Zidane vs today's midfielders

Intresting point Le Sam. I once said, if we didnt have Messi, Iniesta would be our "star" player. That said, I still think Xavi is better. But there is a difference between "star" and what Xavi is.

Xavi cannot be your star, thats not what is he is about. Iniesta has that different sort of game where you would consider him the "star" of a team. If that all makes sense.

In terms of comparing him with Iniesta, forget things like balance and leadership. They are nothing points.

How was Zidane a leader? He barely spoke on the pitch (anyone seen that thing where they hooked him up to a mic during a game) and he never gave teammates directions or guided them though anything. I imagine Iniesta is very much the same. If either are leaders, its though actions. So its a useless point when comparing.

Balance? Have you ever watched Iniesta and thought, well if he had Zidane's balance he would be the best? No, he has all the balance required for his style.

Actually zidane directed a lot of play. Bekham said it the best: "we were all considered some of the best players in the world. But pretty soon, you realized that he was just better. You wanted to get him the ball as quickly and as often as you could just to see what he would do. We didn't worry about watching him if we were making a run. We knew if we made a good run and there was any space, he would find us."

Just created serenity out there. His teammates felt confident that he would make the difference.

Directing play doesnt make leader. I dont even care about "leader" its just a meaningless thing.

All those things he did, many players did. You can take Zidanes name out of those quotes and put in many players and that doesnt make them a leader or even on his level.

Well leader is a malleable term, it's applied where it fits and I think it does with Zidane.

Let me see if I can say how.

He was the talisman of his teams in the sense that his teams were built around and played mainly through him, but the leadership aspect to me comes in terms of the way he embraced that role.

He embraced it in the a very minimalist sense, but still had room to be the difference maker, which is not the way most other attackers approach situations like that.

I think Iniesta approaches the game similarly so it's a moot point.

Just something about being the best player on winning teams that make you the stuff of Legend lol, it's different from being the difference maker in an important game.

Like..Pau Gasol was the best player in game 7 of the finals, clear as day...yet Kobe is the one that goes down in Legend. Iniesta's 2010 goal seems to me to have gone down in a similar annal of history.

Dont agree leader is meaningless. For exampe in recent years arsenal were constant big game chokers because we had no leader to guide us through clutch moments, calm people down, get them motivated if they are slacking ect

Fair points, dont disagree.

And I dont think leadership is meanginless, far from it. What I do think is meaningless is though when someone says player X is a better leader than Y and therefore that in part makes him better.

As for Arsenal, I think they lacked more than that. That wasnt the only reason for their failures. Being unable to organise a defensive gameplan was a bigger problem to me.

Sure it was a big problem, mainly a lack of discipline. Wenger has never been the best at transfering discipline to his players imo, he needed guys like adams, keown, and dixon on the pitch who were leaders to stop players wandering around in all different directions with no discipline, having said that one of our most important defenders was gilberto. Generally, i think great organisers tend to be leaders in personality, like having a general on the pitch, in that way you could argue it is a meaningful factor in "x is better than y" if y lacks the ability to direct his teammates

Any actual examples though?

I dont think there are any.

They may be a better leader, but I bet they are either a better players with or without that or they still arent better.

Maybe I didn't express myself correctly, but when I said leadership I was referring to the fact that he was inspiring his teammates, he was an example to the other, a talisman, that Iniesta isn't. At Spain is Xavi and at Barca Messi.

1. Iniesta's first touch is not near zidanes. But his dribbling is about the same or better.
2. Zidane much, much better in the air, and on fks and long shots.
3. Zidane has even better decision making then iniesta and is basically xavi and iniesta in one.
However iniesta is equal on every other thing imo
He's overrated a tad bit but that doesn't ruin the class player he was.

Sport said it, iniesta sacrifices alot for messi in barca, so if people actually watch spain play as well then you will know the gap is not that big

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Most people here have not seen Zidane outside of highlight clips on Youtube so it's a moot argument anyway.

Exactly

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Most people here have not seen Zidane outside of highlight clips on Youtube so it's a moot argument anyway.

