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Group E: Belgium vs Italy - KO 8pm, BBC1/HD |
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#376 |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,605
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Hang on, just to stop and clarify. Is it your opinion that Cristiano Ronaldo is not a great player?
At international tournament level, Maradona could do what he did at club level. He could do that WITHOUT the help of his team mates. He could get the ball, run at defences and tear them apart, scoring and creating goals galore. Ronaldo has never been able to do that, so lets please end this argument about him being up there with the greats who could reproduce their great club form at this level. Jimmy White was a huge talent and had more natural talent than Steve Davis, but only one of them was a truly great player. |
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#377 |
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Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Okay, fair enough, sorry, please go back to trying to figure out if Ronaldo is good player or not.
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#378 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 26,167
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Quote:
It refers to sports in general.
Sports stars who are what is called a ''flat track bully'' Those who look world beaters at a certain level and when everything is in their favour. BUT, at the very top when things get really tough, they are found wanting. Grahame Hick was classic case in cricket. Great at county level but nowhere near as good when facing really quick bowlers at test level. Mike Tyson. Great when going forward beating the crap out of fighters who were there just trying to survive. Folded like a pack of cards when faced with someone who had a go and hit back. Pete Sampras. Unbeatable on ultra fast courts hitting countless aces, unreturnable serves and having huge numbers of easy points with his first volley. Any surface which wasn't lightening quick and he was made to look a complete chump. For instance, At his peak on the slow clay of France, he was thrashed in three easy sets by a player outside the top 200. The same again by a player outside the top 100. He was extremely lucky to have been playing in the era that he was when all but the French courts suited his game. If he was playing today he'd be a nobody. And if the likes of Nadal or Djokovic were playing in Sampras' era, they wouldn't have got a sniff at Wimbledon. It was a fast court for fast, attacking players. Just because that has been all but drummed out of the sport doesn't mean that it's legendary proponents need to sniffed about after the fact. |
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#379 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Quote:
My opinion is he is a very talented player and great at a certain level and has achieved a lot at a certain level. But, no, i do not consider him to be a true great the way a Pele, Maradona and others were. The term ''great'' is one of the most wildly overused terms in sport.
At international tournament level, Maradona could do what he did at club level. He could do that WITHOUT the help of his team mates. He could get the ball, run at defences and tear them apart, scoring and creating goals galore. Ronaldo has never been able to do that, so lets please end this argument about him being up there with the greats who could reproduce their great club form at this level. Jimmy White was a huge talent and had more natural talent than Steve Davis, but only one of them was a truly great player. Its a shame that you forget what you say almost immediately you say it in order to justify your irrational likes or dislikes. Allow us to recap. In the discussion about Mourinho - someone you disliked, you state that winning trophies is not the mark of greatness. Yes Mourinho may have won trophies but where was the style you asked. Thats what people remember you said. Brazil 82, Holland 74 and 78, now they were greats. The fact they didn't win the World Cup didn't matter because they were stylish. Now we have Ronaldo, a man who has broken every record around and an undoubtedly stylish footballer, but wait, Dixon doesn't like Ronaldo much so hang on, lets have a change of tack, suddenly this doesn't matter and he can't be a great UNLESS he wins the world cup. Suddenly the trophy matters.Style and romance is dead its the bottom line that matters. So much so that in your ham fisted attempt to liken it to other sports you use Steve Davis and Jimmy White as the example . Jimmy White the footballing equivalent of Holland in 74 or Brazil in 82 suddenly can't be great because he didn't win! Whereas Davis, the very epitome of Jose Mourinho's winning mentality is the only show in town!!! You have also managed to do this whilst calling Ronaldo a flat track bully. A flat track bully who has won everything imaginable in the biggest contests imaginable against the biggest sides in the world but deserves the title because he didn't beat Iceland and game in which if he had scored a hat trick you would have used do demonstrate why you consider him (wrongly!) to be a flat track bully in the first place!!! The discussion wasn't about Ronaldo though, it was about the platform used to judge a players greatness however given your total confusion and about turning I think its best left alone. |
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#380 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,605
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Quote:
I know what a flat track bully is. Not winning the World Cup doesn't mean that someone is nothing but a flat track bully.
