Re: A Hypothetical Question

by The Sanchez Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:25 am

Giggity5313 wrote:As much as messi is better, besides him who's going to score? Nani and loltiga are not exactly world class finishers.

And with Ronaldo having more bad days than good days... you see where this is going...

by billionmillion Fri Jul 13, 2012 8:14 am

There are too many wrong thoughts in this thread. Of course with main starters (Villa and Pedro) team would be better, if others didnt get injured (xavi iniesta abidal pique) team would be much better. but it has nothing to do with system and saying "only messi scoring didnt help us" is a wrong statement. Instead saying these statements would be much better
Playing with half squad didnt help us
Pique being off form whole season didnt help us
Xavi having his worst season didnt help us
Iniesta being injured didnt help us
Villa being injured didnt help us
Abidal being sick didnt help us

Forget about scoring the team lost their defensive reputation and conceded some ridiculous goals. Defense wins you games is correct word and portugal showed it in euros

In CL everything was good only luck stopped the team, even after chelsea win people were praising barcelona even chelsea players.

about topic alex said what i was going to say nothing to add

by The Franchise Fri Jul 13, 2012 8:32 am

alexjanosik wrote:

How many games did Pedro and Alexis start together,especially in the second half of the season.I am guessing not much.The second half of the season is crucial to the point.
Pedro was mostly on the bench or injured.Villa was out.So thats 2 runners out of the team.Tello and Cuenca played a lot of games.Even Iniesta played sometimes on the wing.And yet,if I am not mistaken we won more points in the second half of the season than in the first.In the first half of the season Messi was not scoring away from home.In the second half he started scoring and unless I am mistaken(khaled can back me up perhaps) we won more points in the second half.
So under non ideal conditions(Villa out,Pedro benched or injured),we won more points than when we had more runners in the team(in the first half when Villa and Pedro were available).
I dont agree with your assessment of Tello as a runner.He is different to Cuenca but I dont think he is a runner.He waits for the ball on the wing, takes the ball on the outside past the RB and cuts it back.Atleast he is nowhere near as good a runner as Pedro or Alexis.
Please note that I am not saying that we were better when we had no runners in the side.Its obvious that we are much better with 2 fit runners on either side of Messi.
Just that the stats suggest(can be misleading at sometimes) that we won more points in the second half(when we had no runners bar Alexis) than in the first half(when we had more runners).
That shows that Messi can make it work even without runners.He can be a one man army and coincidentally he also scored more goals in the second half of the season.
Whether he can make it work with Danny and Nani is another question.I think he can but then there is always Postiga for backup

Pedro and Alexis didnt start many games together, not nearly enough. But from that small sample size (plus it just makes sense) those two together with Messi made his job easier and the team played a whole lot better.

Tello to me is a runner, so thats another. He isnt Pedro or Alexis, but he certaintly does run off the ball...or at the very least keeps out of way by not forcing himself centerally.

And Cuenca while not a runner, keeps out of Messi's way.

All those are very different to Danny while Nani I guess you could roughly eqaute to Cuenca positionally, though he comes inside too with the ball.

I dont know what the stats say, but my eyes told me the team was better and so was we when they have those types of players playing and not Iniesta or Cesc in the forward line.

I am not saying Messi cannot work without runners, I just think its very poorly balanced, it looks akward and the team looks clunky and lacking flow.

Point being, Danny and Nani are actually better suited to playing with Cristiano than they are Messi style wise.

by billionmillion Fri Jul 13, 2012 8:45 am

What Danny and Nani played with Cristiano? I didnt see more than 1 link up between them whole tournament Smile

i think with messi in the center would make wingers run, and most important messi being in center of everything would give nani ton of space. he was marked very well in euros they didnt let him run.

Reason is that messi is a great dribbler when he dribbles in the center he gets attention of whole defense at least 2-3 players will run towards him to stop him and it gives others (wing players) free space. With CR it doesnt work he runs in the left wing and doesnt create much space thats why we didnt see running Nani because nani didnt get any space he was marked well

In short, a great dribbler like Messi being in center of everything would make any winger run into space. after getting so much space any winger would run

by The Franchise Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:02 am

Danny didnt play in the whole Euros, he was injured..please keep up.

Nani set up Cristiano many times, I dont know what your on about. The roles are reversed in that partnership.

It isnt someone (Messi) creating havoc and then passing it off to Nani who has time and space. With Portugal its Nani who takes on players and puts in balls for the forwards. He consistently did that in the Euro's most games and created many chances for both Almieda and Cristiano. Less so Postiga because he has no movement.

And Danny doesnt run for anyone, perhaps you should watch him first?

by billionmillion Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:42 am

The Franchise wrote:Danny didnt play in the whole Euros, he was injured..please keep up.

Nani set up Cristiano many times, I dont know what your on about. The roles are reversed in that partnership.

It isnt someone (Messi) creating havoc and then passing it off to Nani who has time and space. With Portugal its Nani who takes on players and puts in balls for the forwards. He consistently did that in the Euro's most games and created many chances for both Almieda and Cristiano. Less so Postiga because he has no movement.

And Danny doesnt run for anyone, perhaps you should watch him first?

