Everything Soccer

[ACamp1900]

Feckin 2-0!!!!

 

[Emcee77]

Gedion Zelalem in talks to join Rangers on loan - reports - ESPN FC

ACamp I know you love this ...

 

[ACamp1900]

Actually that is cool... I'm pretty used to Americans playing for Rangers at this point... just wish Celtic would grab a few... That would be a good move for Zelalem if it's a possible two year...

be the man now against poorish competition and move up next year, could make for good growth. (I'm pretty sure Rangers won't miss out again... right??)

 

[ACamp1900]

If there is only one goal scored in the second half then that side will most likely take the agg... Important Celtic hold or extend here

 

[ACamp1900]

Izaguirre has the most perfect hair... He's like the Hispanic Jimmy Johnson...

 

[ACamp1900]

Scott Brown is such a damn street fighter... He's like soccer's answer to Sean Avery... Lol... I'd hate to play against him.

 

[ACamp1900]

And fvkle....

 

[ACamp1900]

Hell yeah!!! 3-1

 

[ACamp1900]

Fvk me... Europa League here we come... Smh... 15 seconds from time

 

[ACamp1900]

Celtic pulled a Notre Dame there and found a way to turn solid victory into heartbreak at the last second...

 

[Emcee77]

Aren't they up a goal going into the second leg? I wouldn't be heartbroken, even giving up two away goals, although a two goal lead with only one away goal conceded would have been great.

 

[NorthDakota]

I think any list of top fifteen or so needs Müller. Dude shreds teams at club and international level.

The day he retires will be the saddest retirement for me since Jerome Bettis.

 

[Emcee77]

I think any list of top fifteen or so needs Müller. Dude shreds teams at club and international level.

The day he retires will be the saddest retirement for me since Jerome Bettis.

He's one of those guys whose looks belie his effectiveness. He doesn't look like a scary athlete up there, a la Benteke or Lukaku, for example; he looks like he might be your accountant. But man is he effective.

 

[fightingirish26]

I think Alaba also merits some consideration to be among the elite in the world, although I wouldn't call him top 10 or 15

 

[fightingirish26]

Maybe we could do a dream team layout in which you based it off of both ability and how much you like them (i.e. I'm not putting in Suarez, neymar or Ronaldo bc I hate all of them)

ST: Aguero
LW: Reus
CAM: David Silva
RW: Messi
CM: Pogba
CM: Yaya
LB: Alaba
CB: Pique
CB: Thiago Silva
RB: Zabaleta
GK: Torn between Hart and Handanovic

 

[EuropeanDomer22]

You lost me at Alexis Sanchez (who I love btw) at #2.

And you haven't seen Iniesta play if you think he's he's been dead for 3 years. Massively gross overexaggeration. He's the guy who was starting over Sanchez in 2012 and 2013 if you forgot.

Silva has been much more productive than Ramsey, who I also like and can be really good when he's healthy, which he frequently isn't.

I actually see him play in person a lot (I am from Spain and live here), and he is useless most of the time. He does not move off the ball, is caught flat-footed a lot, lazy, tends to dissapear and he has lost a gear and his short-area burst. A lot of Barça fans are tired of him. Anyway, he is one of the most skilled players of this era so still has some "wow" factor because he is so good but man, sometimes he is painful to see. He has had four great, great years ala Ronaldinho but not much more. He is lucky to have Messi, Suarez and Neymar around him because he has never been a leader, more of a luxury player ala Ozil. He has been a joy to watch, though, a truly unique player.. Jack Wilshere has a lot of Iniesta in his game but he is always injured.

Alexis Sanchez is my favourite athlete to see, not just football, every sport. He is a damn warrior, has a relentless motor and loves what he does more than anything. You gotta love the guy, no matter if you are a Chelsea or Tottenahm fan. Never seen a guy with such a passion for the game.

 

[EuropeanDomer22]

I think Alaba also merits some consideration to be among the elite in the world, although I wouldn't call him top 10 or 15

I do not know a lot about him but i have a lot of friends who are crazy about him.

