Good, we got better

Ain't we all lovers of football

I'd assume Belgium-England game is going to be inconsequential to the power rankings for the group stages since both teams decided to play their B-teams

My
Golden Ball
1. Cristiano Ronaldo
2. Luka Modric
3. Coutinho
4. Harry Kane
5. Lukaku
6. Isco
7. Eden Hazard
8. Yerry Mina
9. Quintero
10. Neymar

Plastic Ball
1. Kimmich
2. Jerome Boateng
3. Pique
4. Hummels
5. Khedira
6. Mascherano
7. Ozil
8. Caballero
9. Ighalo
10. Milinkovic-Savic

Ronaldo above Prince Harry with less goals and more penalty misses?

OUT

Sergej already with the #10, #JuventusBound

Hopefully Nick concludes the 3rd MD so we can argue about who wins the coveted Tottenham Group Stage Golden Ball.

So let's start with the best players of round one. The list remains unchanged for the most part although, i mainly reshuffled the order for the most part.

[GROUP STAGE]

BEST PLAYERS: Golden Ball

No 1: Cristiano - Best player in the group stage. Kommander had the best performance in world cup so far, vs Spain. and he is joint 2nd top scorer in the tournament. his 3rd game was poor by many standards but he needs to pick up the pace to move forward now.

No 2: Modric - Best midfielder in the world cup, on paper, and on the pitch. Driving Croatia forward and as always a very dangerous team because no one wants to deal with this guy.

No 3 : Coutinho - the real baller leading brazil right now. he doesnt have to deal with the pressure placed on Neymar's shoulders nor the triple marking, and he is fully leveraging his freedom on the pitch to make a difference for his team.

No 4: Isco - Is Spain has looked like the better team in the group stage to me, Isco has been their best player. Performing from game 1 to 3 with the same high level consistency, and getting himself a goal on the way.

No 5: Lukaku: to win you must outscore your opponents and Lukaku has done it as good as any striker in the world cup so far. 2 games 4 goals, i rate him higher here than Kane because i think he worked a lot more for his goals and showed some quality finishing in the 1v1 chances he had.

No 6: Quintero - i wanted to put in relief how good he had been so far this world cup. Mainly without James, he took over for his team and lifted them in each game to go though the group stage on the last game.

No 7: Lozano - If Mexico have been a surprise so far this tourney, they owe a lot of their success to how good Lozano has been. vs Germany with a key goal and vs Korea a quality assist to help seal the deal.

No. 8: Shaqqiri - Switzerland really impressed me this tourney. and as always Shaqqiri saved it all for his NT with clutch goals and performances in a very tough group to go through.

No 9: Prince Harry Kane - Top scorer of the world cup, they made easy work of their group and it's also thanks to his goals. he was ruthlessly efficient when given the chance and has a chance to score a lot more goals this tourney.

No 10: Granqvist: Now this spot is hard earned as there were many candidates. Ultimately, i looked at the strength of his group, his performance vs Germany, the key goal vs Korea and the PK vs Mexico. I think he meant a bit more than other players for their teams when it came to qualifying to the next phase.


any questions and/or comments?

Good list and explanations, can’t disagree with any of the inclusions

WORST: Plastic Ball

No 1: Caballero: There have been a lot of bad keepers in the world cup, but no one has bad as Caballero, ultimately dropped in the game.

No 2: Boateng - Probably the worst CB, the most disappointing for sure. watched the last game from the stands thinking about life in Manchester.

No 3: Kawashima: While he made the save of the tournament in his last game, he was just horrible in he previous two games. too little to late, japan OUT

No 4 - Lewandowski: whelp, letting Yerri Mina snatch your lunchbox is just unacceptable. i am surprised he did not blamed the losses on his teammates. He did nothing yet again in the last game even though they got the win vs Japan.

No 5: Ozil - Long gone are the days when we were calling him Oziluz for his incredible vision and passing on the pitch. Now he is not much different from Joe Cole, and i fear this might be an insult to Joe.

No 6: Mueller - I really could have had the whole Germany XI and no one could have complained but a flop of his magnitude was momentous and needs to be acknowledged.

No 7 - Enzo Perez: I still have a hard time understanding what he is doing on the pitch, but truly an horrible world cup so far. good luck vs Kante.

No 8 - Kroos: He almost made the top 10 most valauble player in round 2 thanks to that fantastic goal. But then he assisted the goal that killed his country. I am surprise he is getting away with that so easily.

No 9: Pique - Still seems like Spain weakest link in this tourney

No 10 Messi: I thought about removing him from this list after the last game but it would have been too kind. He has horrendous in the first two game and given that we are talking about a potential goat, this level is not acceptable.

Honorable mention: De Gea, Di maria, Hummels, Khedira

No Neymar? He has been pathetic so far

I disagree, you can criticize his behaviour but he has been good.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkpdRheBIFX/

ill start a new list with the knockout stage

1- Mbappe

Has Neymar suddenly turned it on Brazil's last two games? One of the worst players of the cup in that first game. Didn't see the other two.

2- Cavani

Mr Nick09 wrote:ill start a new list with the knockout stage

1- Mbappe

Pogba should be there too tbh.

Depending on the next couple of results, I thought Godin was good out there today

Anytime Cristiano messi LeBron lose a major tourney it becomes a "team sport", but when they win and score it's all about them. I've credited Cristiano and deservedly so for Madrid's success. He also has to take the criticism when his team loses. That's the responsibility of the main players. Team sport or not.

It's one thing to lose say 3-2 and your best player scores twice. But when they play like superman when they're heavy favorites at club level only to play like Clark Kent when the playing field is relatively even on their national teams, we can't give them a pass..

I'm sorry I didn't know where else to post this. But yes best players should be held accountable, not teammates who we didn't expect much from to begin with, not mythical corrupt FAs not poor Ricardo who did what he could on the right wing not the coaching staff

Thank you very much. By the way Godin vs mbappe should be a good match up

Their fanboys make it all about them when they win and their haters make it all about them when they lose.

For those outside of those categories it's very simple really. Messi and Ronaldo are both exceptional players but will obviously play much better in elite teams that suit their play style as opposed to mediocre teams that don't. Even though I've said before Portugal is much better than Argentina right now and I stand by that I still don't really blame Ronaldo for the loss. There wasn't much more he could've done. Same for Messi against France.

Don't see why they should be held accountable when they actively set up to fail.

The people who actively praise them when they win are idiots too tbh, it's always a team sport. I don't understand how you can criticise forwards who never see the ball anywhere near the goal.

There's far too much emphasis on the stars and ignorance of how much the team mates actually matter. It was a shame when Messi got all the credit when they were winning or coming close every year, it was a shame when players like Alonso and Di Maria got little to no credit when they were at Madrid and Ronaldo got it all.

Not everyone flips to suit their arguments tbh, it's always been a team sport and this idea that stars should magically do something when they are in no position to do so is so stupid.

Guedes was real flop, we must insert among worst players

Tbf though prince Harry can always claim a goal, no matter how bad the service he receives is.

Prince Harry's service has been better than Ronaldo's and Messi's so far

Sure, that's why football's finally coming home.

Just saying he would've claimed a few goals in either match today

Not sure about Portugal but i'm pretty sure Argentina would have benched him