The best players of the season 2003-4

Impressive but off topic


R9 was an impressive spectacle but at the end of 99% of his inter dribbling runs was a wayward shot or misplaced pass
All those ball hogging entitlements resulted in less open play goals as bierhoff
And as many assists

Why is the value of a striker who completes a gazillion dribbling runs but only scores 1-2 solo goal
More valuable than a static striker who hardly dribbles but scores more with his head
Acrobatic finishes
Is less wasteful
Etc...
?

2018/19 isnt even the 10th best league season of Cristiano ronaldo
You are comparing the best of R9 to the 11th best of a 34 year old Cristiano
Nice


C.Ronaldo is his prime 09-15 wasnt outscored by anyone except Messi
Not in la liga
And not in the champions league
That is half a dozen seasons

They aren't in the same stratosphere
Neither in finishing or playmaking
Neither in peak or longevity

QUOTE="Tropeiro, post: 38612747, member: 312073"]Of course R9 was more fouled and completed more dribbles per 90 at that time than CR7 did now.[/QUOTE]
Data???

Even if its 'obvious'
Your arguments are entirely constructed around
advanced statistics
KPG
xG
Xa

Where is it?
Are you making the case that R9 was more visually impressive based on YouTube comps?

What makes you think R9 in 97/98 Serie A was markedly more prolific at dribbling then he was at the 98 World cup?
His opta stats are readily accessible

R9(if i recall correctly) completed around 2 dribbles per game in the 98 world cup
Is this a generational dribbler in his prime?



Pick any R9 97/98 comp you can find and identify with timestamps places where he dribbles 2-3 players in 1 run
A dribble mind you
Not a sprint

You will not find any against Milan
Or juventus

You will find hardly any in serie A
You will find plenty in the UEFA cup against schalke,neuchatel,Strasbourg,Spartak Moscow


Forget Cristiano (momentarily)
Was euesbio a static striker?
When was prime euesbio at league level ever outscored by a vastly inferior striker
When?
It never happened not even once from 1963-1968

R9 was never (not during his prime or after it) a clear step above his peers as a finisher
I dont care about conversion rate
Im talking about his all round ability as a goalscorer

R9 was outscored by bierhoff in serie A because the former was completely inept in the air
All those extra goals that GOAT level scorers notch up
Those headers
Those FKs
Those acrobatic finishes
1 touch finishes
Volleys
R9 wasn't distinguished at those which is why he never really excelled above his peers when it came to goalscoring

The difference between the best and the rest during 95-05 wasnt as vast as many revisionists (like you and others)would suggest

I already know all the arguments you will use:

Bierhoff was a static limited striker
'Reliant on service
R9 carried the inter attack all by himself
Created all his chances,all his penalties,all his freekicks

Ok

R9 was also the main designated set piece taker of his team
Hogging Both penalties and freekicks
I don't recall bierhoff taking FKs
Ok fine bierhoff 97/98 was a fluke
Let's move on

How did signori outscore R9 in the coppa Italia?
How did suker outscore R9 in the world cup?
Was R9 leading the Brazilian attack all by himself !!!
A one man team!!!!

How did Guivarc'h outscore R9 in the UEFA cup?


What are the chances a GOAT level scorer in his absolute prime being outscored in not one
Not 2
Not 3
But 4 different competitions in a single season

Could you imagine the field day maradona fans would have if during any prime season let alone arguably the best ever season of pele he was outscored
Not just in the campeonato paulista
but also the copa libertadores
The intercontinental cup
The world cup
Taca Brazil
All in a single season!!!!

Pele just wouldn't be Pele if this ever happened at a time he was supposed to be in his prime

R9 never reigned dominant(his productivity was just never at that level)

 

OK, sorry, but I hope the analogy between 'best defense' and 'best attack' makes sense (best three attackers but not the record).

Interestingly, in the background I listened to a podcast where Philippe Auclair is talking (about cricket, Cantona, Clos Rougeard etc.) and he said Bergkamp was the best and most impressive footballer he saw live, but of course he is an Arsenal fan.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...cantona-and-board-games-football-weekly-extra

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Auclair

 

Yes for me he was a genuine great (and no, there haven't been more than 10 'greats' since the 1988 generation) and a valuable player at real top teams for quite some time. From valuable cameos in Ajax their 1986-87 CW Cup win to game winning contributions to Arsenal's CL final in 2005-06 (although his last strong season was the previous one). Definitely made a positive impression when I saw him.




