How good was Dusan Tadic?

I was impressed that he didn't leave Ajax after 18/19. Names like De Ligt, De Jong and even Van de Beek left but not Tadić who was easily the best player. Maybe because of his age (he was 30 years old if I'm not mistaken). The others were Dutch and much younger. He is an elite final ball playmaker. He and Payet are underrated. Lots of football and little media.

 

Have you seen Hakim Ziyechs ratings in the eredivisie




Basically on par with peak cristiano Ronaldo in la liga 2009/10 and 2010/11

Did you see Hakim Ziyech playing for Chelsea In a top 5 league?

I understand what you are saying about Southampton not being a top team but we saw the guy who outperformed Tadic by a significant margin go and join a top team and basically flop

Tadic vs Real Madrid was legendary but it was only one game and you already mention the context surrounding that Real Madrid team

They were in 9th place when Luis Suarez scored a hat trick against them

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/laliga/spieltag/wettbewerb/ES1/plus/?saison_id=2018&spieltag=10

I think their form picked up a little bit by the time Tadic faced them but not so much that we could call them a top team

 

Now that you say it, I believe that most of the players who left Ajax were nowhere near the level they showed in 18/19. The worst of all is probably Van de Beek. De Jong is probably the best player but he was put on the bench because the sacred beasts of Barça were still there and now that they have left there is Gavi and Pedri. I think it's very unfair what Barça does with De Jong. He should be the guy Xavi should build the team around. Like Guardiola himself did with Xavi or De Bruyne. No way Pedri is more of a player than De Jong to even play him as a defender sometimes. A clear wasted potential. Moving on, De Ligt was a good defender for Juve and now Bayern but he never came close to the level of 18/19 either. Ziyech is another Case as Carlito pointed out.

@lessthanjake a case of a Dutch player who played in a weaker team in a strong league and still managed to stand-out were Van Dijk playing for Southampton

 

They are all good players, but they were in a suitable system and well oiled team that allowed them to flourish. As well as psychological factor that was behind them at the time.

I would say most of those players are actually better individually now than in 2019, but not performing at the same level due to thsoe reasons.

Players who transcend systems and atmosphere inside a team are very rare.

That is why whoever comes to City becomes great and whoever leaves drops off. It is a manager's responsibility to ensure conditions for players to flourish

 

That's just one of the reasons why I have Ronaldo so high on my all time list. His adaptability. He managed to be top scorer of three teams in three different leagues, teams, managers, teammates, role, position, tactics, etc... No matter who comes and goes. The only constant is Ronaldo

 

I essentially agree but probably not to the same extent as you.

I wouldnt call Ronaldo adaptable, but he is great at few things that are universally needed in every team like off the ball movements, aerial threat, finishing. I would say he has an universal playing style in front of the goal that gels well with any system because every system needs a goalscorer. As long as he is deployed in that role he is great. How much he will score really depends on how much his team can create chances and move the ball forward without him. He will always do his job well.

But also it is unfair to compare a goalscorer with midfielders. Midfield is much more complex, dynamic and nuanced area of the pitch that has a wider variety of schemes of play. It is much more difficult for a midfielder to figure out what to do and to adapt than forwards.

Midfielders performance heavily relies on the system.

 

I don't think so. Ronaldo was a midfielder at ManU and did very well there. At Juve he had little service and was asked to do much more in game than he made in the last four seasons at Madrid. Juve's midfield lacked a lot of creativity. After he also were the outstanding player at ManU with 37 years old being the best player of the UCL at group stages under Solskjaer

 

He was a wide midfielder but essentially a winger but the term wasnt used as much at the time.

Wide midfielders have more nuanced role than forwards but still pretty straight forward job. Run with the ball.. nor did Ronaldo tested himself as a "wide midfielder" in other teams and did so only in United, in one system.

And even tho Ronaldo has seemingly "changed" positions in his career, he does play essentially the same throughout his whole career varying his playing style only in terms of how much he runs with the ball or not based on physical abilities and decline.

He wasnt playing centrally at any point nor was successful as a lone striker in a short period of time he was deployed as such.

Regardless i was refering to central midfielders..

 

The primary role of a wide midfielder is essentially the same of a central midfielder. He have to pressure without the ball, recover the ball by tackling or anticipating, advance the ball by dribbling or passing and giving the final ball by crossing (the central midfielder generally gives the final ball by playing a through ball instead of crossing but this is given the area of the pitch in which they are playing).

Later Ronaldo received a free role in which he cuts inside to distribute the ball and shape the attacks

Later he became an inverted winger with less defensive responsibility but more offensive responsibility

Later he became an second striker playing alongside an #9

Etc...

 

This is not a thread for this and you are too generous in making distinctions between those roles because it is Ronaldo. Those are pretty much the same role with varying degrees of involvment in ball carrying and scoring depending on particularities of the team and his physical capabilities at the time.

You might wanna study players who have actually changed their roles throughout their careers and are versatile like Kimmich, Sergi Roberto, Bernardo Silva, Griezmann, etc.

