@Sports : What about their overrall level pre WC ? Ozil made a name of himself at Real madrid . Would you say that Ozil at 25 has proven more than Zidane pre WC 98 ?

I don't think so at all.

1996-1997 Juve team won Serie A and went to the CL Finals with Zidane establishing himself in the 2nd half of the season.  Zidane and Del Piero clicked and both their careers took off.

1997-1998 Juve team won Serie A and went to the CL Finals again.  Zidane controlled the flow of the team with Del Piero being the scorer with Inzhagi.

Ozil hasn't taken control of a team like Zidane did.  Zidane was unquestionably WC and one of the best players in the world...  we're still talking about Ozil's WC potential still and he's not moving forward with that.  Zidane was on an upward surge going into the WC.

Doc wrote:My memory on this is really hazy but I do remember Del Piero having more of an impact (a lot more actually) for Juventus during the 97-98 season than Zidane (in the league).

On the topic of Laudrup, a little before my time but I always read and told that, like Redondo, Laudrup had consistency issues, real ones.

I said the same thing in another thread ages ago, but I was laughed at   

Zidane never established himself in the second half of 1996-97. You shouldn't take the word of someone who has an issue with me criticising Zidane as gospel.

There's apparently a consensus that a group of people (they) considered not only Del Piero, but Zidane as the best players in Italy after Ronaldo. Nothing to support that claim, because it's not accurate, at all.

Shortly before round 32 in the 1997-98 season, there was a vote by the "50 leading experts of Italian football", from La Stampa, owned by the Agnelli syndicate no less. The top five were Nedved, Ronaldo, Zidane, Del Piero, Baggio. How do you think they were rated?

Spoiler:

No surprises. I'm sure no-shows like the one against Inter didn't help his cause. And he definitely did have a good level of work ethic in Italy. Certainly the doping played a part, considering how he never complained about playing stress as he integrated into the team.

Pippo destroying sports

Del Piero is Italian...  the fact that R9 is second on that list is all you need to know about those "experts"  R9 was by far the best player in the world back then.  It was pre-injury and he was on another planet.

Nedved ahead of Zidane too

I mean

Out of curiosity, how old were you in 1998?  Did you watch the games??

I'll go by Ballon d'Or rankings back in those days since it was a conglomerate of European media and was considered very legit.  

Zidane was 3rd in 1997 behind R9 and Mijatovic (Del Piero 20th)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d'or_1997

Zidane won it in 1998 (Del Piero 16th)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d'or_1998

sportsczy wrote:Del Piero is Italian...  the fact that R9 is second on that list is all you need to know about those "experts"  R9 was by far the best player in the world back then.  It was pre-injury and he was on another planet.

Nedved ahead of Zidane too

I mean

Out of curiosity, how old were you in 1998?  Did you watch the games??

I'll go by Ballon d'Or rankings back in those days since it was a conglomerate of European media and was considered very legit.  

Zidane was 3rd in 1997 behind R9 and Mijatovic (Del Piero 20th)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d'or_1997

Zidane won it in 1998 (Del Piero 16th)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d'or_1998

Owen 4th in 98 ???

He had a great WC... notably a fantastic game in the round of 1/8 against Argentina that England lost in PKs.  That's the tournament where the star of Owen rose.  He also scored 23 goals for Liverpool.  Big thing was that he was only 18 years old too.
He was like the Neymar of the time.

Remember that the World Cup dwarfed everything back in those days.  CL couldn't even get close.  So WC performance affected BdO heavily in WC years.

Right doping.. First of all zidane was using creatine.. and creatine is used not only by bodybuilders, but track runners, and XC runners. So please, get your head out of your ass before you accuse someone of something like that

It's funny how you change your story now. Apparently they (who?) considered Zidane and Del Piero as the best players after Ronaldo, but now you link me to a Ballon d'Or ranking.

One that has Ronaldo at #3, Zidane at #1, and Del Piero at #16.

I'm obviously not surprised, if anything I could have predicted you would change the story because you were clearly talking out of your ass.

Here's the quote for reference:

sportsczy wrote:Del Piero and Zidane were fantastic that year.  They were both considered the best players after R9.

I'm not going to pass judgement on the list by the "Italian football experts". I agree with their top three players, not with the ranking, but who they've selected.

Zidane was awfully inconsistent and his performance level showed that all throughout his career in Italy. Sandwiched in between a handful of great performances were a collection of awful and average displays, especially in 1996 and 1997.

If you think Zidane was only using creatine, I won't argue any further. It's common knowledge that Juventus doped with EPO (and probably some other things) in 1996, notably the Champions League final, coincidentally the same year Zidane arrived.

