Karim Benzema - BIG Ballon d'Or 2022 campaign

Messi is the GOAT in my opinion, i can understand those who say it's Pele but there is nobody else in this debate

So it was expected from Messi to carry Argentina to a world cup title, no matter the excuses. I remember his terrible free kick to close the WC2014 instead of playing the header in the box he shot the ball on the moon. Perhaps it's the only stain on his CV and hopefully he erases it next month.

@Harmonica Well in the real world an attacking player who scored nothing, assisted nothing, created nothing, had 0 shots on target in 120 minutes, and contributed fuck all defensively cannot possibly be the best player in a 0-0 game that was decided by penalties

The player ratings are similar across sports publications from around the world  Everyone except Messi fanboys saw the same thing. But hey, Messi made more useless dribbles near the corner flag than anyone in the game so I'll give you that.

Created nothing.

loool XD

Anyway, the winning a WC in order to be GOAT is just silly...its 2022 n still some ppl believe that geez...

Just imagine example Mbappe v Haaland in the next gen of GOATness, so do u ppl actually expect Haaland to win a WC to quality as GOAT even if he ends up having a better club career than Mbappe? Its that simple, n its just silly no?

Haaland has 0 chance of winning the WC with Norway, becos its a team sport n Norway's level is that low it makes it impossible for him to win it, whilst Mbappe is with France one of the best teams always having the better squads loaded with top players every WC, so pretty sure he has a decent chance to win another WC in his career...

Still, already can see some fans who would argue otherwise, biased fans like farfan are just jokes man...

The funny about benzema bdo ceremony was mou, when said some along the lines of benzema doesn't care about out scoring certain players(messi) or obsessed with being the bdo(messi) or top scorer anything like that, because as long as you Win your gonna get bdo anyways, now we all know who is alluding to, so if mou the former manager is giving us that insight, so why it is so hard to accept that cr never cared about winning and that why it's so hard to win a la liga or CL with him? It's obvious that he was holding down benzema in the offense for all the reason mou described but everyone gonna gloss over it anyway for goat glory hunter lol.

Dribbling stats and other metrics inflate a players rating on who scored. It’s honestly not a good metric to judge someone. That being said, keep in mind Messi was playing in an ultra defensive Argentina team. The main reason Argentina lost some edge was because Di Maria went down. Back then, their team was actually pretty average and higuain and Palacio were big game flops

You don't have to win the WC... but you need to be elite in the WC.  

National teams are the great equalizer.  You're not playing in a manufactured super-team.  Almost every NT has weaknesses you need to compensate for.  

So if you can show your quality (not win) in a non-manufactured scenario, then you're truly great.

There are exceptions of course.  If you're playing for Qatar, not much you can do lol.  However, Argentina is a powerhouse on the NT stage.  If you can't shine with that team, question marks are valid. Same with France, Brazil, Germany, etc.

Chad31 wrote:The funny about benzema bdo ceremony was mou, when said some along the lines of benzema doesn't care about out scoring certain players(messi) or obsessed with being the bdo(messi) or top scorer anything like that, because as long as you Win your gonna get bdo anyways, now we all know who is alluding to, so if mou the former manager is giving us that insight, so why it is so hard to accept that cr never cared about winning and that why it's so hard to win a la liga or CL with him? It's obvious that he was holding down benzema in the offense for all the reason mou described but everyone gonna gloss over it anyway for goat glory hunter lol.

Why do you just make shit up and expect people to believe it? Like Benzema has won everything and your still being a weird ass hater to Cristiano. We won 4 CLs with Benz and Ronaldo, and probably would’ve won more if Marcelo and Ramos had a brain back then. Beta stuff man.

sportsczy wrote:You don't have to win the WC... but you need to be elite in the WC.  

National teams are the great equalizer.  You're not playing in a manufactured super-team.  Almost every NT has weaknesses you need to compensate for.  

So if you can show your quality (not win) in a non-manufactured scenario, then you're truly great.

There are exceptions of course.  If you're playing for Qatar, not much you can do lol.  However, Argentina is a powerhouse on the NT stage.  If you can't shine with that team, question marks are valid. Same with France, Brazil, Germany, etc.

THIS, 1000 percent
its like nobody wants a little bit of difficulty anymore. its the ultimate obstacle course; you play with what u have, no away leg, so an increased degree of difficulty, less room for mistakes, u lose u wait four years, u dont just jump in the market and your team spends 200 million on players. even have a 60 million signing on the bench

there's something to be said for elevating one's game and team. and life happens, just cos u have the best team doesn't mean you'll win. if not they wouldnt bother playing the games.

Maradona was the greatest NT player I have ever seen...  by far.  That's why, in my book, he along with Pele are the greatest.  Maradona has a soft place in my heart (as a player, not the scumbag person he was) because neither Napoli nor Argentina were ever favored to win anything.  Yet he won a WC and a Serie A title twice.  Even won a UEFA Cup with Napoli.  

