I think Klopp's want for Kagawa is extremely overstated on this forum.
Marco Reus
- Thread starter gooDevil
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This is undoubtly true, but also logical because Kagawa´s role as a whole at Dortmund is overrated by several people on here.
All the Dortmund fans I've talked to have said Kagawa was brilliant for Dortmund, and a massive part of their title wins, is that not true?
PM from a newb.
Yes, he had two brilliant season halfs for us and contributed a good deal to our title wins. So have been around a dozen player, though. He was simply never as influential as some make him out to be. He was never a lead player, nor was he as instrumental as other players to our system like Sahin, Hummels, Gündogan, Götze or Lewandowski. He was a player who filled his role extremely well, a role that fit him perfectly, but that role is also taken right now.
Don't let Mad Winger hear you say that, he'll snap you like a twig!
Who will that be? Mkhitaryan?
Yes. He plays pretty much in his position right now but I'm not so sure he is as effective as Kagawa was during his best times. That being said it's his first season and not every player can have an instant impact like Kagawa did for Dortmund. It's kinda funny I was totally convinced that after he gotten so fast used to playing in a higher league after he came to Germany, that he would also be able to adept extremely fast to the PL but somehow that didn't happen. Probably because his best position was already taken.
Few wingers are at his level in world football.
Do we need wingers though? Don't get me wrong I'm not questioning their worth but with our manager it'd be like taking an obese child to McDonald's. Should we encourage it? We're fairly one dimensional as it is with shit wide players. Buy a decent one we'll have a crossing equivalent of a diabetic coma.
He isn't like our wingers in any way; he's more an inside forward. Best player to compare with at a top level in England is Hazard, who doesn't just run next to the sideline and whacks a cross in. He has so much more to his game. We definitely need something like that, which is why I was so gutted we didn't get hazard two years ago.
Of course we do. Ours are pretty shit across the board. Valencia, Young and Nani are all dead wood in my book and we should get rid of them as soon as possible or let them stay if they are happy with being backup but to compete with the best teams you need "wingers" who play on a higher level and are more intelligent footballers as those that we have atm.
Reus would be such a player in my book.
I disagree with this. Sahin was more instrumental in 2010-2011, but Kagawa was definitely Dortmund's best player in 2011-2012. That was also Dortmund's best season(imo).
Is he reliable
I think I'm going to keep my muppet thoughts in my head for now...
He isn´t, yet, but then again Mkhitaryan had the bad luck to miss out a crucial part of the pre season and when he actually started to come good, we lost our whole first choice defensive formation, which resulted in a collapse of our pressing system. He is a formidable pressing player (the 2nd best in the team after Bender) and has indicated his worth in some matches, including some crucial ones like the return leg vs. Neapel in the CL.
No he wasn´t, because last I checked a season is longer than four months. If I take the same time frame as measure stick then our best performer in that season was without a doubt Mario Götze, who carried our offensive game for large portions of the first season half, but missed out the complete second one injured. Our best performing player in that season was basically the only one delivering on top level the whole season and that was Mats Hummels. People also like to forget that Kagawa´s strongest phase at Dortmund was in a time, when he was surrounded by players who hit absolute top form like our creative brain Gündogan, a formidable Kuba and of course Kagawa´s most important partner Lewandowski.
Kagawa being our best player in that season is as much of a myth as him being the best player of the Bundesliga. This was actually Marco Reus, who still played at Gladbach back then.
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I watched a shitload of Dortmund games that season and pretty much all the highlights, and based on what I saw, I disagree with your opinion. I never felt that Götze was better than Kagawa overall, and while Hummels was a classy defender, Dortmund was all about the attack that season(imo). These are my top 3 performers from that season:
1. Kagawa
2. Gündogan/Lewandowski(can't seperate them).
I know many Dortmund and Bundesliga supporters who would agree with me when I say that Kagawa was Dortmund's best player from that season. But I agree that it's not so black and white. That Dortmund team was all about teamwork, so it's really hard to seperate the top 4-5 performers. It's all a matter of taste. As for me, it was that season that made Kagawa my favorite player. I liked him before that(because I watched him play for Japan), but he was in no way a personal favorite.
I'm sure you do.
Anyway, it's funny as most of the Bundesliga supporters on here and all of the Dortmund supporters on here have said the opposite to your opinion is true. He's a very good player who played a part in the success of an outstanding Dortmund team, but the idea that he was the best player or carried the team is a wrong one. He was a good player in a system that suited him to a T.
I agree with both parts. Mikhi has shown promising stuff during parts of the season and looks like he has still a lot of room to improve.
And now you're on the other side of the spectrum. He wasn't just a good player, he was comfortably in their top 3 players that season.
I don't want to sound as if I'm speaking for the Dortmund supporters on here, but given that @Sphaero and couple of other German posters have said that he was surrounded by players who hit top form throughout the season, I'd say that's up for debate.
He was somehow the least mobile of their attack. And Klopp had a lot time to teach them the system and where they have to run to. I remember that e.g. Gündogan needed awhile to adapt to that.
We see it at Götze who was an assisting machine at Dortmund - but in the national team and for Bayern he lives more of his goals than of his assists. Özil and Müller - who are used to work with "individuals" in their teams do the most assists in the German National Team. That is a thing Götze still has to learn - to get a real good feeling for his fellow players.
My cousin's ex-husband is from Germany, and he's a hardcore Dortmund fan who often have friends and relatives from Gemany coming over to visit. He's pretty much been my next door neighbor since middle school.
Do you know why the myth about Kagawa being Bundesliga POTY exists? For two reasons:
1) He was voted Bundesliga POTY on a very big international Bundesliga website. When you go there, it almost looks like the official website, only in English.
2) It was very plausible.