There have been players like Hazard too, who look better live. Zidane too, I have to say, impressed me more live (was at the euro 2000 final like I said in the past). Nedved I can't remember but undoubtedly a genuine standout player and a great or 'master' if you like (maybe you remember I always valued him highly, with the 'facts' in his favor).

For me Seedorf is a great as well, but I got to see this better near the end of his Milan career and then at Botafogo his influence. He was, or still is?, the player with the most assists for Italian clubs in the Champions League by 2014, despite often not having that job. One of the things is here also his appearance stat during the Berlusconi era (great wiki page!) - and then he had career and body of work well before that with multiple Champions Leagues, multiple semi finals with the national team, multiple league titles, cup titles (or finals like 2000, in which he scored), ESM team of the month inclusion for four teams before Milan, the obvious statistical influence, and by then he had already played different positions at a high level. It's clear to see he had his tangible contribution in ending Real Madrid's 32 years EC drought. He also played 6 games in Real Madrid's 2000 win (after the mid season break they stuttered and puffed to the win), so it could have been five medals. Really a pretty unique career, and in a podcast of about a year ago (wasn't it Zonal Marking?) I heard Tom Williams saying how in control he looks live.

Here is a really great Italian article that appeared two days ago, with gifs (the introduction plus conclusion) @PDG1978

https://www.ultimouomo.com/come-gio...-pallone-filtrante-in-profondita-per-serginho

The 'incident' mentioned there in the intro was this:
https://www.goal.com/en/news/10/ita...dorf-explains-substitution-delay-during-milan

 

Ze Roberto had over 10 assists:

https://www.kicker.de/ze-roberto-21698/spieler

 

Yeah I mentioned it earlier but this and this were interesting videos on that. To a great degree the role of overlaps on the left was performed interchangeably by Henry and Pires together. Ashley Cole but also the 'forward' Bergkamp or Reyes took care of the security, spatial occupation and balance.

@PDG1978 A podcast has appeared today about this season (from 22:30 onward)
https://audioboom.com/posts/7554542-eight-more-votes-than-theo-zagorakis

In this it is mentioned that next to Henry there was enough quality in the spine (26:50 - "Campbell, Vieira and obviously Bergkamp"), but overall they can't quite get to an explanation for Henry not winning the BdO.

I think Cox is here (and in his book) a bit harsh on Van Nistelrooij. You can say he was selfish, but at the same time Scholes says in his soccerbox episode that he enjoyed his best season (and phases) with Van Nistelrooij. Earlier in his career he co-existed with Nilis, and to a degree he even helped to give a second life to Raul his career, who came off from some unproductive seasons and difficulties to play alongside Ronaldo, but found the way up again in 2006. Also for the national team he was often (not always) able to function with other productive players behind, or productive players on the wing. Here in the season review of 2003-04 his commentary on C. Ronaldo (at 1:20:30), after one of Ronaldo's four assists this season.

This brings me to another strange observation, the surprisingly poor ratings of 'golden boy' Raul Gonzalez by the Spanish press itself (from 2003 onward).
http://www.dbscalcio.it/sn-schedaCalciatore.php?nomePlayer=Gonzalez Blanco&cognomePlayer=Raul&dataNascitaPlayer=27-06-1977

I'd guess the ratings are much better before 2003 (he wins the Don Balon trophy for Spanish player a few times; profile here with "despite the unerring bias of the Spanish press and his team-mates, the rest of Europe isn't convinced"), but this looks very extreme to me. Even slightly later it looks very mediocre (except 2007-08 when he's 4th in his position). It's really a noticeable thing (25th, 28th, 27th, 27th, 4th, 19th, 28th in his Madrid seasons after 2003). Yet at the same time he did 'survive' there while we all know cases like Baggio (after 1994) and Riquelme where it's less clear they maintained themselves at top clubs (of course, Real Madrid had after ~1990 no near-monopoly any more on the title, where they win it once in every two years).

