Clearly people who are saying Zidane only watched the final.
Better choice than Messi in 2014.
Agree. He was a lot better in 2006.
It's actually mental to think of the situation they were in. Lost the first game and looking a bit clueless against Mexico - 30 minutes away from disaster. And then Messi scores that goal. Talk about a turnaround.
nah it's such an iconic moment. scores a chip penalty. almost scores a header. violently headbutts. red. walks past the cup on the way out.
True and is fully understandable since he's 35, a fact that his naysayers conveniently ignore.
Absolutely. Not only did they go a man down but lost their main penalty taker due to his loss of composure / temper. However he had so much credit in the bank I don't think there was all that much criticism.
It is not the greatest ever campaign by a single player but is the next best since Maradona in 1986. There is no wc since 1986 where a single player influenced every single game other than Messi this year (barring the Saudia game which turned out irrelevant).
Agree, I'm another person who would rank Bobby in 1966 ahead of Bobby in 1970. Bobby 1966 was like a magician from the back, his skills, especially in terms of ball distribution and creating things from the back(are possibly the best from any defenders in World Cup history), while providing a similar level of defensive ability in 1970. In WC1970, he was still decent at both ball-playing ability and even a bit better in terms of defensive ability.
| Bobby Moore 1966 | Bobby Moore 1970 | |
| Tackle | 1.5 | 2.4 |
| Interception | 3.0 | 3.4 |
| Clearances | 5.8 | 3.5 |
| Blocks | 0.9 | 1.6 |
| Headers | 1.1 | 0.2 |
| Fouls Committed | 2.5 | 0.5 |
| Fouls drawn | 0.6 | 0.9 |
| Non-shot- exp goals | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Passes | 48.2 | 47.8 |
| Progressive passes | 17.4 | 24.2 |
| Take-ons | 0.6 | 0.2 |
| Progressive dribbles | 5.1 | 3.5 |
| Touches in the box | 0.8 | - |
| Crosses | 0.2 | - |
| Pass percentages | 86.90 | 88.50 |
| Pass complete | 335 | 226 |
| Duel win | 33 | 18 |
| Duel loss | 32 | 13 |
| key passes | 13 | 5 |
| assists | 2 | 1 |
| goal | 0 | 0 |
Agree, maybe England would have gotten 1-2 red cards in that game. There were a lot of brutal fouls from England defenders/midfielders when Maradona started to accelerate. England didn't use a man-marking strategy against Diego. Instead of that, they used more zonal and tactical fouls.
I think it's because of what he did in the run up to the final. People forget that that year Zidane was retired from international football. The FFF had to literally beg him to come out of retirement because they were struggling to even qualify for the world cup. He then scored against Spain in the ro16 in a motm performance then got an assist against Brazil and a motm performance in the quarters. Scored the only goal (a pen) in the semi vs Portugal in another motm performance.
