Guillem Balague debates that Andres Iniesta is better Zinedine Zidane

Idiot wrote:zidane simply has left his mark as a legendary individual,
iniesta won't do so, they will remember him as an important barcelona player, as a player that played in the best barcelona ever and prob the best club ever, the best spain NT and maybe best NT ever.
and thats where they differ, one was partly the bigger image himself, and the other just a part of the image and will be rememberd as so.

I somewhat agree with that. Zizou as an individual might be more remembered but that in itself doesn't make one better than the other. If iniesta keeps up this monstrous form its only a matter of time before he surpasses Zidane.

Idiot wrote:zidane simply has left his mark as a legendary individual,
iniesta won't do so, they will remember him as an important barcelona player, as a player that played in the best barcelona ever and prob the best club ever, the best spain NT and maybe best NT ever.
and thats where they differ, one was partly the bigger image himself, and the other just a part of the image and will be rememberd as so.

Tell the whole of Spain that, when he is applauded every where he goes for winning them the WC.

To think Iniesta won't be remembered as a great is extremely naive and foolish.

Of course he will, he has turned up in too many finals and big games for it not to happen.

For me Zidane is better than Iniesta, and its not that close yet. But this is unfair to Iniesta because he still has lot of time left, also he will never get the recognition he deserves because of Barca and Spain being so stack with such high quality players. I mean he will always be recognized as a world class player but never the best I feel. Still I think Zidane is I a level above Iniesta, but when Iniesta retires (in terms of quality I see him matching Zidane) but he wont be recognized as much as Zidane because of Messi and Ronaldo overshadowing him (both of whom I think are better players in their own regards).

One thing that should not be underestimated is how Zidane played for different teams in different leagues, and succeeded with everything.

If Messi want to get even more hype for best player in history debates, he should join a new team in a new league, see if he can be consistent with different teammates .

Didnt really hurt Pele much so I doubt it.

pele is *bleep*

Eivindo wrote:One thing that should not be underestimated is how Zidane played for different teams in different leagues, and succeeded with everything

It means absolutely f*ck all, not sure why people keep bringing this up like it has any relevance at all.

Anyway i agree with StevieRay.

futbol wrote:I specifically used the term "totally crumble", not "suffer". Barca would suffer without a player of Iniesta's quality. Barca wouldn't crumble. Too many playmakers of high quality at Barcelona who can make up for his absense. United without Carrick would crumble. Who's going to make up for his loss? Jones? Cleverley? Surely you are getting the analogy that it can't be held against Iniesta's individual quality just because he's playing alongside Messi and Xavi with Fabregas on the bench.

No one talked about 98 btw. The topic was France failures in 2002 and 2006 qualifiers.

United wouldn't crumble without Carrick, half the united fans want carrick out. Jones can play DM like he did against Madrid and was united's best player.

Failures in 2002 just because they had no playmakers? that's not true, they had Micoud as a playmaker, they had Boghossian, they still had Djorkaeff. All of them successful at their respected clubs. But of course none of them could do what zidane could simply because he was a world class player and one of a kind. Take any other playmaker apart from them, fabregas, Ozil or Pirlo, even if they were in the squad none of them could have done what zidane did.

Problem wasn't that france lacked certain type of players. Problem was that there was no man as good as Zidane, in any position. Tournaments can be won without playmakers. That's not a valid argument. Tournaments can't be won without leaders which Zidane was.

Eivindo wrote:One thing that should not be underestimated is how Zidane played for different teams in different leagues, and succeeded with everything.

If Messi want to get even more hype for best player in history debates, he should join a new team in a new league, see if he can be consistent with different teammates .

Not this again! That makes no sense. Why would Messi want to leave the team in which he came up, and is helping become one of the best of all time and is regarded as almost godlike just to try out a new team? To prove to people like you that he can be consistent? Please. He's said he never wants to leave barca and towards the end of his career, you never know how things might go. But you say that him testing out a new club would add hype to his best player of all time argument. Just understand that that will never be necessary.

The Franchise wrote:Didnt really hurt Pele much so I doubt it.

Or Maldini, Del Piero, Totti, Gerrard, Beckenbauer, Bochini, Yashin, Baresi... the list goes on.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Idiot wrote:zidane simply has left his mark as a legendary individual,
iniesta won't do so, they will remember him as an important barcelona player, as a player that played in the best barcelona ever and prob the best club ever, the best spain NT and maybe best NT ever.
and thats where they differ, one was partly the bigger image himself, and the other just a part of the image and will be rememberd as so.

Tell the whole of Spain that, when he is applauded every where he goes for winning them the WC.

