same expected goals stat is ridiculous! Each shot a player has in one match makes the next shot more likely to be a goal because the player’s getting their shooting boots “warmed up” so to speak. On the other hand the shot you had in last week’s game has no effect on the quality of your next shot. Every time they add another “control” (distance, angle, preceding dribble, pressure, whatever) to make their stats more detailed i just think of something else they aren’t controlling for.
I just don't see any evidence of your claims. Yes, it is true forwards are afforded more chances in the modern game, but that is mainly because the best playmakers in many teams have been forwards. Neymar and Messi are prime examples. However, there are still plenty of playmaking midfielders today and they are afforded the same luxury when they are their team's main playmakers. Where are the articles calling KDB or Verratti or Bruno Fernandes wasteful? Why was Modric given his due if the modern game is so harsh on playmaking midfielders? Is it maybe because people recognize the relative lack of playmaking in the BBC trio compared to the duo of Kroos and Modric? You attribute these worldviews on so called modern fans, yet there is no evidence. The modern fans are not calling playmaking midfielders wasteful? Are they maybe calling older playmaking midfielders wasteful? Is there some campaign against the likes of Redondo, Pirlo, Rui Costa, Deco, Scholes? Or are these players actually celebrated by most fans alike? It is not that difficult. You don't have to go on long tirade and call me names. All you have to do is provide some actual evidence of modern fans holding the views you claim they do. The influencers of the modern worldview are not hiding in the shadows. They produce more content than ever. So just link them here. Show us the opinions that you disagree with rather than create one out of nothing. There'll be plenty to discuss. Hell, we just had a whole "modernistic" discussion on how Ronaldo was perhaps an "average" finisher during his time at Juventus, using modern tools like xG.
That's a possible fallacy though. The kind of evidence you'd need to prove that players need to "warm up their boots" I'm not even sure exists. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone is under the impression that xG is a perfect stat by any mean. It's biggest strength is that it is based on literally thousands of goals being scored, so it has a pretty good idea of what an "average" footballer can expect to score in a random game. It doesn't tell you much more than that.
It should be as provable as the effect of shot distance, angle to goal, etc, on the outcome. I mean, just collect all the shots by Cristiano Ronaldo in a single season that are equivalent with respect to all these other variables, and then sort them according to whether they’re his first, second, third, etc, shot in a game, and then compare the percentage of each that he scored. To clarify my position on all this, I actually admire the effort of statisticians to provide quantitative insights into the game. It’s just two things that irritate me: 1. Poor definitions that allow apples to oranges comparisons when the labelling misleads people to think it’s an apples to apples comparison (I’ve been over this before with what they call “take ons”, actually in practice very different types of actions being bundled together) and definitions that also don’t provide a clear boundary between what is and isn’t included. (Again if you run past someone that’s 3 yards to your side is that a “take on” or not?) 2. Really dodgy inferences people keep making from the statistics. Take this for example from sportskeeda.com: “The Expected assists(xA) basically assesses the creative output of a player by measuring the chance of a key pass becoming an assist. It depends on various factors such as the positioning of the finisher, the speed of the through ball, the kind of pass and other things. According to Opta, the expected assists model is independent of whether a shot was taken and converted or not, but rather relies on the quality of the pass.” Expected assists absolutely does NOT assess the creative output of a player nor the quality of their passes. It assesses whether they have more or less assists than a player typically would with respect to how clinical or profligate their teammates are. THAT is an interesting insight, I’d love to know whether, statistically speaking, a player has more or less assists than they “should” in relation to their teammates’ finishing performance. But NO NO NO it does NOT mean player A with a high xA is more creative or has greater quality in their passes than player B who has a lower xA. Player A could have a high xA because they regularly have the assist version of a tap-in, followed literally by a tap-in by their teammate. xA tells you ALMOST nothing about the quality of the passes, it just tells you how big the chances created are. And yet people just keep making fallacies all over the place. I genuinely think statistical analysis instead of enlightening understanding is contributing to a bonfire of fallacious reasoning, because people just don’t know how to intelligently interpret statistical insights for what they are....