Anyone who's seen those 3 players play football will tell you who the worst one on the ball is. Kroos and Isco are easily better right now, Pogba still has a lot to evolve.
Last 4 CL-winners are Real & Barca
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Anyone who's seen those 3 players play football will tell you who the worst one on the ball is. Kroos and Isco are easily better right now, Pogba still has a lot to evolve.
You can't really assess these players individually. You have to take into consideration who Kroos and Modric play with. Stick Pogba in a side with Ronaldo in it and he would suddenly look better on the ball.
I've seen all three play football. Pogba is as good as them both. And if we had Kroos and Madrid had Pogba, you would be saying the same thing!
There's no way Isco is better than Pogba.
Pogba and Herrera could start for Barca. These two with Busquets would be a match for Madrid's midfield. Umtiti starts over Bailly. Overall, I'd say De Gea, Pogba, Herrera and Valencia could get inside Barca's first eleven from last season.
Based on performances this season. I would say Umtiti is the one who is overrated by the sheer fact that he plays for Barca.
You've got to blame City, really. This happened on their shift.
I can't conclude that one is better than the other tbh. Umtiti had a very good Euros, that should count for something. He's adapted impressively at Barca at his age and for his first foreign experience.
Spain is just a super power in football. There was a time when they couldn't win anything, like before 2000 - and everyone was saying it's their turn to dominate. Now's that time.
Not true. he has far more mistakes in him, wrong decisions and is much less accomplished. He will have more games where he looks like a kid in a playground then them. well than Kroos at least anyway. I have seen Pogba play for Juve, France and United. He is very good and yet I still felt he had much to develop compared with peers.
Barsa is coming out of a phase were their established model was blessed with a golden generation of talent. Puyol, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta and then Messi as the cherry on the top. When they were on, they were perhaps the best the club side the world has ever seen.
Madrid, without Barsa's model, has had a solid generation of young talent (never on Barsa's level though) together with some very good purchases. Amidst the galactico hysteria, Real have actually been extremely good at identifying and buying young talent at fair prices. Kroos, Modric, Varane, Marcelo, Casemiro, Isco, Asensio...none of those guys were particularly expensive and are all very good at what they do. Add them to the solid squad players provided by Madrid's youth setup and the superstar Ronaldo and you have a contender for winning everything every season.
Madrid, without Barsa's model, has had a solid generation of young talent (never on Barsa's level though) together with some very good purchases. Amidst the galactico hysteria, Real have actually been extremely good at identifying and buying young talent at fair prices. Kroos, Modric, Varane, Marcelo, Casemiro, Isco, Asensio...none of those guys were particularly expensive and are all very good at what they do. Add them to the solid squad players provided by Madrid's youth setup and the superstar Ronaldo and you have a contender for winning everything every season.
Barca must be jealous about Real's midfield. Kroos, Modric and Casemiro have been in great form for the last 2 years. Rakitic-Iniesta-Busquets hasn't been as effective as in 14/15.
Kroos has the consistency which is important for a top level CM, but Pogba has a higher level. Pogba can do everything Kroos can and more, but doesn't do it as consistently yet.
Once Pogba reaches 26/27 we can judge them then, but I am sure he will be at the same level.
Not sure about De Gea. Ter Stegen plays because of his ability on the ball. Also not so sure about Valencia...
Pogba would walk into your first XI and ours, too(replacing casemiro with Kroos or Modric moving to DLP)
Bailly is the same age as Umtiti and it's a new foreign experience for him too. I'm not saying Bailly is miles better, but he has been better over the course of this season at least imo. I can understand a case for the opposite side, but would agree both players have adapted well to their respective clubs.
Woudl you say Kroos has massively improved during the period of Pogbas age to now? bear in mind he won the world cup at 24 and made the World Cup Dream Team, World Cup alls star team and made the most assists in the whole tournament, as well as the champions league team of the season. Kroos was already an accomplished, top class beast at that age.
When you say Pogba has a higher level, please expand on this. Pogba will never have a match where he scores loads of goals, gets lots of assists, covers every blade of grass, is the best defensive player plus offensive, which I think many people (unrealistically) think he can do. I don't think he has a higher level. Some of Kroos best matches have been exceptional.
disagree. Wasn't Zidane's success based on him not trying to fit in too many attack minded players and the fact that Casemeiro provided the steel and thus balance to your team? Modrid would get dunked on.
You're partly right.
In my opinion Real success came after they signed Modric. He was the key signing.
2012-2013 - fist season, settling in, Mou didn't know how to use him at first and after the problems with Casillas it was a disaster of a season
2013-2014 - Modric plays whole season - Real win the CL
2014-2015 - Real play the best football, winning 21 games in a row, first in the league, everything is peachy - Modric get's injured for the rest of the season and everything falls apart like house of cards
2015-2016 - Modric plays whole season - Real win the CL
2016-2017 - Modric plays whole season - Real win the CL
Nah, Pogba's physicality would have given us enough balance. The best real madrid of the last 50 years was the one playing with Kroos+Modric+Isco+James in midfield
And what did you win with them, just out of curiosity, as in how well did you do?
Won 21 straight while looking frankly untouchable, then modric's injury, james injury, and kroos and isco collapsing under the weight of too many minutes with no backups screwed us
The most impressive thing when it comes to Real for me is, that their net spend is not even that high. They are just extremely intelligent when it comes to buying and especially selling players. Modric for example is the last player who is not a goalkeeper who they have bought above the age of 25.
Obviously you know more about Real than me and don't you regularly go on winning runs like Barcelona sometimes? Also how were you guys in the champions league and how were you against stronger opponents? I am curious
Crazy to think Madrid went 32 without winning the European Cup. At one point we weren't that far behind them on that count but the last few years they've disappeared over the horizon.
We won 21 games in a row. We played barcelona at home in what was actually a close game and it never felt close at all. We swept teams off the pitch
Unfortunately Modric's injury basically sidelined him for the season and we never were able to play that starting XI after November. Still finished the season on 92 points(1 less than this season), went out in CL SF against juve 3-2 on aggregate because we didn't have the legs(and also, bad finishing and Sturaro pulling off a miracle save in Turin)
Even with the kroos-modric-james-bale-bemzema-cristiano lineup we smashed athletic and villarreal.
During Modric's brief return, we dominated barcelona(14/15 barcelona) at the camp nou for an hour -without james- until the combination of Suarez out-of-nowhere goal and Modric(who, really, i said we dominated, but it was Modric doing the dominating by himself) running out of gas killed our light off
Higuain came for free?
Yawn. we've been tooting this horn for years. every season the EPL smashes the transfer totals and EPL clubs have been spending for years to no avail! I don't see it changing.
Agree. Smashing transfer totals on overseas talent is not enough. The integration of national, home grown talent has to play a role too. The Spanish giants do it, Bayern and Juventus do it and we did better than anyoone back in the 90's. PL teams have to find a way to do this again.