 

Yesterday they showed an excellent 30+ minutes compilation of him. Remarkably, before the age of 20 he was an amateur.
https://www.gids.tv/tv-gids/uitzending-gemist/de-premier-league-days-van-edwin-van-der-sar/2802021

He had a few really impressive saves and double saves I think. That Arsenal game popped up too and Henry, Pires and Bergkamp (pass to Ljungberg here) were actually in good form that day.



He was perhaps more athletic when he was younger, later on he was still good thanks to his positioning, timing and organizing skills. There is an outtake/quote by him though where he says: "I could have gone to Manchester United in 1999, just after they had won everything there is to win. At hindsight it was the wrong choice. If you really dissect and analyse it, and look at the numbers I don't think it was awful, but the Italian culture is many newspapers, a lot of media, big attention and for non-football reasons I didn't always come out rosy of this, and that is what I eventually found hard to cope with it and gave an attitude to. At ambitious Fulham I wanted a break, build up a new and different career. But yes the real performance level, the top level, becoming better every day, that is what you miss in your team mates. Eventually I felt my level slowly regressed in the last year [2004-05], and that is what you need to be sharp about. I want to go back to my best and how do I get there."

https://www.mylondon.news/sport/foo...ormer-manchester-united-keeper-edwin-14401442

Maybe it was mere coincidence (and not doubting he was very good at his peak) but he saved and corrected a number of clear-cut mistakes by Rio Ferdinand (underhit back passes; passing straight into the feet of opponents etc.). Vidic much less so. All in all I was impressed (and more unfamiliar) by the Fulham scenes.

 

He was not seen as the 'ideal type' striker as Van Basten, Kluivert and RvP were (even Depay now, who mostly does that well in that role), or Lewandowki as the international standard 'ideal type' striker, but to a large extent the repeat-narrative and trope of "number nine has to make space for the number ten" also applies to him and what he did with e.g. Scholes as high scoring midfielder/forward behind him - and vice versa. This was even clearer in Champions League games where he had a respectable amount of assists (not just lay-offs but also passes in the deep).

 

Why is Totti above Shevchenko I'm curious?

Why is Maxwell on two stars? That smells a bit like all the stuff where various other Eredivisie players get snubbed and then Romario (never more than 20 non-penalty goals in the league) ends up as the 2nd most included Eredivisie player in history. What is the reason for Lehmann ending up above VdS? There is a perennially low regard in certain circles for Holland players (certainly for a longer period of time in a player's career) and football, with figures as Henderson (who in the bigger games didn't play better than Fabinho or Gini) or De Rossi as beneficiaries of these cultural mechanisms. Personally I don't think Baggio was playing markedly better than Bergkamp either, although he did play the equivalent of 4-5 more matches (in minutes; I see now DBScalcio, using english newspapers, shows Rooney a fair bit lower). But as said, few benelux players were really at their best or peak fame this season.

I thought Chivu was a very good player for a prolonged period of time as well, one of the better yet unheralded defenders this decade. Played good in midfield at euro 2008 too.

Although RvN his DBScalcio rating is average, worth noting he scored 37 goals in all games, the same number as Ronaldo and Drogba, and 9 more than Shearer (although Shearer was retired for the NT at this point, and in Italy it's harder to score for Gilardino and Shevchenko).

 

Zidane's ESM TOTY would seem to indicate more than one star?

 

No, he was very good to be honest and noticeable for his position. Many left backs are not that noticeable. One of the best of his team and the league.

He had more thrust as later when he was near his thirties I think.

Okay, I see no Premier League goalkeeper is above one star. What are the grounds of skepticism to go above that for any of those?

Buffon was normally the best (arguably I think), but also he made errors leading to a goal or where he just doesn't look good in meaningful games. Someone like Casillas, Neuer has more of that reputation than Buffon though (thanks to games like the 2014 Pokal final, with a handful dangerous clearances and distribution).

Agree, I said myself above playing time is a reason for doubt.

I have to admit I had in my mind that (like many of his other seasons, for Brescia too) his goals involved a number of penalties but it appears that was not the case here. So that changes the equation enormously.

