Please point to were the disagreement about the 98 golden ball winner is, (a link will do)

What about a DM? is his most important job to create chances? Or should he be protecting the defence? What about a B2B? I suppose he can be as lazy as he likes, as long as he creates a chance every now and then.
Why is it the most important?

So why did you not include the amount of times possession is lost directly after possession was won by this tackle, or amount of time the team retained the ball after possession was won? surely that would influence the importance of the statistic.

How do they?

Kick wrote:Please point to were the disagreement about the 98 golden ball winner is, (a link will do)

What about a DM? is his most important job to create chances? Or should he be protecting the defence? What about a B2B? I suppose he can be as lazy as he likes, as long as he creates a chance every now and then.
Why is it the most important?

So why did you not include the amount of times possession is lost directly after possession was won by this tackle, or amount of time the team retained the ball after possession was won? surely that would influence the importance of the statistic.

How do they?

http://www.goallegacy.net/t36526-most-controversial-world-cup-golden-ball-s-since-1966#1299834

You're just now hanging on semantics, it doesn't matter which are the most important which particular position, you can see their position from the statistics provided.

Because it's needless, successful tackles already provides the clue about defending participation.

That is not disagreement.
That is four statistics, find me people who disagree over it, otherwise, there is no controversy, there is no disagreement. Better yet, watch the games those players were involved in and you can choose who was better.

I am simply curious as to why you think that creating chances is the most important thing for a midfielder to do, when it clearly isn't for all midfielders.

It does not, I know plenty of good players who make more interceptions and clearances than tackles, it does not tell me who was the best defender. All it tells me is who made the most tackles, a useless statistic when taken out of context.

Kick wrote:That is not disagreement.
That is four statistics, find me people who disagree over it, otherwise, there is no controversy, there is no disagreement. Better yet, watch the games those players were involved in and you can choose who was better.

I am simply curious as to why you think that creating chances is the most important thing for a midfielder to do, when it clearly isn't for all midfielders.

It does not, I know plenty of good players who make more interceptions and clearances than tackles, it does not tell me who was the best defender. All it tells me is who made the most tackles, a useless statistic when taken out of context.

Yes it is.

Finding people to you is pointless, because they don't involve in the disagreement, or controversy here. Statistics are what has happened in the games, and they factually say how much total quality they produced in the four category.

Yes it is, you are a better play maker, more chances you create. It's the most obvious statistic for a playmaker.

Yes it does, more tackles you make, more you participate on defending.

Wait are you trying to say Careca deserved to win the Golden Ball over Maradona in 86? Just because the stats say so?

Harmonica wrote:Statistics are what has happened in the games, and they factually say how much total quality they produced in the four category.

since when do statistics say anything about quality.

They only say something about quantities obviously, how you draw conclusions as for quality is a matter of interpretation (i.e. "more = better", to name the most basic one)

According to stats Ricardo Rodriguez is a top 10 player in the world so is that a fact?

Harmonica wrote:
Goals - How much player provided attacking quality
Chances Created - How much player provided playmaking quality
Dribbles - How much player provided advancing play
Tackling - How much player provided defending quality

I know it's a WUM thread but even for a WUM it's not very clever. If tackling = "provided defending quality", if there is indeed such a correlation, according to that logic the teams with the highest tackling numbers must have the tightest defenses. Easily falsifyable. Last season Liverpool topped the tackling charts in the Premier League. Yet they've conceded twice as many goals as Chelsea who came 9th in the tackling charts, behind the likes of Aston Villa and Palace.

A more extreme example from the Bundesliga. Hoffenheim topped the tackling charts by far with 24.9 tackles per game. Bayern was the worst tackling team by far with 16.7 tackles per game. Hoffenheim was the 2nd worst defensive team in the league with 70 goals conceded. Bayern were the best with 23. There is 0 correlation between amount of tackles and "defending quality".

"Dribbling = advancing play" is another easily falsifyable statement. Obviously you can advance the play by passing the ball instead of carrying the ball. Germany in WC 2014 was the 27th (out of 32) best dribbling team. Only Iran, Cameroon, Honduras, Ecuador and Italy completed less dribbles. No one for Germany dribbled the ball. So Germany was quite bad at advancing the play according to your "4 stat ranking"?