After his disappearing-act against Cagliari on the 15th of September, 1996, Zidane complained about how he was so tired, and how his legs were weak. Three matches a week seemed a lot to him.

Now tell me, what do you think is a main benefit of EPO?   

Pippo wrote:If you think Zidane was only using creatine, I won't argue any further. It's common knowledge that Juventus doped with EPO (and probably some other things) in 1996, notably the Champions League final, coincidentally the same year Zidane arrived.

After his disappearing-act against Cagliari on the 15th of September, 1996, Zidane complained about how he was so tired, and how his legs were weak. Three matches a week seemed a lot to him.

Now tell me, what do you think is a main benefit of EPO?   

Ok.. first of all, "common knowledge" isnt gospel. Unless you have facts, don't talk shit

2nd of all, EPO promotes red blood cell production solely.. So it helps with the aerobic factor.. not the anaerobic factor of football.. and still no proof of them doing it. If his legs felt weak it wasn't because of EPO.. That "emptyness" is when you didnt have a good pre season and your anaerobic threshold is low/depleted..

Pippo wrote:If you think Zidane was only using creatine, I won't argue any further. It's common knowledge that Juventus doped with EPO (and probably some other things) in 1996, notably the Champions League final, coincidentally the same year Zidane arrived.

After his disappearing-act against Cagliari on the 15th of September, 1996, Zidane complained about how he was so tired, and how his legs were weak. Three matches a week seemed a lot to him.

Now tell me, what do you think is a main benefit of EPO?   

If you are accusing zidane of being doped, you are accusing all Juventus players as well. I'd even go further and say that you are implying that the whole league might have been doping .

No doubt that the vast majority of Juventus players were on something at the time. Did Zeman accuse the rest of the league, or was it only Juventus? I don't know exactly.

EPO helps significantly in the long run, as did the creatine that Zidane confessed to taking.

There's a documentary floating around, explains quite a bit about Juventus' run in the 1990s. You can argue whether or not specific players were doped but it's a fact that Juventus had some shady things in their labs.

Do you know whether or not Zidane took part in the pre-season in his first year?

Anyways, this is going off-topic. Feel free to think that Zidane (and Juventus) were not part of a doping regimen, I couldn't care less.

Pippo wrote:No doubt that the vast majority of Juventus players were on something at the time. Did Zeman accuse the rest of the league, or was it only Juventus? I don't know exactly.

EPO helps significantly in the long run, as did the creatine that Zidane confessed to taking.

There's a documentary floating around, explains quite a bit about Juventus' run in the 1990s. You can argue whether or not specific players were doped but it's a fact that Juventus had some shady things in their labs.

Do you know whether or not Zidane took part in the pre-season in his first year?

Anyways, this is going off-topic. Feel free to think that Zidane (and Juventus) were not part of a doping regimen, I couldn't care less.

I don't really care if they were doping or not   

Serie A is just too shady    

Del Piero doped, R9 doped, nedved doped, batigol doped, etc.

you're pathetic now

Zidane actually talked about the doping allegations in Serie A several times since his retirement. According to him, he used creatine only which is not illegal. He didnn't comment on others or whether he refused anything else... but he did mention that drug testing in France was light years ahead of the rest of Europe and that's why you never heard about any drug problems in France. If you're a NT or league player in France, you're subject to it. Not only did he not use anything illegal... he couldn't.

And btw, do you know how you can tell a player is perhaps doping back then? Size of the thighs increase dramatically and face gets larger. Neither was the case with Zidane. Definitely the case with Del Piero and R9 though (at Barca) if you want to nitpick.

So now that you lose the real argument... you stopp down to this pathetic bs Nice... done with this thread and you my little biatch.

and you do know how BdO worked, right? oh that 's right... you were probably 3 years old in the day. there was a gentlemen's agreeement (other than in extreme cases which often happened with Madrid) that you wouldn't vote for multiple players on the same team if you were media from that country. You'd pick one. Media from foreign countries could vote for multiple players on one foreign team. Why this gentleman's agreement? Voting was getting too watered down in the late 70s and early 80s and you had a couple of undeserving results. There was also a rule where you could only cast 2 of your top 3 votes for players in your domestic league.

Also, for foreign media to vote for a player, he had to deliver internationally on NT.... just how it was.

So the media covering Serie A picked Zidane over Del Piero in BdO and cast all their votes in that direction. They also picked r9 obviously.... so that left Del Piero out in terms of Serie A journalists. He had no international reputation... so he was left out by the foreign media.

Again, did you see any of the games back then? Why won't you answer???

