But no, we wouldn't want him here at Manchester United... :--------------------------------------------------------)
Cristiano Ronaldo
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Far from his best game, him and Marcelo were sloppy on the counter attack down the left, but his skill and quickness as well as his awareness when Isco under-hit the pass on the break for their 3rd was brilliant.
Him and Messi were utter shit today. Poor decision making from both.
Yeah that's the key bit for me. Incredible pLayer, but lacks that bit in his game. But what an amazing job he's done to maximise the rest of his talents.Agree with most posters that he wasn't particularly good especially compared to most of his team mates, however he was very involved and tried often to create chances for them (mostly through crosses in the 1st half and passes into space in the 2nd half) but he lacked the telling accuracy apart from one instance where Benzema hit the bar. 7/10 seems about right though, a very good collective performance too. I was especially impressed with Dani Carvajal.
If any game has ever epitomized why Cristiano's passing and/or vision aren't considered the stuff of all-time greatness it was this one... he had the opportunity and the will to set his team mates up many times, sometimes in very advantageous situations, but got it wrong too often (and these weren't even particularly difficult instances). Furthermore, his 60% passing accuracy was the lowest of anyone on the pitch. That one chance he created (while it was a pretty good cross) isn't going to change the fact that he squandered significantly more of his team's attacks than his team mates did.
Re: the bold, I can believe that! Especially when the opp. DF is trying his utmost best to concede a pen like Piqué had been doing
Yes, that's all true. However 60% is below average for most forwards, especially ones of his calibre. He was otherwise coasting on a nice average of 85% pass completion so far this season before the game. Here he attempts to be more incisive and "risky" than usual and it's down to 60%? With all that space the Barça MF and DF left for him and his team to exploit in the 2nd half? Even by contemporary standards that is, shall we say, disappointing.
My comment wasn't meant to be some sort of cheap point scoring excercise or anything, just what immediately came to mind as I saw him misplacing relatively simple passes in sometimes very advantageous situations when he was given plenty of time and space. It's nice to see him actually taking responsibility instead of deferring to his MF/FW partners as soon as the break is on, but this wasn't a performance that's going to convince anyone of his playmaking merits. That said, he is still a somewhat underrated and prolific chance creator, just not at the very top in his own era, let alone in an all-time context.
But no, we wouldn't want him here at Manchester United... :--------------------------------------------------------)
Meh. Let me know when he outscores some less minnowish sides than those above.
He was Barcelona's best defender today. Broke up more Madrid attacks than Pique and Mascherano 
Post #7,777 dedicated to our favorite Portugeezer
Thank you, I'm flattered!
He was absolutely horrible today, wasnt he?
Agree with most posters that he wasn't particularly good especially compared to most of his team mates, however he was very involved and tried often to create chances for them (mostly through crosses in the 1st half and passes into space in the 2nd half) but he lacked the telling accuracy apart from one instance where Benzema hit the bar. 7/10 seems about right though, a very good collective performance too. I was especially impressed with Dani Carvajal.
If any game has ever epitomized why Cristiano's passing and/or vision aren't considered the stuff of all-time greatness it was this one... he had the opportunity and the will to set his team mates up many times, sometimes in very advantageous situations, but got it wrong too often (and these weren't even particularly difficult instances). Furthermore, his 60% passing accuracy was the lowest of anyone on the pitch. That one chance he created (while it was a pretty good cross) isn't going to change the fact that he squandered significantly more of his team's attacks than his team mates did.
Re: the bold, I can believe that! Especially when the opp. DF is trying his utmost best to concede a pen like Piqué had been doing
You're not one for hyperbole.
His passing (vision is such an intangible, unquantifiable quality so I'll leave it out) isn't world class, but he has displayed passing better than what he did this afternoon on several occasions. Moreover, it is impossible to function in, and facilitate quality counter attacks without being a very good passer, being able to move the ball at speed and lay it off at the right pace and angle for another player to profit.
Agreed. It's a very biased opinion. None of Barca attackers displayed "one of all time greatness" vision and passing either, nor running the show. One was even jogging around throughout the game. Or are you saying that none of Barca's are one of "all time greatness"?
What do you say @Skorenzy ?
What do you say @Skorenzy ?
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How is vision unquantifiable? It's quite clear when watching players whether they have good vision or not. To me, anyway.
Not to stir things, but there's a real tendency on here to just gloss over stats and attributes that don't suit Ronaldo.
Real Madrid did win the game, right?
Yeah, comfortably. Why?
I didn't think he was great. A few good moments but a few poor ones. Tried to be too unselfish which is surprising for Ronaldo. Messi was anonymous for the most part I thought, neither really played well.