You might argue that Kagawa fanboys or Asian fans raided the website and spammed votes, but you could easily counter the argument by suggesting that Germans have a tendency of voting for their own players in these sort of things, hence why Kagawa was left out of Bundesliga Team Of The Year 2012 in the German vote.
At the end of the day, it's not ridiculous to claim that Kagawa was one of the best players in the Bundesliga that season, and arguably the best player for Dortmund. People have different opinions, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think there were any "clear" winners that season either, mainly because of Dortmund's awesome teamplay.
I would sign him only for his hair
First off, in the whole Klopp era Borussia Dortmund has never been "all about attack". Something that Klopp himself never gets tired of pointing out is that the highest focus of our game is the play against the ball, in short our pressing and movement system.
Second, Hummels is more than a classy defender. He has become one of our most important build up player in that season, he was infact our most important one in the first season half, because our CM struggled immensively under the departure of Nuri Sahin and the difficulties of Gündogan.
Third, the reason why I and pretty much every other supporter I know regard Götze´s contributions as better or at least more important is because he delivered on an extremely high level when the team needed it the most. For a lot of games in the first season half he and Hummels were the only difference maker, because the unit was not working properly. It was not working because the complete rest of the central and offensive midfield was either in a slump (this inlcudes your precious Kagawa), injured or had trouble adapting to the new system. This was one of the very rare times, when a team, which draws their biggest strength from team play and the system, was actually carried by nothing but individual class.
So that is your basis of the argumentation? A fan vote? Not only is that hardly represantive, fan votes also usually favour the ones, who finish strongly, because fans like to forget what was six months ago. Problem is, that what happened in the beginning of the season is just as important for such a decision as what happened at the end.
This is also why Kagawa being chosen as POTY is not "very plausible". It is nonsense to put it harshly. Why? Because Kagawa first half season was not good enough. Its that simple.
I also prefer the official vote, which was not decided by fans on the internet, but by the actual players and coaches of the league any day of the week. That award went to Marco Reus and that was undoubtly deserved, because Reus did not deliver in only a dozen games, he did it in around 30.
The opinion of thousands of fans from all corners of the world doesn't count for anything? In my opinion, that should count as much as anything, if there are enough votes. You might end up with the "wrong" result a couple of times, but that's certainly also the case with the official votes!
Didn't Valencia become United's POTY in the 2011-2012 season, despite not even playing in the first half of the season? At least Kagawa played the first half(and he did well, imo). One exceptional half can be the difference between POTY or not.
But like I said: I don't mind that you have a different opinion. I don't think that Kagawa definitely was the best player in the Bundesliga, or even in Dortmund. But to say that it's nonsense and not even close, is just plain wrong. You either seriously underrate Kagawa's season, or overestimate the Germans.
Not as much as those coming from the actual players and coaches in the league, no. Internet votes can be inflated very easily. Kagawa having a way bigger lobby than Reus for example by being Asia´s best player in that time frame and a coming United player (most popular club on the planet). Such a vote shows me who is more popular or hyped player, but not necessarily who was the better player over the whole season.
Possibly, if there was no one available who was exceptional over the whole season. But the latter is exactly the case here. Reus was exceptional over the whole season and so was Hummels. So the choice for me is very easy and clear.
Unlikely, especially when it comes to the comparision between him and Götze. I certainly know where my symphathies lie there. One of them I would like to see back in the Westfalienstadium while the other little ungrateful cúnt is someone I never want to see again in yellow and black. Nationalities have nothing to do with this.
You cannot know that for sure, though. That website might have been full of Reus admirers, for all you know. Reus was more noticeable, seeing as he carried the team, whereas Kagawa just was one of many superstars.
Also, the vote was finished long before Kagawa went to United.
Well, that's your opinion. Kagawa was clearly the best player for Dortmund in the second half of the season. He was also good before that, albeit not on the same level as in the second half. For some people, this could be enough to nick it. Valencia is the obvious example here. And he didn't even play the first half.
I don´t know that, true, but it does not change my point of view, that I trust the judgement of professional players and coaches more than people, whose biggest qualification for voting is a device connecting to the web.
When everybody can vote there, it becomes rather a popularity contest than a measure stick for actual quality.
You say it yourself. Reus stood out more, because he managed to carry his team. Kagawa had that opportunity in the first half of the season, but did not step up to take on that challenge. Instead it was the 19 year old Götze who made our offensive player basically his own.
Obviously it is only my opinion, but I don´t see it as questionable to regard someone who delivered a whole season top performances higher than someone who did it over half the time.
Your second sentence is also highly debatable. For me, there was no one "clearly" the best player at that time. Kagawa was undoubtly one of them, but what about Gündogan, who grew into our creative mastermind in midfield (quite a few supporter regard him as our most important player back then because of that)? What about Hummels, who led our defense brilliantly and brought an additional dimension to our play? What about Kagawa´s most important partner Lewandowski, who turned into the absolute beast he is today? I can´t pinpoint a single player being the best at that time, because our greatest strength was the play as an unit and too many players played phenomenally back then.
I also don´t know many, who would call Kagawa´s first half "good". It was decent when I take the circumstances (coming back from a long injury) into account. Many others called it average or a recovery period. He vanished in far too many games to call the first part of the season good, but then again we obviously have different standarts how we rate Kagawa´s performances.
On a hat trick vs Madrid...
Want. So. Badly. He oozes class and has been incredible outside of scoring two goals.
What. A. Player!
He's on a roll.
He's been sensational so far
The cnut is Gotze right? 
He is exactly the type of player I think Januzaj could develop into. Dortmund won't sell him before 2015, atleast something as they already lose Lewa
Beasting it tonight.
Set up Mkhitaryan on a plate too at 0-0. Properly good player.