 

Well, for me, Ronaldo in his first seasons at United is a player different from his last youngster years at ManU which is different from his earlier years at Madrid which is different from his last years at Madrid which is different from his years at Juve which is different from his old years at ManU which is different from his years at al Nassr by now.

I think if you look at the career of Michael Jordan you can make a great comparison to Ronaldo. In Jordan's earlier career he was dunking, flying, doing all the magic the made him "his airness" but as Jordan said him self in order to take the poundings in the playoffs he gained weight and by the time he won his last 3 championships he had developed his unstoppable fade away jump shot and drove less to the rim. So while it might have been a bit less pretty it was very effective and took less of a tole on his body.

You can see the same for Ronaldo he was more flashy, pacy, etc.. earlier in his days. As he got older he successfully made the transition into an absolute assassin like a George Best turning into an Eusebio

 

Of course we have various examples of players from Eredivisie doing really well on top leagues like Cruijff, Van Basten and Luis Suarez, just to say some few examples. R10, R9 and Romario also came from Eredivisie

 

Ziyech is not the best example because he has done very well in multiple EL/CL seasons (at least three seasons) and has done fine in the World Cup too.

De Jong was La Liga best midfielder last season in my opinion. Or very close at least.

 

I also think for Tadic the barometer is how he did in an international setting and maybe the games vs PSV and Feyenoord.

Unfortunately the difference between the 6th/7th league and the top five has grown enormously, in no small part because of Uefa their actions. Below an (recent) example of how that works and how actual performance wasn't the initial trigger:

"For six years, Italy only had two automatic slots in Europe’s blue-riband club competition. The teams finishing third were made to go through the preliminaries.

This had a twofold impact on the league.

On the one hand, Juventus dominated, on account of their new stadium and all the Champions League revenue they earned as, come the knockout stages, they were often the only Italian team swimming in the market pool (aka, the vast amount of cash allocated by Italy’s broadcasters). Juventus rarely had to split it three ways, because Italian teams tended not to make it through the summer play-offs to reach the group phase.

The reason for that was simple enough. The play-offs often started before a Serie A season got underway and clubs were reluctant to spend money on new signings until Champions League revenue was guaranteed. It meant teams were half-cooked and unfinished. In seven seasons, five Serie A sides fell at the play-off hurdle. Then in 2017, after lobbying from Juventus’ Andrea Agnelli, the European Club Association’s erstwhile chairman, Italy got four automatic Champions League places back.

Restored access to its vast riches has, over time, made Serie A more competitive. They have rewarded Atalanta’s model and helped new owners turn the Milanese clubs around. There are ‘Seven Sisters’ again (the nickname for the world’s seven big oil companies which, in Italy, was transferred to the seven clubs who started each season with a chance of winning the title)."
https://theathletic.com/4547793/2023/05/25/serie-a-european-finals/

 

Tadic season 18/19:

️63 games
40 goals
️25 assists
03 titles
Eredivisie MVP
Eredivisie top scorer
Eredivisie assist leader
Eredivisie team of the season

G+A in big games:
Bayern: 2 goals 1 assist
Benfica: 1 goal
Real Madrid: 1 goal 2 assists
Tottenham:️ 1 assist
Portugal: 1 goal
Feyenoord: 1 goal
PSV: 1 goal
Willem ll: 1 goal

Detail: he was 21st on the Ballon d'Or list, and was also left out of the UEFA team of the season

 

Tadic is arguably the fourth best Serbian-born midfielder of all time. He is only surpassed by Dragan Stojkovic, Dragoslav Sekularac and Dejan Stankovic.

 

I would be inclined towards Tadic above Stankovic I think actually probably (though maybe I am more likely to be impressed by the ball playing AMs, and maybe overall I didn't see enough of Stankovic).

I would also appreciate/rate Vladimir Jugovic moreso than Stankovic myself I'd say though. Jugovic and Tadic is a somewhat hard comparison, because Jugovic did play from a deeper position generally.

What I couldn't be sure about is where a player like Vujadin Boskov for example would fit into any prospective list. Apologies for re-posting this France Football ratings list from the 1958 World Cup for the nth time lol, but what is known is that Boskov was up near the top for half-backs as far as that goes (and had a good reputation as a quality international football player in the 1950s)


He was probably more famous ultimately as manager of Sampdoria of course though.

To be fair, Tadic also rated very highly during this last World Cup (including for me, but also, as much as I wouldn't say they should always be taken literally/definitively, the Sofascore ratings for example)
Top 10 ratings with 60% of 'full tournament' played: Messi on 8.27 down to Livakovic on 7.33
World Championship – scores, standings, schedule | Sofascore
Copy and paste of Tadic's average rating (Serbia going out at the group stage)
"Average Sofascore rating
7.40" (would fit just below the middle of the top 10).