In terms of assists, there was from open play no difference although you can say it was harder in Italy. What I think Bergkamp was better at (did more often) was the unlocking pass before the final ball - Totti was the same - and there are a few sources showing that skill/role (although I don't have an approximate/exact number for Baggio here), and was in the end also less of a forward by this stage without ball. Over the full season (across all competitive games) Baggio had 25 starts vs 29 starts, 2142 minutes vs 2439 playing minutes.

I also think (as expressed often before) Baggio is a real candidate for best player of the 1990s (he was my pick, with priority to five years peak form, continental peak and national team peak), but at the same time there were issues to maintain himself at top teams after 1994 and as written down before, one could also make an opposite case.

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Personally I named Roberto Baggio the player of the 1990s because of his peak form for club and country and symbolic value (thanks to aggressive marketing by IMG) - I prefer a five years window - but how can there be a debate for longevity?

Let's also not pretend Bergkamp had no effective skill. See this pass, or this skill, or this sublime skill (12:55) against Manchester United.


Games for a major club: 730+ for Bergkamp vs less than 330 for Baggio

Games at a major tournament: 25 for Bergkamp, 16 for Baggio

Continental finals: 6 for Bergkamp, 3 for Baggio (3 wins vs 1 win)

Major honors: 13 for Bergkamp, 4 for Baggio

Minor honors: 5 for Bergkamp, 0 for Baggio

National team semi finals: 3 for Bergkamp, 2 for Baggio (with one final)

Goals and assists against elite teams at major tournaments: 6 for Bergkamp, 2 for Baggio

Domestic player of the year honors: 3 for Bergkamp, 1 for Baggio
(Bergkamp also PFA shortlisted for 1999 by the way, topped OPTA Index for the attackers; player of the month material as late as 2004)

Ballon d'Or: proportionally, with changing voter pools, Bergkamp wins clearly (both 6 times nominated)

ESM votes: 18 vs 11 in favor of Bergkamp

Career goals: 300+ for Bergkamp (less than 25 penalties), less than 320 goals for Baggio (113+ penalties)

Major topscorer honors: 5 for Bergkamp, 1 for Baggio

Assists: Bergkamp probably ahead; also in Serie A (Bergkamp 9 seasons with 10+ assists, Baggio three seasons). Bergkamp has only very few set piece assists (source: Aaron Nielsen) and about as many pre-assists in his Premier League career.

Influence and impact on teams: Bergkamp possibly more influential. For Baggio the win percentage is higher without him, for Bergkamp (also in Serie A) it is the opposite. That at - on average - for bigger teams.

Champions League man of the match candidate: at least 10+ games for The Iceman versus 2 at best for Baggio. Both first got to play there when they were 29 years old.

Peculiarly, the DBScalcio grade in this very last season is the 2nd highest of his career (behind 2000-01, his first Brescia season). It's a lot better as any of his Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan and Inter seasons somehow. It's 0.25 better as his great 1992-93, 0.30 better as the 2nd best, with the rest on 0.36 or further behind. But to be honest, I overlooked (and confused the seasons) the complete lack of penalties and that changes a lot.

 

He was four times part of the best defense in the Serie A. Once for Roma (a rarity for the club) and then three times for Inter. Never when he was playing for Ajax though.

 

Friedel and VdS are the only EPL goalkeepers to have both the most saves in a season and the most clean sheets in a season. Was he an Italian then he gets two stars by default.

Same sort of stuff as only getting one star for 1997-98 despite being the 2nd highest voted keeper in ESM (behind CL finalist Peruzzi) and behind tournament winner Barthez the highest European in the IFFHS keeper of the year vote. Or the bullocks that England had three times as many international class and world class players in 1993-94 (well, look at the continental trophies they won, the national team semis reached). Players and the football of the last 25-30 years are just categorically not rated by the usuals, and if they ever win a tournament again you can be sure it will be received like Denmark or Greece winning it. I take a pause now.

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/26/content_412310.htm

 

What makes it weirder is that Zidane's productivity this season (his 'weak' point) was hardly worse than the one of Lampard (his 'strong' point in a few seasons). Lampard has three more non-penalty goals in all competitions but Zidane eliminates the difference with his (open play) assists.