Really had no business winning anything at all with any of those teams

And Argentina has never won a WC since... and Napoli never won a Serie A or European Cup before or after Maradona.  That's how great he was.

Platini was 2nd best NT player I ever saw...  and you don't understand what utter shit France NT was before he arrived.  We couldn't even qualify for anything let alone compete.  Football wasn't even loved...  stadiums were always empty (except Marseille and St Etienne; it was considered a ghetto sport).  He literally made football popular in France.

FennecFox7 wrote:Dribbling stats and other metrics inflate a players rating on who scored. It’s honestly not a good metric to judge someone. That being said, keep in mind Messi was playing in an ultra defensive Argentina team.

You contradict yourself. Dribbling is one of the most important individual attacking statistics because it's the only one that doesn't depend on the team dynamic. When you dribble a player, you individually advance the attacking position by one player. Just look the chance created few posts before.

Uh, no? There was no contradicting. Just because YOU have a different opinion to mine does not mean I am contradicting myself, it’s just a difference of opinion. You’re a known liar and statistic fabricator on this forum and I’ve exposed you already so yeah, typical response, I don’t even know why I took you off my ignore list lol.

Guess Traore is the best player in the world. Nope, wrong. You’re completely off. Off the ball movement and positioning, as well as first touch and passing are the most important traits for a player as well as being physically capable to play at the top level. Messi’s dribbling is only one of the things that make him great. There’s tons of talented dribblers at the lower level, doesn’t mean anything. The ball moves faster then any player can.

robinho denilson okochha nani must all be kicking themselves that nobody paid attention to their advanced dribbling stats. maybe not denilson, i seen that dude stay on the same spot for like an hour doing step overs and the defender just staring at him

My issue with dribbling in statistics is that it doesn’t always advance the movement of the team or the player that performs the dribble. In Messi’s case, it usually does, but there are a ton of other players who have a tendency to dribble sideways and backwards, and all it does is to provide a moment of entertainment.

Passing the ball vertically is always faster than dribbling. Dribblers tend to actually slow the pace of a team.

Passing is always preferable, but again that needs working team dynamic. If no player is free and you want to advance, you need to beat players to create overload.

A lot of people love this type of dribbling. It can be entertaining to watch, but it doesn't really do anything

None of those are statistical dribbles, or take ons. You need to beat a player to register as a dribble.

sportsczy wrote:Passing the ball vertically is always faster than dribbling.  Dribblers tend to actually slow the pace of a team.

Not the way prime Messi used to dribble though dude could literally take half the team out of the play in 3 seconds

El Gunner wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Passing the ball vertically is always faster than dribbling.  Dribblers tend to actually slow the pace of a team.

Not the way prime Messi used to dribble though dude could literally take half the team out of the play in 3 seconds

Barca played slow anyhow... not direct at all. Very short passes and often horizontal or backwards. So Messi dribbling was actually faster than Barca's passing lol.

Harmonica wrote:None of those are statistical dribbles, or take ons. You need to beat a player to register as a dribble.

Well, yeah.. that's pretty obvious. I've seen multiple examples of the same type of sideways dribbling that gets a player past one or more players, but then ends with a back pass. Those will count towards dribbling statistics. I had thought that there would be plenty of examples of that type of dribbling out there, but I couldn't find any in gif format. The likes of Eden Hazard and Jack Grealish have done it frequently.

aside from the hazard one (making the defender sit down. and even then its best when there's an end product. like r9 vs valencia) none of those are entertaining to watch. denilson was like that too, just stand in one spot flinging his legs all over the pitch. the defender would even leave the stadium, go out and buy a coffee, drink it, come back and push denilson off the ball. and denilson would raise his hands to the ref, who is more upset at the defender for not getting him his own coffee than caring about deilson's "foul" call

Denilson was one of the biggest frauds ever... and there have been plenty in football.  He was just hyped beyond belief.  I only saw one effective play of note from him and that was in the WC.  He actually created a chance that Rivaldo muffed.

are we talking about the Denilson that played for Arsenal circa 08-11

Thimmy wrote:

Off topic, but I had assumed that most professional defenders were aware that you're supposed to pay attention to the body of the player that's in possession of the ball, not just the ball. Rookie mistake  

El Gunner wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Passing the ball vertically is always faster than dribbling.  Dribblers tend to actually slow the pace of a team.

Not the way prime Messi used to dribble though dude could literally take half the team out of the play in 3 seconds

Plenty of players can dribble. It’s Messi’s passing and football IQ as well as goal scoring that makes him who he is.

@harmonica nope, not how it works, as sports said, dribbling slows down the game and overdoing it is a detriment to the team. Also increases the amount of turnovers a team has. Some players are great dribblers but don’t do it often because they don’t need to. It’s very, very rare that a pass can’t accomplish what a dribble can. And against packed defenses, long shots and crosses are just as if not more effective. Also harder to counter attack from versus a turnover from a dribble. We just remember the teams who parked the bus successfully, but for the most part, they lose when those two tactics are implemented