 

[Emcee77]

Alexis Sanchez is my favourite athlete to see, not just football, every sport. He is a damn warrior, has a relentless motor and loves what he does more than anything. You gotta love the guy, no matter if you are a Chelsea or Tottenahm fan. Never seen a guy with such a passion for the game.

Right, he's like a lesser Suarez. Doesn't have Suarez's pure genius but he does have his motor and his ability to seemingly will goals to happen through sheer desire.

Still, definitely not a top 10 player for me. He might make my top 15, maybe.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

He's one of those guys whose looks belie his effectiveness. He doesn't look like a scary athlete up there, a la Benteke or Lukaku, for example; he looks like he might be your accountant. But man is he effective.

That's why he's my favorite player. The footballing elite are, almost to a man, technical savants. But not Muller; he's an Everyman who regularly beats superior opponents through tireless effort and positional smarts. This article does a better job of articulating it than I can:

In some ways, it reflected the big red contradiction that is Bayern Munich. Corporate super-club with 20-plus years of mega-profits on the one hand. Community trust where the cheapest season ticket won't run you much more than 150 bucks on the other hand.

Watching Thomas Muller after the final whistle of the 6-1 Champions League victory over Porto on Tuesday was a reminder that top-end football isn't entirely about sanitized supporters with plastic flags in antiseptic stadiums, fanboys milked by televised sports entertainment hurling abuse from behind a keyboard, commercial directors who are more important than head coaches because revenue equals silverware, disconnected and spoiled superstars who are driven mostly by ego and zeros on a pay stub and, of course, that insufferable Gazprom ad that reminds us who really "lights up the football".

There is a very real and personal connection between player and supporter. It means something. Following the win, the Bayern team lined up on their knees in front of the club's ultras. Muller grabbed a megaphone and scaled the fence, leading them in celebration, in among the fans.

It was fitting that Muller should be the guy leading it, and not just because he was born and raised 30 miles away from the Sabenerstrasse and, at 25, has spent 60 percent of his life at Bayern.

Muller himself is a contradiction.

He's a superstar on one of the world's biggest clubs yet he's as blue-collar as they come. He's the guy your coach was thinking of in Little League when he told you that it's not about skill or natural ability, it's about desire and heart and work rate. (And, when he told you that, you knew that if you looked really, really closely, his nose began to grow.)

That's the thing about Muller. Nobody with so little in terms of technical ability has achieved so much.

But first, let me pre-empt the counter-arguments. There are plenty of measurables in which Muller excels. He has the aptitude and stamina to run all day, all night and into next week. He's quick for someone 6-foot-1 and he's deceptively strong.

If the Champions League quarterfinalists had the equivalent of the NFL combine, he'd be off the charts in those areas. And then when it came to the actual ball and things like passing, shooting, controlling and dribbling, they would likely groan.

Go ahead. I dare you. I double-dare you. Count the attacking players who started in the first leg of the quarterfinals and see how many you can count who -- strictly in terms of technique -- rank behind Muller. My guess is you won't need more than a couple of fingers.

Of course, in the history of the game there have been technically average or even limited players who have achieved plenty. But they tend to be, as you'd expect, defenders or holding midfielders. When it comes to attacking players, Muller stands alone in that category.

I'm not going to bother to list what's in his trophy cabinet -- I assume you know it includes a World Cup and a Champions League crown, as well as a gaggle of domestic silverware -- and I know many will point out that it's easy to win things when you play for Bayern and Germany.

That's true. But while it may be easy to win with those teams it's not easy to PLAY for those teams, simply because there is so much competition. Muller was 19 in 2009 when he elbowed his way into a Bayern first team that included Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery, Miroslav Klose, Ivica Olic, Mario Gomez and Luca Toni. (And before you giggle about those last two guys, consider that they had scored a combined 121 goals the previous two seasons and were high-priced veterans.) Muller made his full debut for Germany the following March and, four months later, ended up as the top goal scorer in the 2010 World Cup. And he just kept going.

How to explain his success?

