Suarez' statistics dont lie he was just that good. So many moments come to mind like him nutmegging David Luiz and just burying it in the top right corner. If he was playing for your team you loved the shithousery too. My fav was him making coke snorting gestures to PSV Jonathan Reis after his coke abuse came out
ESPN top 25 players of the 21st century
- Thread starter Korwas
- Start date
1. Messi
2. C.Ronaldo
3. Xavi
4. Iniesta
5. Neuer
6. Ramos
7. Modric
8. Busquets
9. Puyol
10. Buffon
11. Henry
12. Kroos
13. Benzema
14. De Bruyne
15. Lahm
16. D.Alves
17. Pirlo
18. Suarez
19. Rooney
20. Neymar
21. Ribery
22. Ronaldinho
23. Kaka
24. Villa
25. Lewandowski
Don't see the logic in including Brazilian Ronaldo and Zidane when they only had a couple of world class seasons in the 2000's and majority of their best career was in the 90's. Zidane was better than Ronaldo in the 2000's but neither should be above players who played their whole careers in this century and had longer peaks. Same reason why Ronaldinho and Kaka are much lower than others might have, Ronaldinho dipped significantly after 2007 while Kaka had his injury problems post 2008. Amazing, but short, peaks compared to the rest.
Neuer would look strange so high but he's the best keeper of his general and redefined his position, plus has the acclodes to match his ability, so he deserves to be recognized high up alongside attackers.
Also need to recognize the absolute dominance of Spanish football this century and have majority of their players or La Liga players up high. Would really want to include Schweinsteiger but his peak was a bit shorter than the others since he became a midfielder later into his career, though I still rate him above Kroos and Pirlo.
EDIT: Realized that I didn't include David Villa or Samuel Eto'o so I thought to add one of them in place of Mbappe. Mbappe is great surely but both Villa and Eto'o have UCL titles while Villa was absolutely massive for Spain in their 2008 and 2010 titles. Lewandowski stays above Mbappe because of his UCL title and having a much longer career.
2. C.Ronaldo
3. Xavi
4. Iniesta
5. Neuer
6. Ramos
7. Modric
8. Busquets
9. Puyol
10. Buffon
11. Henry
12. Kroos
13. Benzema
14. De Bruyne
15. Lahm
16. D.Alves
17. Pirlo
18. Suarez
19. Rooney
20. Neymar
21. Ribery
22. Ronaldinho
23. Kaka
24. Villa
25. Lewandowski
Don't see the logic in including Brazilian Ronaldo and Zidane when they only had a couple of world class seasons in the 2000's and majority of their best career was in the 90's. Zidane was better than Ronaldo in the 2000's but neither should be above players who played their whole careers in this century and had longer peaks. Same reason why Ronaldinho and Kaka are much lower than others might have, Ronaldinho dipped significantly after 2007 while Kaka had his injury problems post 2008. Amazing, but short, peaks compared to the rest.
Neuer would look strange so high but he's the best keeper of his general and redefined his position, plus has the acclodes to match his ability, so he deserves to be recognized high up alongside attackers.
Also need to recognize the absolute dominance of Spanish football this century and have majority of their players or La Liga players up high. Would really want to include Schweinsteiger but his peak was a bit shorter than the others since he became a midfielder later into his career, though I still rate him above Kroos and Pirlo.
EDIT: Realized that I didn't include David Villa or Samuel Eto'o so I thought to add one of them in place of Mbappe. Mbappe is great surely but both Villa and Eto'o have UCL titles while Villa was absolutely massive for Spain in their 2008 and 2010 titles. Lewandowski stays above Mbappe because of his UCL title and having a much longer career.
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His World Cup 98 knockout run:
0 goals 0 assists in the Ro16
0 goals 0 assists in the QF
0 goals 0 assists in the SF
Benched in the final when France won 3-0
Honestly, Henry is one of those players whose legacy is very protected by being a Premier League great (like Aguero). When you actually begin to poke holes into his legacy you see just how fragile it is.
It's a much better list, but i think alves and Rooney can be replaced.
Why did you choose only 98 and only knockout round there and decided that those games are the only notable thing he did for his NT without even watching anything? Using the same framework, how many goals/assists Suarez has once you only count games where he didn't score or assist?
That at least explains it. If you only care about Barca la liga performances and conveniently ignore everything else then Suarez definitely was a better player, but that framework is just bizarre for anyone else.
