How good was Pablo Aimar?

Oranges038

Full Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2020
Messages
14,960
Apparently he was Messi's idol growing up. Not that it means much in grand scheme of things.
"A great player is retiring, one of my idols. Pablo Aimar, I wish you the best in the next stage (of your life),"

"Thanks for all the enjoyment you gave us with your magic,"
Click to expand...

Used to love watching this guy, quality footballer and for me he was one of the best in the world at his peak. Those few years at Valenica he won La Liga x2, the UEFA Cup and finished as CL runners up, plus won a European Super Cup.

Obviously injuries took their toll and with Valencia in decline, he was pretty much done at the top by 2006 he was being left out and went to Zaragoza, a bit of a renaissance at Benfica later on, but he never reached the same heights as he did at Valencia.

So, how good was he?

World class on his day or just a very good player who burned brightly for a short time at the top?




 
Aimar was absolutely drowned in the desperate rush and need to crown Maradona’s successor. Everything he did was layer-traced to Maradona, which was completely unfair and unnecessary.

He was a very good player, but the pressure weighed on him like an anchor, which is understandable. Saviola, D’Allesandro, Aimar and even Riquelme to an extent had this immense toll placed upon them to be as extraordinary/alien as Maradona, and it cost each one of them dearly, imo.

In a world where that weight of expectation on their every move wasn’t so heavy I think their career trajectories would be different to how they turned out.

Aimar had it in him to make far greater waves in terms of historical standing than he did.
 
Fortitude said:
Aimar was absolutely drowned in the desperate rush and need to crown Maradona’s successor. Everything he did was layer-traced to Maradona, which was completely unfair and unnecessary.

He was a very good player, but the pressure weighed on him like an anchor, which is understandable. Saviola, D’Allesandro, Aimar and even Riquelme to an extent had this immense toll placed upon them to be as extraordinary/alien as Maradona, and it cost each one of them dearly, imo.

In a world where that weight of expectation on their every move wasn’t so heavy I think their career trajectories would be different to how they turned out.

Aimar had it in him to make far greater waves in terms of historical standing than he did.
Click to expand...

We can only imagine the pressure he was under and that is one side of it, particularly at international level. But overall physically his injuries took a lot away from him, he was pretty much done at 26/27.
 
Enjoyable, nifty creative player.
I remember the hype surrounding him just before we played Valencia in a home CL tie. He played well that night and looked destined to be one of Europe's best number 10's.
 
Incredible incredible player. My favourite during the end 90s and turn of the century.

Wanted to name my son Aimar, which also works as a first name for us, but the missus wasn't having it.
 
Last edited:
I like that in the first video they try to make it look like Carrick's clean tackle was somehow a piece of Aimar's skill (1:05). I had to rewatch it again to check if I wasn't missing something :lol:
 
One of the great technical players

Its a shame that Riquelme mostly took Aimar's place in the Argentina team rather than developing a formation where both could play. Especially when you had Mascherano as a DM

Aimar had a hot start as a young player but transfers to Zaragoza and Benfica tell the story that when he eventually moved on from Valencia his stock wasn't that high for the big clubs to be in for him
 
World class is fair - the first half of the 2000s he was amongst the very elite attacking midfielders in La Liga and by extension the world. At that time, midfields in Europe were very attritional, and he was always a joy to watch with his nimble feet and elusive movement.
 
Absolutely phenomenal player to watch.
I don’t think him, Riquelme, Saviola came close to fulfilling their potential.
La Liga was just a bit weird at the time, It was very competitive and you had teams like Valencia and Deportivo win titles.
But Barcelona was not a good place for someone like Riquelme at the time.

I think the likes of Saviola, Riquelme and Aimar would’ve been better off in the mid-late 90’s Serie A, had they were born a few years earlier.
By the time they’ve moved to Europe teams like Parma, Lazio, Sampdoria couldn’t really afford these players anymore, as opposed to the 90’s when they were buying Crespo, Veron, Ortega and the likes.

I think Aimar was as talented as David Silva, if not more which is a testament to how good he was, but David Silva had the much better career.
 
He was a decent player, he wouldn't fall into the world class or even great player category. He was one of the most inconsistent players I think I've ever seen. He was far far away from the likes of Lampard, Gerrard, Scholes. Xavi, Iniesta, Xavi, Kaka, Zidane etc at the time.

Decent player yes, World class or great player not so much.
 
quicker but more injury prone than Riquelme, and on about the same level I think.

a bit worse than Messi, but better than Gallardo, Insua, Ibagaza and D'Alessandro.

Saviola was never on that level imo.
 
Ekeke said:
One of the great technical players

Its a shame that Riquelme mostly took Aimar's place in the Argentina team rather than developing a formation where both could play. Especially when you had Mascherano as a DM

Aimar had a hot start as a young player but transfers to Zaragoza and Benfica tell the story that when he eventually moved on from Valencia his stock wasn't that high for the big clubs to be in for him
Click to expand...