And if the likes of Nadal or Djokovic were playing in Sampras' era, they wouldn't have got a sniff at Wimbledon. It was a fast court for fast, attacking players. Just because that has been all but drummed out of the sport doesn't mean that it's legendary proponents need to sniffed about after the fact. The Sampras vs Ivanisovich 5 set final was the final straw. A so called tennis match that had 1.5 shots per rally. That was not tennis! Today's players are vastly superior all round players who can play on every kind of surface, fast, medium or slow. The likes of Sampras wouldn't be in the top 50 if they were around today when actual tennis ability counts massively more than just being able to wack down unreturnable serves. |
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#381 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 12,605
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Quote:
And your confusion continues.
Its a shame that you forget what you say almost immediately you say it in order to justify your irrational likes or dislikes. Allow us to recap. In the discussion about Mourinho - someone you disliked, you state that winning trophies is not the mark of greatness. Yes Mourinho may have won trophies but where was the style you asked. Thats what people remember you said. Brazil 82, Holland 74 and 78, now they were greats. The fact they didn't win the World Cup didn't matter because they were stylish. Now we have Ronaldo, a man who has broken every record around and an undoubtedly stylish footballer, but wait, Dixon doesn't like Ronaldo much so hang on, lets have a change of tack, suddenly this doesn't matter and he can't be a great UNLESS he wins the world cup. Suddenly the trophy matters.Style and romance is dead its the bottom line that matters. So much so that in your ham fisted attempt to liken it to other sports you use Steve Davis and Jimmy White as the example . Jimmy White the footballing equivalent of Holland in 74 or Brazil in 82 suddenly can't be great because he didn't win! Whereas Davis, the very epitome of Jose Mourinho's winning mentality is the only show in town!!! You have also managed to do this whilst calling Ronaldo a flat track bully. A flat track bully who has won everything imaginable in the biggest contests imaginable against the biggest sides in the world but deserves the title because he didn't beat Iceland and game in which if he had scored a hat trick you would have used do demonstrate why you consider him (wrongly!) to be a flat track bully in the first place!!! The discussion wasn't about Ronaldo though, it was about the platform used to judge a players greatness however given your total confusion and about turning I think its best left alone. Back to Cruyff. I have been talking all along about performance. As with Maradona and the other true greats, Cruyff took his great club performances to the World Cup. He made the Brazilians look second rate in 74. All I am saying is Ronaldo does not come remotely close to performing at this level. He's had several tournaments to do it, but has failed every time. How can anyone dispute this? Oh, and since when did Euro club football suddenly become more important than World Cups or the Euros? The European Cup has been going since the 50's. Just because it's got dragged out group stage and runners up and third place teams in it, that is no reason to suddenly start vastly overating it's importance. What we seeing right now dwarfs the ClL in evey kind of way. Always has and always will! |
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#382 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 26,167
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Quote:
No, back then Wimbledon had become a serving contest, not a true test of tennis ability. It was killing the game as a spectacle and that's why they changed the courts and the balls.
The Sampras vs Ivanisovich 5 set final was the final straw. A so called tennis match that had 1.5 shots per rally. That was not tennis! Today's players are vastly superior all round players who can play on every kind of surface, fast, medium or slow. The likes of Sampras wouldn't be in the top 50 if they were around today when actual tennis ability counts massively more than just being able to wack down unreturnable serves. And considering the likes of Raonic and Isner have been in the top ten in this supposed 'golden era', the idea that Sampras wouldn't even be top 50 is just so divorced from reality that it doesn't bare taking seriously. |
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#383 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 26,167
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Quote:
And your confusion continues.