I guess I'm partly influenced by Stankovic's own 1998 World Cup though (I remember he was picked out before the tournament, along with Owen, as a youngster who can be a star of the tournament) - these ratings show it didn't go great (but for sure I realise the same Italian sources would have later been at least more impressed by his contributions playing for Italian clubs of course)
Football Ratings: Average ratings World Cup 1998. (football-ratings.blogspot.com)
7,10: Thuram
7,00: Zidane
6,95: Davids
6,90: Mondragón
6,75: Pagliuca, Ince, Owen, Luis Hernández
6,70: Petit, Vieri
6,65: Desailly, Bierhoff
6,60: Di Biagio, Mahdavikia
6,55: B. Laudrup, R. Baggio
6,50: Barthez, Dunga, F. Cannavaro, Overmars, Šuker, Blanco, Wilmots
6,45: M. Laudrup, Deschamps, Rivaldo, Bergomi
6,40: Ronaldo, Hadji, Konsel
6,35: Verón, Lizarazu, Costacurta, F. de Boer, Seedorf, R. de Boer, Scholes
6,30: Simeone, Blanc, Boghossian, Cafú, César Sampaio, Ladić, Boban, Mboma, César Ramírez
6,25: Ortega, Helveg, Luis Enrique, Winter, Tahar, Mihajlović, Hejduk, Azizi, Arellano
6,20: Schmeichel, van der Sar, Bergkamp, Jonk, Bilić, Adams, G. Neville, Komljenović, Njanka, Daei, Bagheri
6,15: Batistuta, Henry, Cocu, Asanović, Campbell, Matthäus, El Ouaer, Nakata
6,10: Heinze, Seaman, Leighton, Collins, Wome
6,05: Almeyda, Jørgensen, Campo, Soldo, Tarnat, Bassir, S. Trabelsi, Jugović, García Aspe
6,00: Djorkaeff, Taffarel, Maldini, Stimac, Prosinečki, Šimić, Anderton, Shearer, Hamann, Dailly, Mohamedkhani, Kawaguchi, Soma, Whitmore, Kralj
5,95: Roa, Colding, Leonardo, Stam, Jarni, Jeremies, Mykland, Deflandre
5,90: J. Zanetti, Schjønberg, Karembeu, Roberto Carlos, D. Baggio, Hierro, Raúl, Reiziger, Stanić, Vlaović, Jurcić, Le Saux, Soulimani, Pashazadeh, Akita, Yamaguchi, Gardner
5,85: C. López, Chamot, Denílson, Sergi, Numan, Grodås, Lambert, Borkelmans, Petrović, Khakpour, Nanami, Pardo
5,80: Ayala, Rieper, A. Nielsen, Aldair, Moriero, Kohler, Davino, T.A. Flo, Saber, Durie, Al Jaber, Zdravkov, Nilis, Stewart, Minavand, Lozano, Germán Villa
5,75: Vivas, Diomède, Alkorta, Etxeberria, Kluivert, Beckham, Rekdal, H. Flo, Wetl, Ndo, Zubromawi, Moshoeu, Mkhalele, Balakov, Dooley, Regis, Ihara, Djorović, Jokanović
5,70: Høgh, Júnior Baiano, Di Livio, P. Møller, Klinsmann, Berg, Chippo, Fish, Suárez
5,65: Bebeto, Thon, Eggen, Pfeifenberger, Kühbauer, Song, Al Deayea, McCarthy, Reyna, Estili, Chihi, Souayah, Narahashi, Nakayama
5,60: Trezeguet, Köpke, Wörns, Riseth, Naybet, Hendry, Burley, Mählich, Vonk, Radebe
5,55: Heinrich, Feiersinger, C. Jones, Sellimi, Stojković
5,50: Guivarc’h, Pfeffer, Amin, Al Shahrani, Fortune, Iliev, Serna, Jo
5,45: Albertini, Amor, Hässler
5,40: Sand, Johnsen, Bjørnebye, Al Jahani, Bermúdez, Palacios, Valderrama, Goodison, Hall
5,35: Lara
5,30: Del Piero, Zubizarreta, T. Ivanov, Cabrera, Aristizábal, Sinclair, Stanković
5,25: Omam Biyik, Issa, Rincón, Mijatović
5,10: Schöttel
5,05: Kiko, Kishishev
5,00: Benzekri, Stoichkov

 

I was referring to attacking midfielders. Jugovic from my point of view was mostly a central midfielder.

Stojkovic and Sekularac were on another level, but it is true that Stankovic was more in Tadic's range.

 

Ok, sure, I understand (I guess Stankovic could be considered a bit 'in between' a true attacking midfielder and a central midfielder all in all?).

It would possibly not be Boskov from the 1950s (though I believe he was the constructive/attacking type of half back) that would fit among attacking midfield options then, but inside forwards if anything (but you already mentioned Sekularac, and I guess players such as Mitic or Milutinovic would be considered more forwards than midfielders probably).

I would potentially throw Vladimir Petrovic into the mix I guess, albeit I know his best form was shown before he left Yugoslavia.