Kaka is a major exception, but of him it is arguable whether he was a midfielder or forward. He was not a like-for-like replacement for Rui Costa.

This is a graph by Ancelotti himself, in a later season.

On the same website another fine article by a different author (only used google translate) - I have above graph from this article

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Born ready
At 37, Clarence Seedorf stopped playing football and started training. Let's retrace his career: from his debut with Ajax, to the triumphs with Real Madrid and Milan, until the retirement last week.

The most awaited game of the year is played at the Vicente Calderón stadium in Madrid on 18 January 1997: the derby. At the end of the first half, Atletico Madrid are 1-0 ahead of Real Madrid. In the interval, a small group forms inside the dressing room of Real Madrid. Footballers discuss what went wrong. At the center of the group is Clarence Seedorf, a newly arrived Dutch midfielder, twenty years old. Fabio Capello, the Real Madrid manager, furious at how he had played his team in the first half, approaches the group, shouting to the players what they were talking about and continues to scream, without listening to the answer. "If you know it so long, you are the coach!" He shouts in Seedorf, and according to story she pulls against his jacket. In the second half, Real Madrid overturns the result, scores four goals — one of them does Seedorf — and wins the game.

Louis van Gaal, Fabio Capello, Carlo Ancelotti, Guus Hiddink, Sven-Göran Eriksson, Marcello Lippi, Jupp Heynckes and Vicente del Bosque have at least two things in common. The first is that they are among the best football coaches of the past twenty years. The second is that everyone at some point in their career has been coach of Clarence Seedorf, who is now 37 years old and is the new Milan manager.
[...]
Suriname is a small republic of South America, squeezed between the two Guiana and Brazil, a Dutch colony from 1667 to 1954. Frederick Seedorf is the son of a freed slave: "Seedorf" was the surname of his master, a German. In 1979 his large family moved from Suriname to Holland: among them is his son, Johann Seedorf, and there is the son of his son, Clarence, three years old. They go to live in the Almere area, where a new city is being born. And they play football, everyone: Johann, Clarence, the various brothers as they are born, his cousin. At 10 years of age Clarence is noticed by Johan Cruyff's talent scout agency, who discovered most of the players who were part of the great Ajax of the nineties: three days a week he moved to Amsterdam, followed by coaches, he will tell, "Who teach life before football". It does the whole process of youth teams in Ajax. At 15 his family refused an offer from Real Madrid. At 16, in 1992, he joined the first team and became the youngest Ajax player to make his league debut. In January 1993 his name appears for the first time in an Italian newspaper: Repubblica defines him "the universal Seedorf", he writes that he plays as a center forward in the Dutch under 18 and was deployed as a full back in his European debut.