Fußball wrote:

Harmonica wrote:
Goals - How much player provided attacking quality
Chances Created - How much player provided playmaking quality
Dribbles - How much player provided advancing play
Tackling - How much player provided defending quality

I know it's a WUM thread but even for a WUM it's not very clever. If tackling = "provided defending quality", if there is indeed such a correlation, according to that logic the teams with the highest tackling numbers must have the tightest defenses. Easily falsifyable. Last season Liverpool topped the tackling charts in the Premier League. Yet they've conceded twice as many goals as Chelsea who came 9th in the tackling charts, behind the likes of Aston Villa and Palace.

A more extreme example from the Bundesliga. Hoffenheim topped the tackling charts by far with 24.9 tackles per game. Bayern was the worst tackling team by far with 16.7 tackles per game. Hoffenheim was the 2nd worst defensive team in the league with 70 goals conceded. Bayern were the best with 23. There is 0 correlation between amount of tackles and "defending quality".

"Dribbling = advancing play" is another easily falsifyable statement. Obviously you can advance the play by passing the ball instead of carrying the ball. Germany in WC 2014 was the 27th (out of 32) best dribbling team. Only Iran, Cameroon, Honduras, Ecuador and Italy completed less dribbles. No one for Germany dribbled the ball. So Germany was quite bad at advancing the play according to your "4 stat ranking"?

Probably the most irrational post I've yet to read in this thread.

We are not talking consequences here, it doesn't matter if a team lets more goals because it tackles more. That is the consequence of tactics and quality edge of the team. Now if a player tackles 10 times instead of 0, he simply provides more individual defending quality than the other, which itself is always positive.

Dribbling is an individual quality when passing relies more to team tactics and edge, you can't advance play with a pass if player isn't there to receive the pass, but you can advance play by dribbling yourself in any situation.

This thread isn't about team quality, but individual quality.

If one player averages 5 tackles and the other 1 tackle they can be totally compared in terms of "defensive quality" but if you put two 5 tacklers together into a team and two 1 tacklers together into a team (meaning one team averages 10 tackles and the other 2 tackles) the same tackling statistic can not be used anymore to judge the defensive quality because suddenly you've decided that non-quantifyable influences such as "tactics" come into play. I got that right, right?

Harmonica wrote:

Dribbling is an individual quality when passing relies more to team tactics and edge, you can't advance play with a pass if player isn't there to receive the pass, but you can advance play by dribbling yourself in any situation.

You can't create chances without a teammate positioning himself correctly, handling the pass correctly and according to OPTA definition even getting a shot off either (OPTA chance created = "the final pass leading to a shot at goal from a teammate"). You've just argued against using "passing" as a valid measurement because it isn't an individual enough quality which means you've automatically argued against your own usage of "key pass" for "playmaking quality" as "key pass" is necessarily a ... well ... pass.

Seriously, who cares to World Cup Golden Balls ? I don't know even the winners

Bruno Conti was the best player in Spain 82.
According these statistics he is not even 4th

Fußball wrote:If one player averages 5 tackles and the other 1 tackle they can be totally compared in terms of "defensive quality" but if you put two 5 tacklers together into a team and two 1 tacklers together into a team (meaning one team averages 10 tackles and the other 2 tackles) the same tackling statistic can not be used anymore to judge the defensive quality because suddenly you've decided that non-quantifyable influences such as "tactics" come into play. I got that right, right?

Yes it can, because if the 5 tackler can match the 1 tackler in other quality, he's a better player. Because he can provide the same other quality, using higher share of his energy or quality to tackling. Again, it's just logical.

You can't create chances without a teammate positioning himself correctly, handling the pass correctly and according to OPTA definition even getting a shot off either (OPTA chance created = "the final pass leading to a shot at goal from a teammate"). You've just argued against using "passing" as a valid measurement because it isn't an individual enough quality which means you've automatically argued against your own usage of "key pass" for "playmaking quality" as "key pass" is necessarily a ... well ... pass.

Yes, there is certain amount of team involvement in every statistic. However chances created is the most important statistic from a playmaking perspective, chance created always advances play.

Harmonica wrote:
Probably the most irrational post I've yet to read in this thread.

Coming from a guy with a 19th century positivist mindset, this subtle allusion to time travel is very startling, and dare I say beautiful.