One factor, as we've said, is his athleticism. Fine. The other is purely mental. He has an understanding of the game that is almost supernatural. When defending, it's his reading of the play, the angle of his defensive runs, the understanding of what his teammates and opponents are going to do. When in possession, it's the ability to anticipate what will happen, ensuring he's in the right place at the right time, ready to set up a teammate or shoot on goal. And his understanding is so universal that he can seamlessly find a role anywhere on the attacking front, which is why he has played -- and played well -- out wide, in the hole, as a centre-forward and as a second striker.

Muller simply sees the field differently, not as something defined by positions, but by tasks, by knowing what to do next. He's the ultimate team player, who carves out a useful role for himself in any lineup.

"Pour liquid into a container with a hole, however tiny, and it will always find a way through," said one veteran director of football I spoke to on Wednesday. "He always finds the hole. There's always a way through for him. He's always useful."

Both the man who made him a regular in the first team, Louis van Gaal, and his current coach, Pep Guardiola, come from a different footballing culture, one whose credo is predicated first and foremost on technique and individual ability. They made their careers by forming talented individuals into a collective that's greater than the sum of its parts. That's why many believed Muller would be sent out on loan under Van Gaal, perhaps to some team that played more direct, bang-bang football. And why others, yours truly included, felt -- wrongly -- that he wouldn't be a fit for Guardiola's philosophy (whether you want to use the tired tiki-taka term or however else you choose to define it).

Yet both managers saw the value of Muller. Both understood that what he lacks in deftness of touch, he more than makes up for in sharpness of mind. And both made him a lynchpin of their sides.

His other tremendous trait is even fuzzier, but enough folks in the game have noted it, that you have to take their word. Muller is, at once, conscious of his limits and courageous enough to test them.

"He is totally unafraid to take the difficult shot or hit the difficult pass," the director of football added. "At big clubs, there's a hierarchy of talent. You don't see [Sergio] Busquets trying to do what [Lionel] Messi does. And John Terry doesn't do what Eden Hazard does. Muller takes liberties, not because he thinks he's more talented than he is, but because he has a knack for knowing when to take what for him is a low percentage shot which other players of his ability would pass up ... I'm not sure it's something you can teach, but it's a hugely valuable skill."

Technical ability -- even more than athleticism, because, deep down, so many of us believe that we could whip our bodies into shape if given the time and resources -- is what most obviously separates top professionals from the guys who cheer for them. With Muller, that "barrier" is much less obvious. A fan can suspend disbelief, look at Muller and imagine himself in his place. Certainly more so than with a Hazard or a Robben or a Messi.

And maybe that's why he resonates so much with Bayern fans and why it was fitting that he should be the one to scale the fence and lead the celebrations. He's Everyman. He's one of them.

On Tuesday night, Gianluca Vialli and Paolo Rossi sat in a TV studio and played an age-old game. Finding parallels in the past for players in the current Bayern side. Robert Lewandowski, for example, was compared to Marco van Basten for the elegance of his movements and accuracy and simplicity of his side-foot finishes.

When it came to Muller, they were stuck. They couldn't find a single player to whom you could compare him.

Neither can Bayern fans. He's a one-off. And he's theirs.

 

[EuropeanDomer22]

Right, he's like a lesser Suarez. Doesn't have Suarez's pure genius but he does have his motor and his ability to seemingly will goals to happen through sheer desire.

Still, definitely not a top 10 player for me. He might make my top 15, maybe.

He really exceed my expectations (and i already was a big fan of him when he was at Barcelona), he is being sooooo great in London. Not just his work rate, he is really really good and he always brings something to the table. He is miles ahead of Ozil right now.

 

[Mihalko35]

That's why he's my favorite player. The footballing elite are, almost to a man, technical savants. But not Muller; he's an Everyman who regularly beats superior opponents through tireless effort and positional smarts. This article does a better job of articulating it than I can:

Whiskeyjack, great read!