Henry above Zidane from 2000 onwards isn’t too bad…
I care about everything
- domestic
- champions league
- international
- longevity
- peak
And I think Suarez wins every category to be honest.
I agree with you on this one. Robben in his prime was the third best player of his generation, IMO. Clearly ahead of Suarez. Robben vs Neymar is a more interesting discussion.
Neymar is an odd one. He's probably the most talented after the big 2, but his strange career choices and questionnable work ethic at times hurts his career a bit.
I agree that Suarez is a little under-rated and happily rank him in the top 2 strikers of the 21st century.
But I don't really agree with some of these points. In the Champions League Henry''s record of memorable moments is pretty good in my view. Going back to 1998 he scored in the semi-final against Juventus, having notched 7 in 9 CL games that year. In 2000/01 he had a goal and assist at home to Bayern (the best team in Europe that year) and scored against Valencia in the quarters (best defence in Europe). In 2002 he scored a hat-trick away to Roma (a top team at the time). In 2003/04 he had 2 goals and 2 assists in the 5-1 demolition of Inter in the San Siro - again a team that only narrowly lost out on the CL the year before. In 2005/06 there was of course that solo goal away to Real Madrid, but he also had goal and assist in a 2-0 win against Juventus. Over the piece he scored or assisted something like 62% of Arsenal's goals in the Champions League between 2002 and 2006. That demonstrates how influential he was - in what was a more competitive era than the last 10-15 years.
Yeah, he's a bit of an underachiever but in the end, probably only Messi and Cristiano has had better primes than him.
You’re love for Robben is your one redeeming quality.Robben was only a one trick pony if you know him from youtube highlights. Obviously the goals from the right are his trademark, but he also had a fantastic cross and throughball and is probably the best (or one of) the best dribblers of his generation. He didn't start playing on the right until his time in Munich and was also a sensational traditional winger in his early career. He just reinvented himself. I may have overreacted a bit by saying it's laughable Suarez is above him, but Robben's ability to basically function as a 1 man team is something I haven't seen any other Dutch player do in my lifetime. And that includes Gullit and Van Basten. Suarez was ofcourse a vital part of one of the best front 3s in history, but the M part of MSN was far and away the most important part of it. You could say he carried Liverpool of course, but he carried Liverpool to winning nothing in the end.
If he didn't have the insane amount of injuries I think he might have been the biggest player behind "those" 2.
I admit I'm MASSIVELY biast towards Robben. I realize that.
Interesting, to me he's basically the exact opposite. His lack of great individual peak would probably be the main argument for not putting him anywhere close to such a list.
But what about my disarming sense of humor, friendly demeanor and extremely witty name spoof username?
I think Neymar in his last Barca and first PSG seasons had an insane peak and was very underrated. At first because he played in the same team as Messi and then because he played in the French league. Before he left Spain, there were already some opinions that he was about to overtake Messi as Barca's best player, especially after La Remontada. Think Mbappe for instance, who many now see as the best player in the world, hasn't come particularly close to Neymar's level back then.
Nope. Only the Robben thing. But nobody can take that away from you.
Fine, I'll take it. I do really love him.
You have a second account on here?
mean
Zidane was at Real Madrid from 2001, Put in one of the best performances by an international player ever against Brazil in 2006 . Henry was great but levels below Zidane. Ask any French player form that era. Zidane was the leader and main man of that team. Not having Henry above him ever sorry
In order to determine who is more 'statistically creative', you need to look at a range of numbers, not just the couple that you've highlighted as 'proof'.
Henry's International careers is fine, thanks very much, he's a World Cup winner and a Euros winner, and was France's top scorer when they won the big gold one. That'll do nicely. It's not R9, but then Suarez most certainly isn't R9 either.
Being better to watch does matter, unfortunately. Football is a spectator sport. Also, it's called the beautiful game for a reason.
Lastly, way to dodge addressing Suarez's pathetic CL record. Barely over 20 goals? Name another top striker in the 21st century who's been so poor. I'll wait....
I mean Aguero has no World Cup, no Champions League, and never came anywhere near winning the Ballon D'Or (Henry finished
top 3 in the voting twice, whilist a Premier League player). He also has no European Golden shoe (Henry has 2), only one PL golden boot to Henry's 4 and no PFA or FWA player of the year awards (both of which Henry won multiple times).
Apart from that they're absolutely identical
Ridiculous post.
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I wouldn't have Henry over Zidane either. He is definitely too high in this list
Stats shorn of all context of course, despite your cry for context to be applied to their international careers because Henry's is quite clearly more successful.
