Barzagli: "Balo more prepared for WC than Nerman"

The 31-year-old believes the Milan striker is more capable than his South American contemporary, and anticipates great things from his compatriot at Brazil 2014
Italy defender Andrea Barzagli has tipped Mario Balotelli to be the star of the 2014 World Cup ahead of Neymar, prompted by his international team-mate's display against Brazil on Thursday.

Cesare Prandelli's men had found themselves 2-0 down to the Selecao before Balotelli struck a superb equaliser to cap a fightback, leading Barzagli to claim he believed the striker to be a more complete player than his Santos counterpart.

"Who seems to be more ready to become the star at the next World Cup? For me, Balotelli is more ready, because he already has had important experiences," the Juventus stopper told La Stampa.

"Neymar is a phenomenon and only lacks European experience to be the best, but as I mentioned, Balotelli is proving to be more ready at this point."

Following their credible draw, the Azzurri now travel to Malta for their World Cup qualifier, and Barzagli has called for the squad to maintain similar focus against the relative European minnows.

"We did well against Brazil, but now we need to keep up that attitude against Malta," the 2006 World Cup winner insisted.

"It will be a difficult match, and we cannot afford to lose momentum for the three points then."

Lazio custodian Federico Marchetti is an injury doubt for Tuesday after Giorgio Chiellini pulled out of the squad earlier this week, but Claudio Marchisio and Ignazio Abate are newly expected to be at Prandelli's disposal.

He's got a point. At the end of the day both are attackers and Balotelli is capable of scoring more goals than Neymar at the WC.

Balo is a CF,Neymar isnt.If Neymar plays as well as he did against italy he will be fine.

+ home advantage and boom.As i said many times, I cant see us flopping in thw WC simply based on home advantage.

Ganso wrote:Balo is a CF,Neymar isnt.If Neymar plays as well as he did against italy he will be fine.

+ home advantage and boom.As i said, I cant see us flopping in thw WC simply based on home advantage.

what do you call flopping ?
Does Brazil making the 1/4 is flopping ? >( ex >)

Bénin wrote:

Ganso wrote:Balo is a CF,Neymar isnt.If Neymar plays as well as he did against italy he will be fine.

+ home advantage and boom.As i said, I cant see us flopping in thw WC simply based on home advantage.

what do you call flopping ?
Does Brazil making the 1/4 is flopping ? >( ex >)

if we finish at quarter finals then it will be a flop performance.A semifinal finish isnt

I absolutely agree. Balotelli has performed for 3 big clubs in Europe at this point as well as in the Euro against some very strong teams including Germany. Neymar has performed in a few friendlies and in the Brazilian leafue, but it really doesnt compare. Also if you compare Neymar and Balotellis individual performances against Germany, you see what a difference it is. Balotelli scores 2 goals against Germany in a tournament, one of them a beauty. Neymar scored a goal afainst Germany aftet they were already 3-1 down in a friendly and Germany didnt care anymore as the game was already over, plus its just a friendly.

You call his City spell performing?

Maybe he performed as a publicity machine...

He certainly wasnt bad, even though he was consiatently rotated with Aguero, Tevez, and Dzeko and never had a chance to start game after game for a long period of time. He also provided the assist for Agueros PL winning goal last season.

Balotelli IMO is better based on his form now for milan and more importantly la nazionaglio.

Balo was the definition of inconsistent at city. Ups and Downs.

Neymar has been consistently improving and as barzagli said is just lacking European experience. I don't like neymar at all, but he had talent and plays well. There is no disputing that.

juventus101 wrote:He certainly wasnt bad, even though he was consiatently rotated with Aguero, Tevez, and Dzeko and never had a chance to start game after game for a long period of time. He also provided the assist for Agueros PL winning goal last season.

Playing only 590 league minutes (the equivalent of 6 and a half matches) in an entire half-season for City is not performing to me. He was inconsistent and I rarely remember him making an impact after being subbed on. I'd say he sub-performed considering his Inter and Italy level.

Balotelli can definitely win you games but I would say he's "preformed" with every team he's played for lol

Anyway we can't really judge Neymar yet, but we all have to agree that he's very good.