 

[ACamp1900]

Where are DC United playing tonight?? It's not their opponents normal stadium... It looks pretty nice on tv

 

[nsisk157]

Ramsey wtf

x10000

 

[nsisk157]

Great discussion guys. Few things, all my opinion of course:

• Iniesta is one of my all-time favorites, but he is not a top 10 player anymore. He was a top 3 player at one time, but at his age they already started limiting his minutes last year, and to be honest, Rakatic was the more important player for much of the year. He’s still flashes moments of absolute brilliance, but he just can’t do it consistently enough to be considered a top 10 player anymore.

• James Rodriguez needs to be way higher on any list. What he did in the World Cup, on the world’s biggest stage, was simply magical. And then, he was a force for Real, and they were the unquestioned top team in the world (and this is from a Barca fan) until he got hurt. His absence (along with Modric) just killlllled them. He is a phenom (sp) and is close to a top 5 player for me.

• Neymar needs to be in the top 5 as well, for me. Yes, he is a flopper and a whiner and he blew it at the Copa, but his skills are almost unparalleled, and he brings it in big games. He takes a back seat to Messi at Barca, but when Messi is out, he goes to work. And watch him play with Brazil, where he is the man and defenses are geared solely to stop him…he still is virtually unstoppable. And when he is out? Brazil, friggin’ BRAZIL, is impotent. If you put all biases aside and all (warranted) hatred aside, and just analyze his game and what he means to both Barca and Brazil, he’s clearly a top 5 player for me.

• ND23, buddy, how could you have Ronaldo ahead of Messi this year? Last year, maybe. But this year, and at this moment, there’s really no question who is better.

• My top 5 are Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, Neymar, and I struggle with #5. Bale, but mentally he fell apart last year and was lost. Robben, but he gets hurt way too much. Ibra, but he’s getting up there in years and not quite as dominant. Hazard, disappears too often for top 5 status (but he’s close). Gun to my head, I go Fernando Torres because of the goal he scored vs. Germany that got Spain that first Euro 2008 championship and was one of the best sporting moments of my life. Haha, gun to my head I go James Rodriguez, but there are lots of guys you can make an argument for.

From an obviously biased perspective...

Bale scores the GW in the goal in La Copa del Rey v Barca...a magical run..
Bale scores the GW header in the CL final for La Decima..
TWO GW GOALS in the most important matches of the year.

and what awaits him...??

A whinging Cristiano in 14/15 that pits the fans against Bale and only worsens when Cristiano acts like a child when he doesn't receive the pass "he was supposed to receive."

Gareth Bale is a top 5 Attacking talent in the world but is hindered by the prima donna.

To add...I laugh when people compare Messi v Cristiano. Messi is the complete player. Cristiano is raw talent and selfish.

 

[notredomer23]

• ND23, buddy, how could you have Ronaldo ahead of Messi this year? Last year, maybe. But this year, and at this moment, there’s really no question who is better.

• My top 5 are Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, Neymar, and I struggle with #5. Bale, but mentally he fell apart last year and was lost. Robben, but he gets hurt way too much. Ibra, but he’s getting up there in years and not quite as dominant. Hazard, disappears too often for top 5 status (but he’s close). Gun to my head, I go Fernando Torres because of the goal he scored vs. Germany that got Spain that first Euro 2008 championship and was one of the best sporting moments of my life. Haha, gun to my head I go James Rodriguez, but there are lots of guys you can make an argument for.

Ronaldo has the edge for me because of his 2014-2015 season but it is really interchangeable. It is fair to call either the best in the world. That said, stats don't lie when it comes to the position that they play. In La Liga, Ronaldo had 48 goals and 16 assists. Messi had 43 goals and 18 assists, but in three more games. Any list that has either 1 or 2 is fair to me. Anywhere else is crazy talk. No one can do what they can do.

An interesting list would be the top 10 players under 25. Definitely gonna need to think about that one.

 

[Emcee77]

Ronaldo has the edge for me because of his 2014-2015 season but it is really interchangeable. It is fair to call either the best in the world. That said, stats don't lie when it comes to the position that they play. In La Liga, Ronaldo had 48 goals and 16 assists. Messi had 43 goals and 18 assists, but in three more games. Any list that has either 1 or 2 is fair to me. Anywhere else is crazy talk. No one can do what they can do.