To think Iniesta won't be remembered as a great is extremely naive and foolish.

Of course he will, he has turned up in too many finals and big games for it not to happen.

i dont care what spain thinks, the rest of the world will forget him faster than you think, in fact the rest of the world sees no different between him or xavi or villa or raul, they will all be remembered as important,amazing players that were vital for their teams, nothing more nothing less.
none will ever forget zidane, and before you tell me thats not a reason to differentiate their quality, ill tell you it is, they only remember the greats, and im talking about large margin of years even decades.

the only great they will remember about iniesta is his teams, barca and spain, sadly or luckily for him he is part of a set of players that are ment to be driven together,reach success together and take praise together, not individually.

yes he was vital in many finals but thats just about it, thats what you can give to his name to carry his legacy, the rest bends more to his team in general.
his moments weren't large scale moments, it just happened, good for his country, good for him, but not enough to move him to the next step, the biggest step.

I think anyone who really cares about football will remember Iniesta.

If those who dont care about it are around, I have no interest in their opinion anyway.

I remember players nowhere near as good as Iniesta.

Never has a username been more apt

im just looking at the bigger picture, if someone that doesnt know much about football knows zidane but doesnt know laudrup for example that says something right? for me that says a lot.

i just think that people will remember barcelona, and people will remember spain, the only individual that managed and certainly will be remembered individually from barcelona is messi, had messi never played there i still cant say iniesta would make the difference in that set of players.
again thats my opinion and only and again im talking about large scale of years, 100 years or so

anyway i changed the flow of the discussion we should be talking about their quality directly, sry

I dont think it says anything.

They know Zidane because he won the WC and various stuff...that dont make him better really.

To me, I dont care about what people who dont know much about football think.

Thats just me though.

Stardom is more important than quality for being recognized by the occasional football follower. Beckham is perhaps the best example for this. Even to this day his brand is recognized everywhere he goes, but he was never the best in the world and he wouldn't touch Iniesta's heels at his prime. If someone knows Beckham but not Iniesta that makes the former better for you?

The Franchise wrote:I think anyone who really cares about football will remember Iniesta.

If those who dont care about it are around, I have no interest in their opinion anyway.

I remember players nowhere near as good as Iniesta.

I still remember Gravesen

Gravesen not that long ago...but then again, he was so bad maybe you will never forget

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Stardom is more important than quality for being recognized by the occasional football follower. Beckham is perhaps the best example for this. Even to this day his brand is recognized everywhere he goes, but he was never the best in the world and he wouldn't touch Iniesta's heels at his prime. If someone knows Beckham but not Iniesta that makes the former better for you?

if that someone earns his recognition only through football, then yes, partly and dependently.

people also know beckam for his looks*,pants or perfume lol

Iniesta equal or better than Zidane and Zidane being overrated

And i can only laugh hard at Barca fans saying that:
- Dominating different leagues with different teams means nothing
- NT play means nothing
- Teams struggling when Zidane was out meant nothing (and mysteriously became fantastic again when he came back in case of NT)
- If you can't see the truth behind Iniesta being as good as Zidane, you just don't know football
- Zidane being one of the all-time great at the combined positions of Iniesta and Xavi means nothing
etc.

Keep it coming. It's good entertainment lol.

Tbf Sports most of that came from Futbol and i'll think you will find hardly anyone agrees with it

Also dominating different leagues with different means does mean something yes...

But when you're dominant enough at club and international level then you don't need to prove anything.

Plenty of all time greats only played at one club and no one argued they needed to move.

Its really not relevant when it comes to this, we all know Iniesta and Messi would succeed anywhere anyway.

You shouldn't knock a player down for not having played for multiple clubs. However, you should definitely push players further up who did take on varied challenges and excelled at them. For example, if Pep excels at Bayern in Bundi and CL, then he just went up a notch or two in my book. He could've stayed at Barca and remained comfortable... yet he decided that he had achieved all he could there and wanted to challenge himself. Kudos to him.

Some took on the challenge and stumbled. Michael Owen is a prime example. He was a Liverpool legend in the making and could easily have stayed. He went to Real Madrid instead and didn't show the same quality. His legacy took a massive hit.

It just adds to your legend when you dominate in varied environments. The change comes at big personal risk... You think you can project how a player will perform. But in reality, it's just probabilities and it's never a sure thing.

Agree with that.

If Iniesta took shots and scored a few more goals, preferably clutch goals, then they would be on the same level.

In my opinion, that is the difference between Zidane and Iniesta.

People will remember Zidane more then Iniesta? well no s*** who else have we seen headbutt someone else in a world cup final.

Toss-up for me. Granted, I'm not really a big fan of either tbh