Thiago's potential

So I read some comments in a Barça online community I visit usually were some fans were saying that Thiago has an immense potential. Some of them even said he would win the ballon d'or at some point of his career. That made me curious about your opinions: Which is Thiago's potential? Vote in the poll and explain!

I would appreciate if Madrid fans or Barça haters didn't vote in this poll, specially without expalining this vote. There's already one vote to "Flop" that no one cared to defend and smells the hell out of Barça hater.

The second option seems about right if he keeps working.
To say he’ll win the Ballon d’ or is something I won’t dare yet.

IMO option 2 sounds about right. Though i wont be surprised for more or less.

He is one of the players i take a lot of pride "discovering" before my friends. The other - I saw some games/highlights of Dinho at Gremio and PSG and kind of felt he will be great and wanted him at Barca before any of my friends even knew who he was. I had same feeling with Thiago when i saw him first time. I hope my gut feeling turn true again

Its amazing how he dribbles and passes. he can also shoot and score. and he always impressed when he played. what can i say he is half xavi half iniesta. he is going to be a ballon dor material if he gets more playing time

Its very hard to be a Ballon Dór contender as a centermidfielder, you have to be Xavi or Iniesta level just for that. Basically you have to play at a level in which rivals any player in history at your position.

Its shouldnt be expected of anyone.

I think he has the sort of talent to be named one of the best 3 in his position at the very least.

I honestly think he has more talent and can be better then Cesc.

I voted for option 1 with one caveat.
Thiago is a Ballon D'Or contender(excluding Messi).
Cause lets face it.If Messi plays remotely close to his best I dont think anyone in the world can challenge him for the best player in the world.
But if Messi undergoes a drastic decline then Thiago is most certainly a contender.

He has been brilliant this season and the kid is full confidence.I have seen very few midfielders with his level of skill.Another aspect of his play that surprised me a lot this season is his defensive work.He has put in a tremendous shift defensively in all matches he has played.

Great great talent and for my money the best young midfielder in the world by far.

Babunski > Thiago


( Biased I am Macedonian he plays for Macedonian National Team :study: )

dont want to be pessimistic,but if the likes of Xavi,Pirlo and Iniesta never won it,I dont see it happening

The Franchise wrote:Its very hard to be a Ballon Dór contender as a centermidfielder, you have to be Xavi or Iniesta level just for that. Basically you have to play at a level in which rivals any player in history at your position.

Its shouldnt be expected of anyone.

I think he has the sort of talent to be named one of the best 3 in his position at the very least.

I honestly think he has more talent and can be better then Cesc.

and be part of a successful team. If he is integral to the team he s playing for infuture and they win notable trophies, he has a shot. I'm with Alex on this, as long as Messi plays at even 70% of his ability that b d'or ai'nt leaving his cabinet any time soon. I feel that he would not have the discipline to do what Xavi does as he would want to get ion ther mix of things. If Thiago took Xavi's role, it would hinder his flair ability inmo.

Ganso wrote:dont want to be pessimistic,but if the likes of Xavi,Pirlo and Iniesta never won it,I dont see it happening

Good point, couldn't have put it better myself. Should suffice to end the argument

I feel that he could be a contender, at the most. If he is to go on and actually win a Ballon D'or, then I'll be gladly mistaken. But for now, we still don't have much to base our prediction on besides the u-21 wc and various barca appearances.

There's also another massive factor in Thiago making Ballon D'or ..and that is the magnitude to which Barca still manages to dominate opponents, and win trophies. If Barca keeps at this pace..then we can assume with a degree of confidence, that a Barca player is bound to be in the shortlist. This could work both for and against Thiago, because it'll provide equal/more opportunity for the likes of his teammates Messi/ Fabs/Sanchez/Iniesta to win the accolade.

alexjanosik wrote:I voted for option 1 with one caveat.
Thiago is a Ballon D'Or contender(excluding Messi).
Cause lets face it.If Messi plays remotely close to his best I dont think anyone in the world can challenge him for the best player in the world.
But if Messi undergoes a drastic decline then Thiago is most certainly a contender.

He has been brilliant this season and the kid is full confidence.I have seen very few midfielders with his level of skill.Another aspect of his play that surprised me a lot this season is his defensive work.He has put in a tremendous shift defensively in all matches he has played.

Great great talent and for my money the best young midfielder in the world by far.

You know that to be untrue, we know who the best currently is, they met in the summer and 1 dominated the other...

I voted him as a top 30. It's very difficult to win or even be considered a d'or candidate. He is Xavi's replacement no doubt both on National team and on Barcelona. He has grown tremendously over past 6 months. It's too soon to say how good he will be, but as a midfield general it's difficult to be considered best player especially when there are goal scorers like Messi and Ronaldo around. But without doubt he is a future star.

Of his age ,the only other sure impact players are Mata and Javi Martinez, both a year or 2 older and possibly Canales. Canales was considered better than him a couple of years ago, but Thiago surpassed him in past year. Canales had a wasted year sitting on the bench in Madrid, but is starting to recover now with Valencia.

jibers wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:I voted for option 1 with one caveat.
Thiago is a Ballon D'Or contender(excluding Messi).
Cause lets face it.If Messi plays remotely close to his best I dont think anyone in the world can challenge him for the best player in the world.
But if Messi undergoes a drastic decline then Thiago is most certainly a contender.

He has been brilliant this season and the kid is full confidence.I have seen very few midfielders with his level of skill.Another aspect of his play that surprised me a lot this season is his defensive work.He has put in a tremendous shift defensively in all matches he has played.

Great great talent and for my money the best young midfielder in the world by far.

You know that to be untrue, we know who the best currently is, they met in the summer and 1 dominated the other...