Yes, and it seems many of them are madridistas. There is a reason why most juventinos i know would take nedved over him ina heart beat. The fact is that zidane was capable of magic but also had a tendency to disappear, and do zilch. I remember his very first season with madrid my madridista buddies were pissed at the way he was sleepwalking through matches. They were like we paid a world record fee for this? Crucially he has NEVER had a season(s) where he was far and away the best in his league( like ronaldinho 2004-06, nedved in 03, henry in 04, messi the last few years). Heck, if you ask people in the late 90s early 200s who the best trequartista in serie a was, youd get as many people saying rui costa, boban, or totti as much as zidane. Not to say that zidane is not a great player. He's certainly in the mix when talking about elite midfielders over the last two decades(alond with the other names ive mentioned, iniesta, riquelme, and a few others), but at club level i cant say he ever reached the level of a peak dinho. But the only guys who put him "right behind maradona" are fanboys who started watching in 06, or make international tourneys the be-all end-all.

We had Raul, Ronaldo, Figo, Beckham, Carlos and Zidane in Galactico era. bunch of stars. big stars. but after 10 minutes into the game you could realize that Zidane was from another planet. i don't know how to say it but he was just different.

When he had the ball i was sure that he will do something good and i always was like "give the ball to Zidane, just give the ball to Zidane"....

This is what he was. you can't really show that with youtube videos.

Giggity5313 wrote:
Iniesta is not at zidane's level..

And yet you Madrid fans claim Iniesta is better than Messi who people regard as top three greatest ever...

There's a huge difference between greatest and best as i will demonstrate with the following, Neil Armstrong is the greatest Astronaut of all time, due to his achievements and fame, however he is not the best astronaut that NASA has produced. Greatness is measured through achievements.

Zidane was a joy to watch when he was young in 2006 ... oh I hate retirements.

Zidane was joy to watch even without playing. it has nothing to do with his skills

billionmillion wrote:Zidane was joy to watch even without playing.

wat

his way of walking and running. even him falling down was joy to watch. there is no player who can fall down in this way. so as a person he was interesting man

watch these too

billionmillion wrote:his way of walking and running. even him falling down was joy to watch. there is no player who can fall down in this way. so as a person he was interesting man

He was unfit in that match. France needed a win after 2 losses(without him playing), and he was forced to play.

See the difference he was making for the teams played in, in 1998 they won the WC, in 2002 without him, with the same players they didn't win a game and didn't score a single goal.

Pirlo is the only one who reminds me of the class of zidane.. Players like zidane,del piero, raul, nedved, zanetti will never exist again, most of them (today )are just mercenaries, and morally retarded. For just a couple of millions they sale their souls! Bring back the good old days when coaches like marcelo lippi smoke their cigarettes with so much class!

Billion be VERY careful, your on 25%.

gnrfan wrote: if you ask people in the late 90s early 200s who the best trequartista in serie a was, youd get as many people saying rui costa, boban, or totti as much as zidane. Not to say that zidane is not a great player.

that says more about the strength of serie a than it says about zidane imo

Zidane is a top 10 all time footballer, Iniesta is a great player but its ridiculous to compare him to Zidane, Zizou was a footballing genius, a rare breed of artist, he`s on a higher level than Iniesta & Xavi.

vlafy wrote:Interesting thread.

Here is my opinion:

Zidane and any other players from old generations can't be compared with actual players.Football changed a lot, especially from 2008.Now football is based on different tactics, different kind of players, different style of play.

In other words: Zidane was maybe the best in his generation.Now teams have other policy and prefer players with higher sprint speed and acceleration.The rhythm of the game increseas every year.

Zidane grew up in the 90's with other tactics and other strategies.He developed amazing skills which were the best in that years.Maybe with that skills he wouldn't be that appreciated today, but it's not his fault; also we can see it in another way: if he was playing now, he would have had to develop his skills in other way in order to adapt to actual style of football.Now Iniesta has a different style.His acceleration is higher, his ball control improved a lot because he needed to improve it more than Zidane needed.

I am not saying that Zidane didn't have a great control of the ball or that the defenders were weaker, nope...he was a world class player and we should appreciate him as he was in that times.

WHAT ?

When exactly do you think Zidane played ?... 1931 ?

Some of you teenage fans make my head spin, seriously, this is beyond bizzare. Crazy.