And Giggity is in fact a pro footy player for a MLS team.... so i wouldn't question him too much about some of this

Pippo wrote:No doubt that the vast majority of Juventus players were on something at the time. Did Zeman accuse the rest of the league, or was it only Juventus? I don't know exactly.

EPO helps significantly in the long run, as did the creatine that Zidane confessed to taking.

There's a documentary floating around, explains quite a bit about Juventus' run in the 1990s. You can argue whether or not specific players were doped but it's a fact that Juventus had some shady things in their labs.

Do you know whether or not Zidane took part in the pre-season in his first year?

Anyways, this is going off-topic. Feel free to think that Zidane (and Juventus) were not part of a doping regimen, I couldn't care less.

The use of EPO was excluded.You cant ignore a court verdict.Medicines were given to improve health of the players such as anti-depressants etc and the use of creatine(which is not illegal) as admitted by Zidane among others.

http://espnfc.com/news/story?id=352207&cc=4716


Here is the final verdict :

With specific reference to the administration of recombinant human erythropoietin, the action of the Attorney General (the appeals process had issued a judgment of acquittal) must be declared inadmissible ... in the years 1994 to 1998 had not been found in any case of positive doping by part of the Juventus players, who by any act of the process emerged the purchase of erythropoietin or its administration to the athletes of the company and had not been observed values ​​exceed the limits in the various anti-doping protocols and that the situation of the Juventus players, both with reference to the average hematological values, both in relation to those of the budget martial, not deviating from the average of the national population "

It was in Italian so i directly google translated it.

The court concluded that the "excessive use of legal or prescribed pharmaceuticals, while deplorable from a sporting perspective, did not constitute a crime

"Zidane pre WC 98 vs Ozil pre WC 2014"

Suppose we actually come to definitive conclusion on who was better... wtf does that actually mean? You can now go around quoting that "Zidane pre WC 98 was better/worse than Ozil pre WC 2014"?

I just read that Zico was a NT flop lol

He was... didn't play up to par in WCs, which is really all that mattered back in those days. Brazil had the most talented teams by far in 1978 and 1982 and arguably even in 1986. Only one semifinal in those 3 teams and that was in 1978... and Zico missed a critical PK against France that got them eliminated in 1986. He was 33 in 1986, so ok there. But still.

That was the big knock on him. Played great in meaningless games for NT and not in WCs. He had 6 goals in 20 WC games or something like that and scored 46 in the other 52 NT games.

Forza wrote:"Zidane pre WC 98 vs Ozil pre WC 2014"

Suppose we actually come to definitive conclusion on who was better... wtf does that actually mean? You can now go around quoting that "Zidane pre WC 98 was better/worse than Ozil pre WC 2014"?

I'm far from being obsessed by those player X vs player Y .

I mainly wanted to know where a 25 years old Ozil is doing comparatively to a similar player at the same age who turned out to be a legend.

So again, nothing substantial that is relevant to what I had already discussed.

You explicitly stated that Zidane and Del Piero were both considered the best players after Ronaldo. I offered something of actual significance, you posted Ballon d'Or rankings that never supported your claim.

Zidane wasn't regarded as the second best player going in [to the World Cup] by several nations actually. It was never a clear-cut choice like you purport.

Again, Zidane did not establish himself in the second half of the 1996-97 Serie A season. Against the top-half teams in the second half, Zidane was notably poor. Juve-owned press agree with that sentiment, and with good reason.

You go on tangents about things that aren't relevant in order to seem knowledgeable. There's a reason why I don't bother responding to your childish digs.

All that I see from reading your posts is someone who will attempt to lie or manipulate simple statements to get a leg to stand on, especially when it comes to the French, e.g. Griezmann and Ribéry, Zidane now as well.

You're making a mockery of yourself. And don't you dare call me your "little biatch", you vile rodent.

lol we now know who actually watched juve during that period, and who is a fanboy who can't stand any criticism of their idol(madridistas, go figure). Pippo, why do you think it is that everyone lauds zidane to a maradonesque level, but similar wonderful playmakers from that era like savicevic, boban, and rui costa are not mentioned in the same way. At that time i dont think people would say one was far superior. I mean with laymen world cup is everything but we are football fans...

yet you're the one who used some survey from an agnelli maketing group as the main justification for your case.... yet dismiss the BdO voting, that consisted of all the major football media in Europe.

And furthermore, you dimiss the fact the these same Serie A media picked R9 and zidane while complete dismissing Del Piero in both 2007 and 2008.

Again, Zidane finished 3rd in BdO in 2007 and won it in 2008. Del Piero finished 16th and 20th lol.

So yeah.... you"re my little bowlegged toothless biatch