Henry was not always a number nine but began as a winger. He didn't become a prolific scorer until he'd been at Arsenal for some time.
More Importantly, about 175 of Suarez's club goals came in Holland, Uruguay, Brazil and the US, whereas only about 50 of Henry's were outside the top 5 European Leagues.
So just putting up goals without any context doesn't actually work.
Maybe you'd like to try the same thing with R9, because Suarez also has more career goals that him. I guess that means Suarez is better, in your world.
How can this possibly be true?
Aguero does have a World Cup medal actually, and his contribution to the knockout stages of 2022 was comparable to Henry in 1998.
In all seriousness, I have checked both Henry and Suarez’s UCL record. Remember that Suarez barely played in that competition until he was 27:
Henry
- 0.41 goals per game
- 0.18 assists per game
Suarez
- 0.37 goals per game
- 0.34 assists per game
Hardly any difference, really. They both won the UCL once with Barcelona, and Suarez was significantly more decisive in 2015 than Henry was in 2009.
Internationally you say that Henry is “fine” but for a player of his reputation, it IS underwhelming no matter how you slice it.
Suarez has 7 World Cup goals, all crucial goals when his team was drawing or losing.
Henry has 6 goals, most of which were group stage statpads. The only 2 decisive goals were in 2006 (one against Korea & one against Brazil).
Another thing I didn’t mention is that Henry was a total flop at Juventus, whereas Suarez was great everywhere he went, even at Atletico when he was physically finished, he helped them win the league.
To me Neymar in PSG always had a massive problem of missing half of the games every season and not neccessarily turning up in those rare massive games where he was actually playing. I thought that his peak would be the 2014-2016 period, but obviously he was overshadowed then. I always felt that him being called the heir to Messi after that was mostly due to people expecting Messi to dramatically fall off after 30, rather than from Neymar's performances.
Obviously it doesn't immidiately mean they are better players, but to me whichever 2 seasons you pick and compare them to peak of players like: Ribery, Robben, Dinho, Kaka, Lewandowski, R9, Suarez, Henry and probably a bunch of others I forgot I would put so much above Neymar's.
Neymar was ridiculously good in his first PSG seasons. His problem was that only his UCL performances mattered for most people in this time and since PSG were a disjointed mess, they rarely convinced against other top teams. Ability wise, I think he was better than many of the ones you mentioned and I don't believe they would have looked better in that PSG side. It's a shame, IMO, since he could have been an all time great.
To illustrate how good Neymar used to be: There is this stat called xGoalChain (xGC) that summarizes the xG of all chances you were involved in. So it doesn't matter if you played the last, second or third to last pass before a shot or shot yourself, it's basically your total contribution in the creation of goal scoring chances. Foden last season was at 0.95, Mbappe at 1.15, Vinicius at 0.97, Bellingham at 1.05. De Bruyne's best season was at 1.21, Messi's best ever at 1.46. Neymar's best was 1.54 in 2015/16 and he averages 1.32 since 2014/15. It's absolutely unreal how many chances he created.
Just to be clear, I do think that both Henry is way too high on ESPN one and Suarez is a bit too low (especially considering that they should ignore achievements before 2001) and even though I personally wouldn't, I don't think that rating Suarez slightly higher than Henry is that crazy. But your arguments do seem very cherry picky and almost getting weirdly close to the weird Messi vs Ronaldo posts that try to settle the argument by metrics like: 'goals scored by left pinky while being behind the goal' and other shit like that. It's just mostly stuff that is either completely irrelevant when comparing careers or massive exaggerations that just reek of bad faith.
You very conveniently ignore that Henry was a much earlier bloomer (and came with a much earlier decline too) than Suarez and somehow try to turn it into a positive on Suarez. Nobody is seriously making a case that Barcelona's Henry after his back and muscle injuries is in top 10 players of this century, obviously people talk about his peak, which was 2003 +/- 2 years. With Suarez it's literally the opposite, his record after his 1st season at Liverpool is the thing that matters and obviously if you only compare strong parts of one player with weak parts of another you get weird results.
I can confirm that Neymar's performance in the first half of the season with PSG was truly outstanding. Numerous media outlets at the time praised him, suggesting that he could finally emerge from Messi's shadow at Barcelona. He enjoyed greater freedom in orchestrating plays and dribbling, even more so than at Barcelona (though it can be noted that French defenders are not as formidable as those in Spain). Neymar had the opportunity to fully establish himself as the central figure of the team in the No. 10 role. However, his injury in February 2018 marked the beginning of a series of events that we are all familiar with.