Maybe not all lessons of 20th century scientific theory have been lost on you after all

Carry on

Robespierre wrote:Bruno Conti was the best player in Spain 82.
According these statistics he is not even 4th

Goals - Chances Created - Dribbles - Tackles - WC82

6 - 14 - 10 - 2 - Rossi
4 - 18 - 13 - 5 - Boniek
3 - 8 - 10 - 15 - Falcao
3 - 24 - 17 - 5 - Giresse

1 - 15 - 17 - 14 - Conti

One of the best, could be. The best? I don't think so, statistics don't think so, the panel didn't think so. Also the players aren't in a order, except winner being the first.

Put you also missed the point, the best performance's isn't the point here. The point is to show the edge, or lack of, the Golden Ball winner had to his peers, and how controversial the winner was based on the actual quality produced.

Would it be more controversial than now if Di Maria scored 7 goals and dribbled 3 times more than Messi, and Müller scored 10 goals, yet Messi would've won the Golden Ball like Pele in the WC70?

I want to see Leadership put into a statistic, considering that is often an important trait.

Kick wrote:I want to see Leadership put into a statistic, considering that is often an important trait.

So made somebody else play better rather than yourself? Now there's a good load of crapola to concentrate.

Nevertheless, pretty much every winner was also a leader of the team.

Harmonica wrote:

Kick wrote:I want to see Leadership put into a statistic, considering that is often an important trait.

So made somebody else play better rather than yourself? Now there's a good load of crapola to concentrate.

Nevertheless, pretty much every winner was also a leader of the team.

Messi, what a leader


Statistically, Mascherano is more of a leader than Messi, according to this.

Also, why was leadership not factored into it then, considering Zidane and Kahn LEAD both of their teams to finals, Zidane more so who carried that team. I'd argue neither were controversial for that reason.

not gonna get into this debate but that picture is used out of context.
if you watch the video or the live footage he was called over by the ref to do the coin flip..
and it's kinda dumb to doubt messi's leadership on the field all the players have spoken about it but the expert gl posters think otherwise for some unknown reason.

Kick wrote:

Harmonica wrote:

Kick wrote:I want to see Leadership put into a statistic, considering that is often an important trait.

So made somebody else play better rather than yourself? Now there's a good load of crapola to concentrate.

Nevertheless, pretty much every winner was also a leader of the team.

Messi, what a leader


Statistically, Mascherano is more of a leader than Messi, according to this.

Also, why was leadership not factored into it then, considering Zidane and Kahn LEAD both of their teams to finals, Zidane more so who carried that team. I'd argue neither were controversial for that reason.

Messi gave the speech before the game, and you do realize that Messi was going for coin toss, and just after that Argentina lost the World Cup?

Messi was the leader of Argentina, the captain, and led by example. He carried them to a point that they rose as a team.

Just like Zidane, huh?

Just like Kahn, so why are they the most controversial?

Kick wrote:Just like Zidane, huh?

Just like Kahn, so why are they the most controversial?

Neither produced the same individual quality than others compared to their peers.

You have yet to produce any statistics on Kahn's quality.

Also, if a player can lift the quality of the team to greater heights, surely they should be considered a deserving winner, since this is a team sport.

Kick wrote:You have yet to produce any statistics on Kahn's quality.

Also, if a player can lift the quality of the team to greater heights, surely they should be considered a deserving winner, since this is a team sport.

I already said it's pointless to compare Kahn, because he's an anomaly among the winners. You can take him out comparison if you like.

Football is a team sport, but players are individuals, if their quality aren't enough for the team, then the team has less quality overall. You can see how much the quality impacted by removing goals, dribbles, chances and tackles. Without Messi's dribbling, scoring and creating Argentina 14 scored a goal, compare that to actions example of Zidane 06 and France and Pele 70 and Brazil and you'll get an answer.

So we're finally getting somewhere.

So what if a player lifts a team with his performance which allows his team to score the winning goal, even if he wasn't involved in the goal, it can still be attributed to him playing.

The mere presence of the player made his team play better and therefore he would be a deserving winner, would he not?

No, actually we're not getting anywhere.

Again,we are talking best individual player performance here, not how much somebody made somebody else magically play better.