Its a shame that you forget what you say almost immediately you say it in order to justify your irrational likes or dislikes. Allow us to recap. In the discussion about Mourinho - someone you disliked, you state that winning trophies is not the mark of greatness. Yes Mourinho may have won trophies but where was the style you asked. Thats what people remember you said. Brazil 82, Holland 74 and 78, now they were greats. The fact they didn't win the World Cup didn't matter because they were stylish. Now we have Ronaldo, a man who has broken every record around and an undoubtedly stylish footballer, but wait, Dixon doesn't like Ronaldo much so hang on, lets have a change of tack, suddenly this doesn't matter and he can't be a great UNLESS he wins the world cup. Suddenly the trophy matters.Style and romance is dead its the bottom line that matters. So much so that in your ham fisted attempt to liken it to other sports you use Steve Davis and Jimmy White as the example . Jimmy White the footballing equivalent of Holland in 74 or Brazil in 82 suddenly can't be great because he didn't win! Whereas Davis, the very epitome of Jose Mourinho's winning mentality is the only show in town!!! You have also managed to do this whilst calling Ronaldo a flat track bully. A flat track bully who has won everything imaginable in the biggest contests imaginable against the biggest sides in the world but deserves the title because he didn't beat Iceland and game in which if he had scored a hat trick you would have used do demonstrate why you consider him (wrongly!) to be a flat track bully in the first place!!! The discussion wasn't about Ronaldo though, it was about the platform used to judge a players greatness however given your total confusion and about turning I think its best left alone.
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#384 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Quote:
First off, I should not have used the Jimmy White comparison as that goes against the point I was making.
Back to Cruyff. I have been talking all along about performance. As with Maradona and the other true greats, Cruyff took his great club performances to the World Cup. He made the Brazilians look second rate in 74. All I am saying is Ronaldo does not come remotely close to performing at this level. He's had several tournaments to do it, but has failed every time. How can anyone dispute this? Oh, and since when did Euro club football suddenly become more important than World Cups or the Euros? The European Cup has been going since the 50's. Just because it's got dragged out group stage and runners up and third place teams in it, that is no reason to suddenly start vastly overating it's importance. What we seeing right now dwarfs the ClL in evey kind of way. Always has and always will! I am saying that a platform which involves the player playing with his team mates and playing over the course of half a season, during the season, home and away year in year out against the best players in the world is a good way to judge. You are saying the coming together of a group of individuals based on an accident of birth that they have no control over, once eery four years, assuming they are all fit at the end of their normal season and for only a handful of games is a good way to judge. You are basing yours on history and how football once was when the best players were spread all over the place and rarely played each other. I am basing mine on the reality of football as it is now. |
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#385 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 30,269
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Do you guys think that Messi and Ronaldo could play for an average team and they would still win the league like what Maradona did with Napoli
Is it possible that Messi and Ronaldo could play in an average international team and still would win the World Cup like what Maradona did with Argentina Look im not saying Messi and Ronaldo are not all time greats. They are two of the greatest players who ever played the game. But you could never compare these two players with Pele and Maradona and it is not because they won a World Cup, because you can be one of the greats by not winning the World Cup. But to be one of the true greats and to be a legend of the game, they need to do what Pele and Maradona did for they country Messi and Ronaldo have never really performed well for their country on the biggest stage. Why, well i dont know. Maybe expectation, maybe the pressure of not letting down your country or maybe because your not playing with the same players week in week out Why is Messi and Ronaldo great for their club, but is average when they play for their country in major tournaments. I think it is because they are not playing with the same amount of quality than they do with Barcelona and Real Madrid So what Maradona did playing in an average Argentina team and winning games for them all on his own was something that will probably never happen again and yes i know he had ten other team mates, but without Maradona, Argentina would never have won that World Cup. So thats why he is regarded as a legend in the game and thats why Messi and Ronaldo are not regarded like that yet |
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#386 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 15,844
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Argentina were not an average team, very far from it. They were certainly capable of lifting a cup they'd won two tournaments previous.
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#387 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 30,269
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Quote:
Argentina were not an average team, very far from it. They were certainly capable of lifting a cup they'd won two tournaments previous.
The semi final against Belgium where he scored twice and one of them was when he went round about five players and scored off balance. And the final where he controlled the game and produced a great pass for the Argentina player to score the winner Now are you telling me that Argentina would still have won the World Cup without Maradonas goals, assists and his individual brilliance |
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#388 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 15,844
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They were good enough to beat any of the teams they played yes. We don't know what would have happened, but we do know that if Maradona hadn't played there wouldn't have been an empty space and a load of Argentinians passing to nothing and wondering why they were a man down.