The Zaragoza move came after he was suffering from injuries and coupled with managerial changes at Valenica he found himself out of the team.

He was at quite a low point.

Benfica was a slight move upwards and he did quite there.
 
Bole Top said:
quicker but more injury prone than Riquelme, and on about the same level I think.

a bit worse than Messi, but better than Gallardo, Insua, Ibagaza and D'Alessandro.

Saviola was never on that level imo.
Click to expand...
Thankyou. Reading a few comments and scratching my head thinking do people even remember saviola? One of the most wasteful strikers I have seen. Technically good, quick, low centre of gravity but finishing? Would score a wonderful goal and then would miss tons. Woeful.
 
Borderline world-class at Valencia, I'd say. Not quite as good as Zidane, Costa (although both were slightly past their peak) or Ronaldinho but close to someone like Deco (although Deco's best season was better). I'd probably rate him next to Riquelme although I do prefer the latter.

Undoubtedly one of the most technically gifted players of his generation who ultimately crumbled under the enormous pressure of being the new Maradona.
 
He would probably do well today at somewhere like Man City in a role like David Silva played.

If he was in EA games he’d be a mid-range Hero, not an Icon.
 
World Class for 2 seasons and then faded, mainly due to injuries. That Valencia team around that time was as solid as it gets with Mendieta, Vicente, Rufete, Carew, Albelda, Barchena, Ayala, Miguel etc he was the star among them. His body let him down, and he never recovered fully from setback after setback. He was David Silva before David Silva.

La Liga was filled with class players like him in that position, De la Pena Juan Carlos Valeron too. Great days of La Liga.
 
Bole Top said:
quicker but more injury prone than Riquelme, and on about the same level I think.

a bit worse than Messi, but better than Gallardo, Insua, Ibagaza and D'Alessandro.

Saviola was never on that level imo.
Click to expand...
A lot worse than Messi ( goes for 99.9% of footballers) and Aimar is one of my favorite players.
 
LankyHoggie said:
Absolutely phenomenal player to watch.
I don’t think him, Riquelme, Saviola came close to fulfilling their potential.
La Liga was just a bit weird at the time, It was very competitive and you had teams like Valencia and Deportivo win titles.
But Barcelona was not a good place for someone like Riquelme at the time.

I think the likes of Saviola, Riquelme and Aimar would’ve been better off in the mid-late 90’s Serie A, had they were born a few years earlier.
By the time they’ve moved to Europe teams like Parma, Lazio, Sampdoria couldn’t really afford these players anymore, as opposed to the 90’s when they were buying Crespo, Veron, Ortega and the likes.

I think Aimar was as talented as David Silva, if not more which is a testament to how good he was, but David Silva had the much better career.
Click to expand...

It's a damn shame that the almost two decades long TV rights negotiations handing Real and Barca happened in the early 00's, otherwise, Valencia and Deportivo could have retained and built upon their successes. For me, it wasn't fair watching Real and Barca given in excess of 70% of TV rights money. It destroyed what brilliant competition La Liga had.

Then, we might have been talking about Aimar's golden era at Valencia.
 
Very skillful player, elite in that regard, but I always thought he was physically pretty weak (aside from the injury-proneness), which meant he sometimes struggled when there was more focus on him to be a classic dominant attacking mid/ten at a pretty dour pragmatic Valencia, rather than an Iniesta/Hassler/Silva type of supporting/complimentary player in a more technical collective.
 
Him and Ariel Ortega always stick in my mind when I think of 90s Spanish league for some reason. Like Totti and Nedved in Italy. All iconic!
 
Fortitude said:
Aimar was absolutely drowned in the desperate rush and need to crown Maradona’s successor. Everything he did was layer-traced to Maradona, which was completely unfair and unnecessary.

He was a very good player, but the pressure weighed on him like an anchor, which is understandable. Saviola, D’Allesandro, Aimar and even Riquelme to an extent had this immense toll placed upon them to be as extraordinary/alien as Maradona, and it cost each one of them dearly, imo.

In a world where that weight of expectation on their every move wasn’t so heavy I think their career trajectories would be different to how they turned out.

Aimar had it in him to make far greater waves in terms of historical standing than he did.
Click to expand...

He had huge pressure but he was a light weight and not fast enough to compensate for it. I liked watching him a lot but Aimar was a very technical player that couldn't easily compensate for his weaknesses in the context he found himself in. If Guardiola or Tito Villanova were managers in the early 2000s, he would have been a very good squad player for Barcelona.
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
Ortega was miles better than Gaitan and was better than Aimar.
Click to expand...
I first got into football around 97/98 and my first ever book was a 1998 World Cup preview and I always remember the name Ariel Ortega from it. They were bigging him up to be the next Maradona I'm sure. I can't say I ever remember seeing him play though.
 
harms said:
Borderline world-class at Valencia, I'd say. Not quite as good as Zidane, Costa (although both were slightly past their peak) or Ronaldinho but close to someone like Deco (although Deco's best season was better). I'd probably rate him next to Riquelme although I do prefer the latter.