An interesting list would be the top 10 players under 25. Definitely gonna need to think about that one.

Ooh that is interesting. Just off the top of my head:

Neymar
Hazard
James
Pogba
Sterling
De Bruyne
Memphis
...
now I'm starting to struggle ...
Gotze?
Coutinho? (criminally left off Brazil roster for next int'l break)
Verratti?

I feel pretty good about those top 6 but then it gets tougher ...

Oh Griezmann maybe?

 

[notredomer23]

Ooh that is interesting. Just off the top of my head:

Neymar
Hazard
James
Pogba
Sterling
De Bruyne
Memphis
...
now I'm starting to struggle ...
Gotze?
Coutinho? (criminally left off Brazil roster for next int'l break)
Verratti?

I feel pretty good about those top 6 but then it gets tricky.

Verratti is very, very high on my list. He was PSG's best player last year besides Zlatan and maybe Cavani. He is the future of the Italians.
Neymar is a given. If his current trajectory continues, it is hard to see him anywhere but as the best player in the world in 4-5 years. Him and Bale will be the new Messi and Ronaldo.
Pogba just does unreal things for someone who is barely 22.
De Bruyne is the top of what is going to be a loaded Belgium 2018 WC team.
Lukaku
Sterling
Gotze
Memphis
Hard to believe sometimes that David Alaba is only 23.
Hazard
Coutinho
Firmino
James Rodriguez
El Shaarawy when healthy
Isco
Shaqiri
Oscar
Varane

Hard to make a list for that after Neymar.
If I had to...

1. Neymar
2. Hazard
3. Verratti
4. James Rodriguez
5. Pogba
6. Alaba
7. De Bruyne
8. Gotze
9. Isco
10. Varane

Thoughts?

 

[NorthDakota]

I do not know a lot about him but i have a lot of friends who are crazy about him.

I'm not ashamed to admit I have a man crush on Alaba. Top class defender. Could be top class mid... Hell the man is probably clinical at finishing too for all we know.

That's why he's my favorite player. The footballing elite are, almost to a man, technical savants. But not Muller; he's an Everyman who regularly beats superior opponents through tireless effort and positional smarts. This article does a better job of articulating it than I can:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Whenever I get around to getting married he'll receive an invite.

 

[Emcee77]

Verratti is very, very high on my list. He was PSG's best player last year besides Zlatan and maybe Cavani. He is the future of the Italians.
Neymar is a given. If his current trajectory continues, it is hard to see him anywhere but as the best player in the world in 4-5 years. Him and Bale will be the new Messi and Ronaldo.
Pogba just does unreal things for someone who is barely 22.
De Bruyne is the top of what is going to be a loaded Belgium 2018 WC team.
Lukaku
Sterling
Gotze
Memphis
Hard to believe sometimes that David Alaba is only 23.
Hazard
Coutinho
Firmino
James Rodriguez
El Shaarawy when healthy
Isco
Shaqiri
Oscar
Varane

Hard to make a list for that after Neymar.
If I had to...

1. Neymar
2. Hazard
3. Verratti
4. James Rodriguez
5. Pogba
6. Alaba
7. De Bruyne
8. Gotze
9. Isco
10. Varane

Thoughts?

Nice.

Shaqiri and Oscar are two of my favorite young players. One of them might make my list somewhere.

Btw, how is Shaqiri ending up at Stoke?? Bizarre.

 

[notredomer23]

Nice.

Shaqiri and Oscar are two of my favorite young players. One of them might make my list somewhere.

Btw, how is Shaqiri ending up at Stoke?? Bizarre.

If Inter were able to hold onto Shaqiri, I think they win Serie A this season. They would have been loaded for the first time since 2010. They had to sell him though because of Financial Fair Play regulations and Stoke bid the most for him.

Oscar has always been hyped and I mentioned him, but I have never really been wowed by him. Maybe I just have not seen enough of him.

I know there are some great young Germans, but I just haven't seen enough of the Bundesliga yet to really judge.