Well jib,I obviously meant apart from Cleverly.
Joke aside dont you think Pogba might be a better comparison to Thiago.
Granted he hasnt played at all but from what I have seen of him looks to be a frightening talent and more comparable to Thiago in skill than Cleverly.
Cleverly is a wonderful young player but based on potential Thiago has a higher ceiling and in that respect Pogba is a better comparison.

lol at the flop votes

I am also at the top 30 potential. He still has a long way to go in my opinion.

alexjanosik wrote:

jibers wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:I voted for option 1 with one caveat.
Thiago is a Ballon D'Or contender(excluding Messi).
Cause lets face it.If Messi plays remotely close to his best I dont think anyone in the world can challenge him for the best player in the world.
But if Messi undergoes a drastic decline then Thiago is most certainly a contender.

He has been brilliant this season and the kid is full confidence.I have seen very few midfielders with his level of skill.Another aspect of his play that surprised me a lot this season is his defensive work.He has put in a tremendous shift defensively in all matches he has played.

Great great talent and for my money the best young midfielder in the world by far.

You know that to be untrue, we know who the best currently is, they met in the summer and 1 dominated the other...

Well jib,I obviously meant apart from Cleverly.
Joke aside dont you think Pogba might be a better comparison to Thiago.
Granted he hasnt played at all but from what I have seen of him looks to be a frightening talent and more comparable to Thiago in skill than Cleverly.
Cleverly is a wonderful young player but based on potential Thiago has a higher ceiling and in that respect Pogba is a better comparison.

lol. I kid. yea Pogba is frightening to be honest. Very un EPL like player, which is a good thing. he has good close control, good at passing, great dribbler and boy he has a very good long range shot. Hopefully he gets his chance this season, or next. He reminds me of scholes. He needs to improve his intelligence though which is where I feel Clevereley has the edge, but Thiago will be superior, the guy is training with xavi iniesta and cesc now. It's...an unfortunate advantage.

Ganso wrote:dont want to be pessimistic,but if the likes of Xavi,Pirlo and Iniesta never won it,I dont see it happening

Doesn't matter that they didn't win it, it's football, anything can happen and those circumstances are different than any balon d'or winning situation Thiago will be in

Voted balon d'or contender btw... too early to tell if he will be Balon d'or winning material imo

I voted for Ballon D'Or candidate, simply because I don't think you can expect many CMs to stand in the podium. Granted, he does have a more attacking mentality which could see him achieving it, and I am by no means saying he won't. The crux, however, is that I don't really think the Ballon d'Or is a good award to judge how good a player is if you're not a forward or AM/trequartista.

The Franchise wrote:Its very hard to be a Ballon Dór contender as a centermidfielder, you have to be Xavi or Iniesta level just for that. Basically you have to play at a level in which rivals any player in history at your position.

Its shouldnt be expected of anyone.

I think he has the sort of talent to be named one of the best 3 in his position at the very least.

I honestly think he has more talent and can be better then Cesc.

Excellent comments dani. I will add just one more point. Even though you are calling Thiago a CM his shooting, goal scoring and being comfortable in the final third and even in the box gives him more of a chance to be highlighted than Xavi and Iniesta would have got if they hadn't become the fulcrum of such admired and successful club and national teams. It's like Frank Lampard once placed second in the Ballon D'or when he had his career best season. Although his goal scoring has always been very consistent, that season he was the key outstanding player for Chelsea who won the league after ages. That's why he got highlighted in a big way and placed second only to Ronaldinho. Thiago could have a season like that. Besides he has so many other qualities that it would add to his chances. One problem of course is that he would likely be playing in the same team as Messi. Anyway that's trying to look too far ahead. Who knows who will be where and in what kind of shape then.

Ganso wrote:dont want to be pessimistic,but if the likes of Xavi,Pirlo and Iniesta never won it,I dont see it happening

Pessimistic perhaps but it's a very valid point. Pirlo and Scholes never even made the top three in their entire career. BTW how highly do you rate Thiago in comparison to your namesake?

Here is a video of Thiago's latest performance with Spain U21 vs Estonia. Credits to Allas, the hero behind the scenes.

youtube.com/watch?v=yfaHCnppSUY&feature=player_embedded

(Sorry I can't show the video, as I am a new member and 7 days haven't passed yet for me).

I voted top 10 in his position and I'm not as high on him as other Barca fans.

I just don't think he will ever be as good as Cesc and he doesn't fit Xavi's role at all. I don't know why people keep saying that as he is sloppy with the ball at times and always wants to be a lot further up the field then Xavi. IMO, he plays more like Cesc then Xavi.

He is a wonderful talent and at one point he was underrated and now I think he's a little overrated. HE also needs to cut the tricks out because the last couple games he has given away the ball trying to be cute.

I went for the 2nd option simply because although he has the potential to reach a Xaviesta-esque level, neither Xavi nor Iniesta could win the BDO despite being in the top 3. BUT Thiago may also have the advantage of either having to compete with an older Messi or not competing at all, so the potential for being a contender is more than there given his rate of bossing the game.

dnmac4 wrote:I voted top 10 in his position and I'm not as high on him as other Barca fans.

I just don't think he will ever be as good as Cesc and he doesn't fit Xavi's role at all. I don't know why people keep saying that as he is sloppy with the ball at times and always wants to be a lot further up the field then Xavi. IMO, he plays more like Cesc then Xavi.

He is a wonderful talent and at one point he was underrated and now I think he's a little overrated. HE also needs to cut the tricks out because the last couple games he has given away the ball trying to be cute.

Top 10 LOL.
He has far more talent than Cesc and has outperformed cesc every single game this season.
But I agree with you that he cant replace Xavi.Nobody can.