Undoubtedly one of the most technically gifted players of his generation who ultimately crumbled under the enormous pressure of being the new Maradona.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's about fair. Although I think he was well ahead of Costa at that time, who by that stage of his career had lost a physical edge and had zero end product at club level. In fact you could probably hand the hipster's 10 baton from Rui to Pablo around about 2001 when they joined Valencia and Milan respectively. Looking back at my posts on Aimar on here, I seemed to rate him ahead of Zidane (in his early 30s), which seems a little generous in retrospect as Zizou still had that exceptional ceiling, but perhaps reflected greater consistency every week in La Liga.
 
Loved watching him during his time at Valencia. I was just in my early teens but still have decent memories of his performances. I’m not sure if he was world class, nor do I think he had the strongest of mentalities but his vision, touch and ability on the ball was elite level.

Objectively, I’d probably have Riquelme over him though, who of course had his own flaws. But Messi aside, I think they’re the two best number 10’s Argentina have produced in the past 20 years or so.
 
All I remember of him was that he was in that amazing Valencia team that won the double with Rafa Benitez. What a team:

Aimar
Mista
Vicente
Ruben Baraja
Alblda
Marchena
 
Ekeke said:
Its a shame that Riquelme mostly took Aimar's place in the Argentina team rather than developing a formation where both could play. Especially when you had Mascherano as a DM
Click to expand...
I've only spent about 30 seconds on it but I'm not sure that formation currently exists, though maybe future tactico scientists will create one.

Maybe a 3-4-2-1 could work and they're both basically 10s, like Palace are doing with Eze and Kamada.

So in 2006, I guess something like this?

------------------Crespo-------------
---------Riquelme--Aimar---------
Sorin-Cambiasso-Mascherano-Maxi
-------Heinze--Ayala-Coloccini-----
 
Hoof the ball said:
It's a damn shame that the almost two decades long TV rights negotiations handing Real and Barca happened in the early 00's, otherwise, Valencia and Deportivo could have retained and built upon their successes. For me, it wasn't fair watching Real and Barca given in excess of 70% of TV rights money. It destroyed what brilliant competition La Liga had.

Then, we might have been talking about Aimar's golden era at Valencia.
Click to expand...

At that time you had Deportivo, Villareal, Valencia and a few others make great upward strides in La Liga. But Barca and Real couldn't allow that to continue.
 
NoPace said:
I've only spent about 30 seconds on it but I'm not sure that formation currently exists, though maybe future tactico scientists will create one.

Maybe a 3-4-2-1 could work and they're both basically 10s, like Palace are doing with Eze and Kamada.

So in 2006, I guess something like this?

------------------Crespo-------------
---------Riquelme--Aimar---------
Sorin-Cambiasso-Mascherano-Maxi
-------Heinze--Ayala-Coloccini-----
Click to expand...

I think a diamond could work too with similar personnel. Dominate the ball and get Aimar dribbling on one of the sides linking up with Riquelme in the 10.

Yes its a lot of work for Mascherano to do, but its work he likes to do
 
JPRouve said:
He had huge pressure but he was a light weight and not fast enough to compensate for it. I liked watching him a lot but Aimar was a very technical player that couldn't easily compensate for his weaknesses in the context he found himself in. If Guardiola or Tito Villanova were managers in the early 2000s, he would have been a very good squad player for Barcelona.
Click to expand...
As I recall, it wasn’t his size that really created problems, but his susceptibility to injury and the loss of his explosiveness that aided him so much when he was really making a name for himself at Valencia. If he had that fitness and durability for his career, his stature and slightness would have remained a footnote, but obviously, being so small and lightweight plus then being easier to hit and clatter, his ability was never going to compensate in exchange.

A lot of #10’s get destroyed over the duration of their careers and end up being very different players to how they started out - Maradona himself (as well as Pelé) being very much prime examples of players who went from mazy, tight runners and dribblers to quicker release passers and follow-uppers to their initial pass by 29 compared to their 25-year old iterations, but Aimar is really small and light where most #10’s tend to be stocky and robust, able to take body to body challenges etc. once Aimar lost his nimbleness, he could be muscled out of games or reduced to a peripheral figure on pure physicality alone, which was a great shame for him.

I wouldn’t call him soft, but he was not a fancier of being in the middle of wars and tussles and scraps, so he could be reduced and have his effectiveness in-game lowered once he lost what initially made him so difficult to play against.

It’s funny too that so many Argentine #10’s of that time were physically compromised: Ortega was easily wound up and put off his game - a few kicks and he was in vendetta mode; Riquelme needed things to be just right or he wouldn’t even try and perform; D’Allesandro was easily manhandled out of games and Aimar as above. Boca-Tevez really was cut from a different cloth, being the pitbull that he was!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.