Yeah this is correct. but i was responding to your comment where you said nani would not run as pedro. and its reasonable to say they dont have a player like messi in center to make them run

by BarrileteCosmico Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:15 pm

I agree with both Dani and Alex, somehow. I think Messi could act as the sole goalscoring outlet for Portugal, which would make them a dangerous team. However, this would by no means make Portugal a favorite, just a balanced team with the ability to cause an upset. The real problem would come when Portugal face top class opposition. Since Messi is the only goalscoring force teams would try to man-mark him and thus try to render Portugal toothless. That might be a good approach against them, and it has happened in the past. The problem with this is that Messi can score given just half a chance the entire game, and if Portugal's defense can hold out (as they should), this approach might not be enough.

Another point worth making is that without any other players that have a goal-scoring instinct, would Portugal really reap any benefits from Messi's superior build up play and final pass than Cristiano's? It's hard to say, I would assume they would still struggle to win by more than 1 goal margins, but I think that they would still be a team to be respected.

In any case, as Alex correctly noted they don't need to be the best to win the World Cup. They just need a good approach and luck on their side. It's 4 knock-out games and anything can happen. In a round-robin tournament perhaps they wouldn't stand much of a chance, but in a knock-out one I would classify them as a dark horse.

by alexjanosik Sat Jul 14, 2012 3:35 pm

The Franchise wrote:
alexjanosik wrote:

How many games did Pedro and Alexis start together,especially in the second half of the season.I am guessing not much.The second half of the season is crucial to the point.
Pedro was mostly on the bench or injured.Villa was out.So thats 2 runners out of the team.Tello and Cuenca played a lot of games.Even Iniesta played sometimes on the wing.And yet,if I am not mistaken we won more points in the second half of the season than in the first.In the first half of the season Messi was not scoring away from home.In the second half he started scoring and unless I am mistaken(khaled can back me up perhaps) we won more points in the second half.
So under non ideal conditions(Villa out,Pedro benched or injured),we won more points than when we had more runners in the team(in the first half when Villa and Pedro were available).
I dont agree with your assessment of Tello as a runner.He is different to Cuenca but I dont think he is a runner.He waits for the ball on the wing, takes the ball on the outside past the RB and cuts it back.Atleast he is nowhere near as good a runner as Pedro or Alexis.
Please note that I am not saying that we were better when we had no runners in the side.Its obvious that we are much better with 2 fit runners on either side of Messi.
Just that the stats suggest(can be misleading at sometimes) that we won more points in the second half(when we had no runners bar Alexis) than in the first half(when we had more runners).
That shows that Messi can make it work even without runners.He can be a one man army and coincidentally he also scored more goals in the second half of the season.
Whether he can make it work with Danny and Nani is another question.I think he can but then there is always Postiga for backup

Pedro and Alexis didnt start many games together, not nearly enough. But from that small sample size (plus it just makes sense) those two together with Messi made his job easier and the team played a whole lot better.

Tello to me is a runner, so thats another. He isnt Pedro or Alexis, but he certaintly does run off the ball...or at the very least keeps out of way by not forcing himself centerally.

And Cuenca while not a runner, keeps out of Messi's way.

All those are very different to Danny while Nani I guess you could roughly eqaute to Cuenca positionally, though he comes inside too with the ball.

I dont know what the stats say, but my eyes told me the team was better and so was we when they have those types of players playing and not Iniesta or Cesc in the forward line.

I am not saying Messi cannot work without runners, I just think its very poorly balanced, it looks akward and the team looks clunky and lacking flow.

Point being, Danny and Nani are actually better suited to playing with Cristiano than they are Messi style wise.

We seem to be going around in circles dani.
Did the team play better with runners than with Iniesta,Cuenca upfront?
Most definitely yes.
Did Messi stil make it work without runners and the likes of Cuenca,Iniesta,Tello etc upfront?Based on the second half of the season he most definitely did.Was not as effective as with an on form Villa and Pedro.
But it worked.
Can Messi do the same for Portugal and take upon himself the creating and goalscoring burden for Portugal?Based on last season I think he most definitely can.
Would it be enough to beat Spain?Maybe not but it would be an interesting match for sure.

by The Franchise Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:21 pm

I didnt say that with the runners it didnt work, just I feel that such a flaw means they have no chance of being the best team.

BC's post makes sense, dont disagree with that one.

I am not hear saying I rule them out with any hope of winning, lesser teams have already won..but that statement isnt saying much, because the current Portugal without Messi and with Cristiano has that very same chance.

by larisano Mon Jul 16, 2012 7:51 am

Not much to add here,tbh.
Just back on the topic of the real Argie team, if you were coach of the NT what would be your full squad of 23 if the World Cup 2014 was starting in a few weeks time?
I am interested in seeing the defensive picks especially whilst atm, there is a dearth of quality options in MF other than the tried,tested and discarded,tbh.
My main worry is finding a support cast for Messi-Higuain-Aguero trident which seems to be working well but some of Sabella's other picks and exclusions continue to irk me like how the selections the other have before him.Too much continuous mediocrity in the teams in defence especially for my liking considering that at CB especially Garay aside, there are Options for that position contrary to popular belief. But in MF the cupboard seems bare unless the tried and discarded failures or Oldies are brought back which is something that is worrying. Every single Obstacle to Messi succeeding for Argentina in an International comp was on show vs BRAZIL in the last friendly,tbh, and an article alluded to it beautifully, by saying The Argie captain dragged his team to the win "kicking and screaming"

your thoughts?

by larisano Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:22 am

apparently Gago might leave Madrid, hope he does it soon enough. Beyond him,Masche and Banega, our MF lacks top quality players for the position.

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