Neymar has played really good for his age on the international stage

El Shaarawy wrote:Neymar has played really good for his age on the international stage

I agree. I'm not prepared to crown Nerman yet but him doing good for his age for Brazil confirms for me that he is not a fraud.

Balotelli may be more important to his national team than Neymar is to his, because Italy hasn't got many strikers you want playing for your team at the World Cup. But I'm not buying this random comment that Balotelli would somehow be more ready to play at the World Cup than Neymar.

Art Morte wrote:Balotelli may be more important to his national team than Neymar is to his, because Italy hasn't got many strikers you want playing for your team at the World Cup. But I'm not buying this random comment that Balotelli would somehow be more ready to play at the World Cup than Neymar.

Well Barzagli's saying he's more ready to play in the WC because of his European experience. Balo has played for and against plenty of big teams in Europe. Neymar only really has experience playing against players that won't even be at the World Cup or if they are, they're his team-mates.

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:

Art Morte wrote:Balotelli may be more important to his national team than Neymar is to his, because Italy hasn't got many strikers you want playing for your team at the World Cup. But I'm not buying this random comment that Balotelli would somehow be more ready to play at the World Cup than Neymar.

Well Barzagli's saying he's more ready to play in the WC because of his European experience. Balo has played for and against plenty of big teams in Europe. Neymar only really has experience playing against players that won't even be at the Euro's or if they are, they're his team-mates.

I dont get what you said here

World Cup I mean

In other words, the best players Nerman is facing now will be his teammates rather than opponents making Balo better prepared.

Can someone remind me again, how many minutes did Pele play in Europe to prepare for the WC?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:In other words, the best players Nerman is facing now will be his teammates rather than opponents making Balo better prepared.

Can someone remind me again, how many minutes did Pele play in Europe to prepare for the WC?

Being more prepared doesn't mean that he's guaranteed to do better than Neymar

What Barzagli said is fine, if you've already played against your opponents before you're more prepared.
As for who will actually perform better, we will see.

Barzagli said Balo is more prepared because Balo has "more important experiences". Not sure quite what he means to be honest. Nerman won the libertadores, league, and regional cup all while being a key player. I like Balo, but he was not a key player for either Inter or City, and he has certainly not scored a goal in the equivalent of a CL final. Nerman's experiences seem more important to me.

As BC mentioned, I would guess that about 20-30% of our WC winners had european experience prior to winning the wc.....so in theory,they rarely played against the players they faced in the wc.

Also, i would like to say that Neymar has more international experience than Balo and quite honestly, i think thats what matter the most for the WC.He will NOT be facing tough/compact club defenses,he will be facing Nt defenses like the one he faced just a few days ago and was fantastic against.(italy)

And really,if he doesnt manage to perform on his own then he will get help from his teamates that do have european experience like Oscar,Lucas,Fred,Hernanes etc...

One year couldnt go by any slower

I don't see anything wrong with this i do think Balo is better prepared to perform at the WC.

But that is hardly surprising he is more experienced with European defences and just more experienced in general.

He plays for a team which without a doubt in my mind is more ready, has much more experience and as of right now to me looks much more settled and performing better as a team.

This does not mean he will perform better than Nerman though but everything is in Balo's favour at the moment IMO.

So i think Barzagli is right.

Art Mole, you say Italy doesnt have strikers so we NEED Balo...

Tell me Art....what crack strikers Brazil has right now mmm? fres? luis fabiano? hulk? pato?


yeah......

djfawnz wrote:Art Mole, you say Italy doesnt have strikers so we NEED Balo...

Tell me Art....what crack strikers Brazil has right now mmm? fres? luis fabiano? hulk? pato?


yeah......

You didnt get what he is trying to say.What he meant is that Italy are more dependent on Balo than we are depndent on Neymar.

how are we dependant on Balo? if we compare our first XI vs Brazil's XI, we could say Italy is stronger.... i mean Bonucci Barzagli Chiellini Abate Marchisio Pirlo De Rossi and Buffon, u can have 3