The Champions League is killing Football

Interestingly enough, I believe the new millenium has created a gulf between club and national team football that didn't exist before. Fact is, the WC is still the biggest event on Earth, but NT players (or organizations) aren't willing to put as much practice time in as, say, back in the 1970's. Everybody still wants to play in the WC, but they don't want to mess with the preparation (qualification, training, etc.) Club football, especially for the G-14, has newly saturated calendar and NT football just can't find a proper place to wedge itself in.

Nowadays, clubs also have the potential to acquire more and better players than the NT's. They can acquire players from every obscure corner of the globe, which (for whatever reason) they didn't do as much back in the 70's,
80's, or 90's. Probably due to the rapid influx of money, the Bosman ruling, and several other contributing factors. NT's just aren't quite the "dream teams" they were back in the 20th century, because club football has caught up (and in some cases surpassed) national team football.

 

Get a reality check, my friend. Barcelona has one of the best lineups of any team right now in the world, especially on the attacking end. Hardly a dumb remark, even by your own exagerrated standards.

--> Truly world class players highlighted in bold.

BARCA: Valdes, Puyol, Marquez, Milito, Zambrotta, Abidal, Xavi, Deco, Iniesta, Henry, Eto'o, Messi, Ronaldinho.

Everyone else is a fringe world class prospect, while Italy consistently lines up either Gilardino or Iaquinta in atttack, and Argentina lines up Juan Pablo Sorin at the back. Hardly world class players, by any measure.

 

Boy you don't get tired of talking out of your ass .

Deco hasn't played to his level in over a year. And the same applies to Ronaldinho. Deco has flat out been shit for months now. There's no way he can be considered world class anymore.

Juan Pablo Sorin hasn't played for Argentina in about two years so I don't know what you are talking about. Argentina's line up when everyone is healthy is close to this:

Abbondanzieri, Zanetti, Milito, Demichelis, Heinze, Mascherano, Maxi Rodriguez, Cambiasso, Riquelme, Messi, and Tevez.

With maybe a minor change here and there depending on the situation.

 

That's a sub-par lineup for Argentina. I'd take Barcelona's over that any day. Only Messi, Tevez, and maybe Cambiasso can be considered world class. Riquelme is well past his expiration date, Demichelis is a liability, Heinze got cut by Man Utd, and Zanetti is like 50 years old. If we add the fact that this lineup hasn't trained together for longer than a week, I'd expect Barcelona to give them a schooling.

 

Although I did find it cute how he doesn't rate Iniesta as "world-class" and left-out Yaya altogether when they've been Barca's 2 best midfielders this season.

 

Sub-par? LMAO!

There's no point arguing with you if you truly are this clueless.

 

Iniesta is definitely world class.

LOL I hadn't realized that he left out Toure. What a muppet.

 

So Riquelme is well past his expiration date and Ronaldinho isn't? And Mascherano is not world-class? Really?

Yes, because Barca has such great team chemistry.

 

If you truly believe Argentina would beat Barcelona, there's no point arguing with you anymore. You're a lost cause. NT football just isn't what it used to be, regardless of how I rank certain players.

Ronaldinho past his expiration date? After he was voted world player of the year just two years ago? Jesus, you people can turn on a player quickly...

 

By G-14 standards? Yeah it is a sub-par lineup. Barcelona, Chelsea, and Inter can each lay claim to a better starting XI than that.

 

international and club football both have very good and middling and poor teams in equal number

just because club gets such frequent coverage it doesn't mean it's better quality.

certainly, training for 10 months does not mean you will play better together. It give you more time to create problems just as it gives you time to gel better. What matters is if you are doing the right things to gel, and this does not take long for very good players like the ones that the best NTs can call up. Same for club teams.

For every poor WC game that jogawestham mentioned, I can mention an equally poor club or CL game. I mean most of the last 2 days' CL games were quite poor.

I think he expects the same big names (who themselves are not exclusively the best in club football; just the ones who get the most media coverage) to play really well at international level, and when they don't he thinks everyone else is even worse.

But look at Germany (who are a part of the club players who don't get media but are as good), Croatia (same), Argentina...these teams play cracking football.

 

This season, and this season only. That doesn't make somebody world class.

 

WPOY ROFL

 

You're hopeless.

 

This thread has hit the post limit so time to close - new thread continues here...

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=13937944#post13937944

I think this little OT on Argentine has been talked through enough now, please keep it off the new thread