I'm not sure why you Ronaldo fans get so wound up when someone says something obvious. Ronaldo is a decent passer, nothing more. At its very best he plays passes you'd expect on to. It's always been the case. One game where barca's passers didn't pass it brilliantly doesn't change that.
This is what skorenzy said:
If any game has ever epitomized why Cristiano's passing and/or vision aren't considered the stuff of all-time greatness it was this one...
when on the same game, there were 3 Barca players that considered all time greats was doing feck all.
For them it doesn't epitomise it. For him it's an exaggeratedly bad passing peformance but highlights his passing skill all the more. Most of you fanboys love getting caught up in semantics. The point made is not incorrect at all. Barring Ronaldo mad caf members, this is something a lot of people think regarding Ronaldo and his greatness standing.
No, he wasn't 'absolutely horrible'. It was something like a 6.5/10 performance - average.
I would like to agree with the poor passing bit but the selective criticism is quite dramatic here.
How is the criticism selective exactlly?
His decision making was horrible, he couldn't cross the ball, his first touch and ball control were poor. This is all by his standards, and by his standards, 6.5 is no where near average.
Had his passing been on, he would have had a brilliant game. So, the passing alone doesn't make his performance poor, he isn't a midfielder.
Both Ronaldo and Messi were neither excellent nor poor. Yet they weren't excellent for very different reasons, apart from the fact that Ronaldo contributed to Madrid's win with the very important goal from a penalty and Messi to Barca's loss by missing a sitter. Ronaldo's movement was fantastic, he was involved in every counter attack, directly or indirectly, by opening spaces with his runs. And he was quite motivated as always. By contrast, Messi's movement was crap and the will to win virtually absent. The more Barca needed him to step up in the second half, the worse his play became. Messi is still a world class player because of his incredible talent but he isn't as good as he was once and maybe never will be again.
Both Ronaldo and Messi were neither excellent nor poor. Yet they weren't excellent for very different reasons, apart from the fact that Ronaldo contributed to Madrid's win with the very important goal from a penalty and Messi to Barca's loss by missing a sitter. Ronaldo's movement was fantastic, he was involved in every counter attack, directly or indirectly, by opening spaces with his runs. And he was quite motivated as always. By contrast, Messi's movement was crap and the will to win virtually absent. The more Barca needed him to step up in the second half, the worse his play became. Messi is still a world class player because of his incredible talent but he isn't as good as he was once and maybe never will be again.
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Perhaps a better example would be the men's 400m world record. It was 43.29 in 1988, improved narrowly to 43.19 in 1999, and nobody has got anywhere near it since. Or the men's long jump - nobody has even approached the record of 8.95 since 1991 - and that itself was breaking a 23-year-old record. Or the men's triple jump - a best set 19 years ago of 18.29 - again hasn't yet been threatened. Or how someone like Mo Farah can rack up gold medals today but his best 5000m time is 'only' the 64th best ever recorded.
Pretty obvious. Skorenzy was criticizing Ronaldo's passing/vision using a game where even the other 3 of well known all time greats didn't exactly set the world on fire either. I don't see his post on other Barca's player thread, questioning their 'greatness' based on yesterday's. Or is he just TheShedEnd Mk II?
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Spot on. I'd go as far as saying after the miss, Messi sat too deep. Most of the balls that Real's midfield won were tumescent passing between Barca's midfield who were reluctant to launch longer passes into space for Suarez. Messi sat too deep which restricted midfield movement and drew Neymar in also, in turn leaving Suarez isolated and reliant on full backs pushing forward as the only real outlet.
Ronaldo wasn't great but his sloppy passing and wrong choices were not detrimental to the team. It is easier to make a poor choice or incorrectly weight a pass when you're in the lead and complacency kicks in of course. Point is Ronaldo's errors didn't hold Real back from getting the same result.
Back to topic, what a player Viva is. I'm sure Balon D'Or voting is going on around now too so his timing is immaculate. If he doesn't complete another hat trick this season and pick up the B'DO then it's a fix.
Very silly thing to say considering he's been excellent pretty much all season, not to mention just 6 months ago he scored a hat-trick at the Bernabeu and was the best player on the pitch by a country mile.
Barcelona have been on the decline as a whole in general, their defence is terrible, Pique's finished, Alves looks a shadow of the world class wing back he was a couple years ago, Mascherano has never been a centre-back, their midfield is non existent (and has been replicated for Spain), and they look totally unbalanced with Neymar, Suarez and Messi in the side in the formation they play.
Real have just gotten better. They've spent a fortune bridging the gap since they got molly whopped at the Nou Camp in 2010 and they're still a Mourinho side with his mentality drilled into them (just like us after he left in 2007). Only Messi would walk into their team now, no one else from Barcelona would.
Only time will show who's been silly here.