The Ajax of those years is one of the strongest teams in Europe. Louis van Gaal trains it, plays with 3-3-1-3 and Seedorf — who kicks indifferently with his right and left and really knows do it all - it happens to play everywhere, even if most of the time it is deployed as the top vertex of the midfield, that is midfielder, or midfielder on the left. He is not a giant but he has strong and powerful legs, an excellent basic technique and above all the head of someone who is much more than 17 or 18 years old. In three seasons he plays 90 games and scores 11 goals; he wins two championships, a cup and a league super cup; above all he wins the Champions Cup, beating Milan in the final in Vienna. It is May 24, 1995, Seedorf is 19 years old. Two months later he is in Genoa, bought by Sampdoria di Mantovani for 7 billion lire. It is discontinuous but stands out, and confirms that he is a total player: one day the newspapers write that "he steals many balls, he does not miss a throw", another he writes that "he played for three, covering the whole arc of the attack, making the hairpin and also the defender". He comes from another world, Sven-Göran Eriksson helps him adapt. «I came from a country where people express their opinions. In Italy, however, the basic mentality is "shut up and run". When things go wrong, people don't talk in Italy: they lower their heads and work harder. In Holland when things go wrong you sit around a table to discuss until a solution is found. " At the end of the season Seedorf played 32 games and scored 4 goals, winning against Juventus and Milan. Fabio Capello wins the Scudetto with Milan, he moves to Real Madrid and takes it with him, bought by Sampdoria for 9 billion ("He personally asked me to go with him, I was a boy and it was very important for me").
[...]
At one point Seedorf talks about it with the press. «I told Tardelli that I would always like to play attacking midfielder. I know how to do a little bit of everything and this, paradoxically, has been a big problem for my career. Today's football lives on specialists. "
[...]
Seedorf remained at Milan ten years, from 2002 to 2012, becoming a piece of his history. He wins two Scudetto, an Italian Cup, two Italian and two European Super Cups, a club world championship; and two Champions League, which make him the only player to have won the maximum European trophy with three different teams. Play 432 games and score 62 goals, many of these beautiful, one 35 meters in the derby. Become the foreign player with the most appearances in the history of Milan, he also becomes the captain, he cries after an elimination from the Champions League. However, AC Milan fans will never treat him as a legend, as an untouchableon the contrary: part of the curve whistles it with a certain constancy and attaches hateful nicknames to it. More than racism, it's about being a different player , much more intelligent than the average - "opinionated", "arrogant", says those who do not appreciate him, and even those who esteem him call him "the professor" - and his breaks have to do with it. I once read on a social network: "Seedorf is the player with the largest delta between how well he plays when he plays well and how bad he plays when he plays badly." Indeed, Seedorf disappears every now and then. "Walk", say his detractors: he only plays big games and doesn't want to "waste talent" against small teams. Seedorf's version: «At Ajax I learned to intercept the passages without going to press the opponent, because I would have read the trajectory anyway. Many think that I am lazy because I run a little, but I run when needed. "
[...]
Jack Lang writes on ESPN . «Seedorf's intelligence proved to be his best weapon in those celebrated rugby matches that sometimes go through game contrasts in Brazil. Where other players just try to get the better of colossal physical battles, he plays simple and slips into the spaces. Play as calm as only a player in his 21st year of career knows. He prefers the economy of movements to shots. In a country famous for the technical caliber of its players, the advantage that it can give you some tactical cunning is surprising. » He scores 24 goals in 81 games — he plays 81 games, at 36 years old — and practically makes the second striker on the pitch. He had time to win a Carioca Championship and the prize for the best player in the league, then Milan's call came.
https://www.ultimouomo.com/nato-pronto/

He was a lot busier than all of those, had the single game saves record (while maintaining the zero), most clean sheets with Lehmann. Maybe that he raised his level against the bigger teams and for the national team, and was less good against the smaller ones.

Taylor had to deal with 159 shots for example, 42 shots less, similar save percentage. Cudicini only 79 shots, and had a markedly lower save percentage as well.

It is of course possible that goalkeepers of certain teams have to save harder shots, often the bigger teams face easier shots, or the more defensive minded teams. I'd be surprised if Chelsea conceded far harder shots than Fulham did.

Also note here that while he joined the PL in his thirties, his save percentage was still great, page 43 of the link below. He had the most clean sheets for four different teams (Ajax, Juventus, Fulham, Manchester United), the least goals for three (minus Fulham), plus the euro record (shared with Casillas) and the Champions League stuff.

https://www.soccermetrics.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/EPL-20-Book.pdf
(cross checking with OPTA here; there are very marginal differences like 157 vs 155 saves, both 78% save percentage - the margin of error looks small)

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsl...a7-1000--champions-league-goalkeeper-records/
https://the18.com/soccer-news/goalkeepers-most-career-clean-sheets-soccer-history
https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsl...entus-come-close-to-champions-league-records/

This is a good point, since he got his fair share of ESM votes in other seasons, even for Juventus (unhappy, but good stats, also compared with before/after him) and his solid last season.
He's number two behind Buffon in inclusions (and this excludes 1993-1995); of course it helps to reach a few finals, but then again, by the time all of the '95 generation was retired only Maldini had started in more CL finals than VdS, Seedorf and Davids (since then Evra and Cristiano got in between this).

Numerically this is though the case for many seasons and tournaments, with goalkeepers.

For example Premier League 2018-19:
https://www.premierleague.com/news/1197918

Example World Cup 2014:
https://www.americansocceranalysis.com/world-cup-expected-goals-by-keeper

It just doesn't register there...