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#389 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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They were good enough to beat any of the teams they played yes. We don't know what would have happened, but we do know that if Maradona hadn't played there wouldn't have been an empty space and a load of Argentinians passing to nothing and wondering why they were a man down.
Well not a lot really Because we did not see the real Messi. And thats why he wont be talked about in the same company as Maradona. He maybe a better player but he is not a legend like what Maradona is |
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#390 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 15,844
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You're defining football by international football alone though, exemplified by the bizarre idea of disregarding all the leagues, European cups and world player awards that the players you mention have won. What defines a great player isn't set in stone.
Maradona's the best player to ever live as far as I'm concerned, but if you seriously think he was constantly surrounded by a load of unknown jobbers he dragged through games I believe you only know him from compilation videos. |
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#391 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Quote:
Well Argentina would have went into the tournament without a World class player who could win a game on his own, so it would have been tough for them to win that World Cup. The last World Cup Argentina had Messi and what did he do
Well not a lot really |
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#392 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Once again, this conversation was not started to decry the achievements of Pele or Maradona or anyone else it was simply saying that in the modern game club football is now a far more accurate measurement of greatness than international football.
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#393 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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They reached the final you know.
They reached the final because the team was good enough to win the World Cup Did Messi do anything in that World Cup which would say was outstanding apart from scoring a couple of goals Can you remember a game where you thought Messi was out of this world and made you think that he is the greatest player of all time |
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#394 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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But they did not reach final because of Messi
They reached the final because the team was good enough to win the World Cup Did Messi do anything in that World Cup which would say was outstanding apart from scoring a couple of goals Can you remember a game where you thought Messi was out of this world and made you think that he is the greatest player of all time Are we to believe that George Best's achievements with Man Utd are now no longer enough for him to be considered a great because he failed to single-handedly lead Northern Ireland to World Cup glory? This thread is getting more stupid by the second. |
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#395 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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Brazil were always quite good, so bad news for Pele's standing.
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#396 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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Ah so now to be a great player you not only have to succeed with your nation, your nation has to be perceived as being rubbish and you have to do it by yourself??
Are we to believe that George Best's achievements with Man Utd are now no longer enough for him to be considered a great because he failed to single-handedly lead Northern Ireland to World Cup glory? This thread is getting more stupid by the second. Did i say Messi was not an All time great Did i say that if a player does not win the World Cup on his own then he is not a great player No i dont think i did, if you read my previous comments I have actually praised Messi achievements and what he has done in the game. He is one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Im even a big fan of Messi and i love watching him play All im saying is that he has never played as well for Argentina than he does for Barcelona. This does not make him less of a great player, but to be seen as a legend of the game and to be talked about in the same breath as Maradona he has to play well for Argentina like he does for Barcelona |
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#397 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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Why? He's enjoyed around a decade of bewildering consistency with Barcelona that evaded Maradona through his career and he's still got years in him.
He's already spoken about in the same breath as Maradona, he's the player who finally broke the 'next Maradona' curse for one. |
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#398 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 771
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Quote:
Did i say Messi was not a great player
Did i say Messi was not an All time great Did i say that if a player does not win the World Cup on his own then he is not a great player No i dont think i did, if you read my previous comments I have actually praised Messi achievements and what he has done in the game. He is one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Im even a big fan of Messi and i love watching him play All im saying is that he has never played as well for Argentina than he does for Barcelona. This does not make him less of a great player, but to be seen as a legend of the game and to be talked about in the same breath as Maradona he has to play well for Argentina like he does for Barcelona |
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#399 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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Why? He's enjoyed around a decade of bewildering consistency with Barcelona that evaded Maradona through his career and he's still got years in him.
He's already spoken about in the same breath as Maradona, he's the player who finally broke the 'next Maradona' curse for one. |
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#400 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
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So you are saying that Messi from now until he retires could play badly for Argentina and in the next World Cup and he will still be talked about as the greatest player of all time
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