Are you claiming that he can be as good as in previous years despite physically declining (because he sort of compensates it with other qualities, such as passing, vision, etc.)? Or you deny that he's on the decline physically wise in the first place?
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If you read @Skorenzy 's post carefully, it's clear that he was talking about this game epitomising a larger point that Ronaldo's passing has never been great, which isn't actually the case with the others. If the 3 you talk about are the 3 I think you're talking about, then they are all brilliant passers. So to go around making the same point in every players' thread despite it not actually making sense in many case, would be daft.Pretty obvious. Skorenzy was criticizing Ronaldo's passing/vision using a game where even the other 3 of well known all time greats didn't exactly set the world on fire either. I don't see his post on other Barca's player thread, questioning their 'greatness' based on yesterday's. Or is he just TheShedEnd Mk II?
I don't think he's physically declined whatsoever. I think his finishing has been well off and he's still looking a little lethargic in patches, but when he gets going there's not much difference. It's the decline of 90% of that team that's the real worry. If Messi was in the same form he was in three years ago in this side they still wouldn't look any better off.
Xavi has an excuse, Iniesta doesn't, he's been bobbins for 18 months now, as has Busquets who was shockingly bad yesterday. Neymar doesn't suit their style of play either. To me he likes to get his head down and just run at the backline, very rarely wants to pass it, and doesn't want to buy into the tiki taka system.
He definitely has lost something physically. Whether that's permanent or enough to stop him being clearly the best player in the world or just one of them, is what remains to be seen.
It's a tough one. At his best he used to pick up the ball and beat playes at absolute will. It was a joke the things he would do. He's been immense this season, but he's not been doing that the way he used to. I'd say there's is a didffeence in his explosiveness so currently I'd say there is a decline. But it's hard to say whether it's lojg term or short term.
Think you are wrong here, it's obvious that he cannnot beat players as easily as he was doing it some years ago. The form of his team-mates has nothing to do it, it is due to his loss of explosivity and stamina.
Agreed.
Indeed I'm not. Maybe I phrased that a bit too dramatically and of coure I've dressed it up a bit here because there is no way to gauge something as comprehensive as passing ability based on a single game. Then again, it's not as if this was the one game where I suddenly formed my opinion that this part of his game isn't among the top tier -- it was, I thought, an apt example of that.
I agree that vision is intangible and extremely problematic if not impossible to try to quantify (assists and key passes are indicators, but far too broad; throughballs are probably the best quantified representation of "vision" but still quite vague), but then I wasn't basing my opinion on the 60% pass completion stat, rather I looked it up to illustrate my point using something beside just my own observations.
Re: the bolded bit, I don't think that's the point of contention here? In another post of mine on this page I wrote that he's "a somewhat underrated and prolific chance creator, just not at the very top in his own era, let alone in an all-time context."
There is clearly a semantic issue. "Very good" doesn't equate to top tier in my book. Maybe you should make clear where you would rank him based on passing ability and vision?
Well, it's an opinion anyway. I'm not sure what the Barça attackers have to do with it though? I wasn't comparing them. I just felt that this game was a good example (given the amount of chances he and RM had with time and space on the break) of my pre-existing view on Cristiano's passing ability. That is what 'epitomise' means, isn't it?
Pretty obvious. Skorenzy was criticizing Ronaldo's passing/vision using a game where even the other 3 of well known all time greats didn't exactly set the world on fire either. I don't see his post on other Barca's player thread, questioning their 'greatness' based on yesterday's. Or is he just TheShedEnd Mk II?
Again, what do the Barça players have to do with it? Does their misplacing passes or lack of ideas in this game magically make Cristiano's passing better or something? And who exactly are you referring to anyway? Messi, Xavi and Iniesta? Or Suárez and Neymar? (because you used the term "attacking players" in the previous post, but now it's "all time greats" so... I'm confused). I didn't base my opinion of Cristiano's passing ability on this game, I'm saying this game was a decent illustration of my pre-existing opinion which is based on having watched him since 2003.
Fyi, the reason I'm posting in here was that I was having an argument about 1950s defenses prior to el clásico taking place, and after I read some comments that I wanted to reply to. I'm sure I'll get around to other threads when I feel like it and/or have something meaningful to say about them.
Hes a decent to goodish passer. If you want someone to play a creative pass with the right weight on it, Ronaldo isn't your man to see it or execute it. Thankfully, he knows his strengths and weaknesses and tends to leave all of that to others and focuses on getting in the end of things or putting the odd cross in
Not sure why anyone would think this game is needed to know this about Ronaldo. He's played for us ffs.
Not sure why anyone would think this game is needed to know this about Ronaldo. He's played for us ffs.
I thought he was shit yesterday.
Still better than Barca's best player though...
Still better than Barca's best player though...
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