If we examine advanced statistics such as Progressive Carries (PrgC), Progressive Passes (PrgP), Progressive Runs (PrgR), key passes, and other sub-categories, his metrics were exceptional. One thing that can be criticized is he lost the ball too much due to his showboating( which is understandable) and lost a bit of discipline in his play.
If we consider Neymar's match history in the league since joining PSG, he has never managed to play more than 60% of the games. The reasons for this are varied, but when he is on the field, his performance is consistently impressive. During his tenure, PSG rarely had a well-functioning team, particularly in terms of a high-caliber midfield unit(apart from Verratti).
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I mostly agree, potential-wise I think he was much better than nearly every single player I listed and even if he didn't improve as a player but just didn't do that stupid PSG transfer he would have a lot more great moments.
The problem with PSG visibility was definitely a big part of it, but another part was that at PSG he never even hit 50% of league gametime once. Obviously you can excuse this if it happens few times, but at 7 in a row it has to start being treated as a lack of ability to manage fitness throughout the season that all players have to deal with.
All players look much better in very cohesive teams that cater to their particular skillset, it's an important thing if you want to look for players to transfer, but when evaluating the best peaks of 25 years I would expect a lot more translation of his skills into successes of the team. Even if not winning CLs for PSG, then at least winning more important games during that period.
Yeah I’d agree with you and @General_Elegancia here. I’d go as far as saying for me he was performing as the best player in the world around then. But for various reasons - some outwith his control - never consolidated that with the titles required to secure the wider consensus to win the Ballon.
No doubt, he didn't take care of his body enough and it cost him. But I blame the PSG move for that as well. First because of the culture at the club that put star players on a pedestal like nowhere else and second because he moved to a club which was so far ahead of every domestic competitor that the typical "healthy tension" you have at other top clubs wasn't really there. He was heads and shoulders above every other players in the league even at 80% and his club was ahead of everyone else even without him. That lack of competitiveness meant he didn't need to be completely fit and moreover, his shithousery reached another level at that time. He was injured because he drove an opponent over the edge while taking the piss a couple of times. He was always an exciting player doing lots of skill moves but it was means to an end at Barca and Santos while at PSG, it sometimes seemed as if he did it just to entertain/humiliate.
Suarez > Henry
But it's close. I'd actually take Henry over the entire span of their careers, but Suarez's best was better than Henry's
But it's close. I'd actually take Henry over the entire span of their careers, but Suarez's best was better than Henry's
Henry was incredible player don't get me wrong . But Zidane is on the A tier list of all time greats with Pele, Maradona, Cruyff, Messi, Ronaldo. becknebauer , Bobby charlton, Puskas, Baggio, Di Stefano, R9, Eusebio. Henry is in the next tier down In my opinion.
Agreed. Can't argue with any of the names you've put there.
I have no problem with this take. It's perfect fine to think Suarez is better than Henry. My issue with the other poster is the notion that it is not close. It obviously is.
Puyol too high. Kaka should be higher, peak Kaka was unreal.
Rivaldo unlucky his peak straddles late 90s and early 00's, ridiculous talent.
Rivaldo unlucky his peak straddles late 90s and early 00's, ridiculous talent.
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Zidane was pure silk but he was not on tier imo. He wasn't consistent enough. Someone like Platini might not look as cool as Zidane did, but he scored far more goals than him in the toughest and most defensive league in the world and was a masterful dribbler and passer as well.
Suarez didn't play in the Champions League until he was 27? And whose fault is that?
It makes me laugh that you can't see the incredible irony of claiming that there's 'barely any difference' in their CL records and then going on and on about Suarez having one more goal than Henry in the World Cup, to try and cover up the fact that Henry has won the World Cup and Suarez hasn't.
What's also funny is you claiming that 'Suarez was great everywhere' (to try and denigrate Henry for struggling as a very young player at one of the biggest clubs in one of the best leagues in the world), when Suarez spent his entire young career in Uruguay and Holland. Anyone can look great in those leagues. Just ask Antony.
Look, there's no point in continuing this. Most logical people would accept that it's pretty close between them, even if they favour Suarez. You keep arguing about some vast gulf, for which there is pretty clearly no evidence whatsoever. But you can believe that if it makes you happy, be my guest.