Of course. For every reason that you can give that it was easier, there is a competing reason why it was harder. There is nothing to suggest that it was much easier to score goals in 1960 than it is now.
Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City
- Thread starter Samid
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Benzema and Lewandowski definitely aren't players like Messi or Neymar. And there are many ways to contribute which is why I also listed stats like "progressive passes received" - you can only play a pass when somebody makes himself available after all, be it by a run inbehind or finding space between the lines. Messi for instance receives almost none progressive passes each game, he needs players like that. But Haaland contributes close to nothing in terms of ball progression. He relies on others doing that which means that City's incredible build up play covers much of his weaknesses. Madrid on the other hand would probably struggle a bit on the creative side with Haaland instead of Benzema.
By the way, even Henry criticized that Haaland only ever makes runs inbehind and towards the goal recently and suggested he should come short and vary that at times and adapt his movement to his respective team mates.
Same sort of stuff, attacking has become more organised and well trained to do it as a team. It's way more methodical and patterned now.
Some of the comments in hereon course to break all sorts of records at his tender age but, yes, I’m sure he’s losing sleep at night because he *checks notes* only scores tap-ins (which isn’t even true).
He has been compared to one of the scariest and highest peaks a footballer has ever reached, 97-99 Phenomeno, and some have even suggested that he could one day compete for GOATdom with the likes of Pele and Messi. I think the hyperbole is the other way round. He will do well to be considered top 30 of all time. A player with such a limited game, and zero international success, will never sniff the top 10. The sad reality.
Sure, I am not disregarding those stats as a CF, in fact here are many types of CF in the game, each with their own merits. But my point being, why do you need to assess the "progressive pass" or "completed pass" or "carries into the final third" for a striker, who's game is mostly build upon "punishing the defenders on the break with his pace/movement into penalty box", and a player who is basically leading the front line of his team, holding up the ball with his physical dominance, and positioned himself into goalscoring position.
Is he suppose to progressively passing the ball to the opponents keeper since he is leading the front line of his team? Is that what you looking for? or drop back deep to help the poor De Bruyne and get himself involved more in build up play, leaving their front line empty at times? Is that really better for the team?
I mean for other players, who can't break the defence line and score goals as good as him, sure they have to find "something else" to contribute to the team. Its all about team structure and dynamic isn't it? Haaland doesn't really need to waste time on doing those you've listed, as they have more than plenty of players for that role already, and he should be focusing on punishing defenders and goalkeepers upfront as foremost, as he is by far the best in the game for that, instead of spending time/effort helping the team's build up play and progressively passing the ball to other lesser players to do his job.
For a striker like him, his primarily role in the team would be scoring goals, and then followed by leading the front line, and punishing defenders on the break with his movements, posing a threat near the box, and positioning himself in advance position for the team. His secondary role would be pressing and adding intensity in the game, as required in modern football. He doesn't really need to drop deep and get many touch, play a progressive pass or anything, this may disrupt the structure of the team, as there will be no one leading the frontline at times. You could argue City would not need a striker leading their front line as per their previous seasons, but well, City is doing well right now with Haaland leading their frontline isn't it? They are currently in front seat for their first ever treble, so I don't see really this argument being valid in current settings.
And yes, sure Henry is making a point, I mean there is always room for improvements for Haaland, even for GOAT like Messi, he could still improve his heading, or working harder for the team etc. Doesn't mean he isn't doing outstanding job right now.
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The key thing to remember is Lene is awesome.
I can’t put players I haven’t watched up there, but I remember falling in love with the club when I was really young around 1980 when I read the stories of the Busby babes and legends like Charlton, Best and Law. So for me it would be between Cantona for his impact on the club or Cristiano for his top level here between 2007-2009.
Like I said the Paulista (regional league for the Sao Paolo area) had between 3-5 really good teams, were a couple of those were among the best in the world, where the rest were from average to really, really poor. Santos scored 143 and 151 goals in 38 games seasons in the Paulista in 1958 and 1959 were they scored double digits in matches both seasons and 7, 8 and 9 on several occasions both seasons and averaged 3,9 goals a game. The Sao Paolo metro area housed around 3,5 million people at the time and the league contained 20 teams. It’s like having a London area league with 20 teams today (You’d have to go to League Two to get to 20 teams)
The thing is, if you compare 10 players based on their goal records and one of them contributes almost nothing outside of goals while the others do, it's an unfair comparison and that's exactly what's happening in this thread. The goal statistic reflects Haaland's total contribution quite well but it doesn't do all the stuff justice Benzema is doing on the pitch. That you're still doing it despite people constantly pointing this out just comes across very ignorant due to that.
People are always pointing out that the "critics" (I don't even see myself as a "Haaland critic") don't get how crazy his numbers are. And yes, as many goals as he scores he doesn't really need to do much outside of it. But for me the "performance" of a player is basically the sum of good plays he had. And fact of the matter, his contribution stats are almost equally as crazy as his scorers but in a negative sense. I doubt you'll find any top striker who participates as little. So if Haaland's goals make up for around 80% of his good plays (random number), Benzema would be at 30% or so. Which is a bit of a shame considering that Haaland is a much better footballer than usually given credit for (see his assist vs Bayern for example).
I guess it’s all context.
If you look good on the football pitch but your club is paying referees then it’s just how a person decides to see that through their own glasses.
Some people won’t give a shit & some people will be pissed off.
If you look good on the football pitch but your club is paying referees then it’s just how a person decides to see that through their own glasses.
Some people won’t give a shit & some people will be pissed off.
Benzema has taken his whole career to finally start performing at this level, now well into his thirties. Haaland's been doing it since 19 - that's got to count for something.
Haaland has other threats to his game than purely touches and dribbles though for example, it makes it sound like he just stands still and goal hangs. To compare to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who spent more time walking than any top striker I've seen but that was his style of game and he would have good stats in touches, passes, dribbling.
Would you rather Zlatan or Haaland in your team? You could argue Zlatan is taking away from his team as much as Haaland by getting almost too involved, similar to Harry Kane at times, showing for it almost too often and allowing the defenders to push up. Because of that lack of running, he 1) didn't press the opposition 2) didn't stretch the play 3) didn't occupy the space.
Can't say that of Benzema last season to be fair, who does a bit of Ibrahimovic and a bit of Haaland. But just the point that there are different styles of centre forward play and Haaland can be just as useful in his style as Zlatan is in his, you have to look beyond touches and passes stats.
Rumors of a new contract at City, will they keep him forever?
Let's take the Paulista from 1959, seeing as it's the year I referenced. First if all, Pele top scored with 46 goals, so that means that there were another 81 goals that he scored that year which were not in the Paulista, including all the ones from the European tour that I referenced, where he played 22 games in little more than a month against a bunch of the best that Europe had to offer at that time. Remember, Haaland is on 20 so far this year and we are pretty close to May.
Now the average number of goals scored per match in the Paulista that year was 3.55. A bit higher than the 2.82 in last year's premier league but not that much. It's not as if there are 10 goals per match in the Paulista or anything.
I reject your notion that it is like a London state league, it is not. London (and this country generally) is not nearly as football mad as any part of Brazil and hence London does not produce the quality of player that Sao Paulo did at that time. Moreover, not everyone in the league was from the state, there were many players from other states, Rio, Bahia etc. Lastly, I don't know where you get the idea that the population of the state was only 3 million. Sao Paulo is the biggest amd most populous state in Brazil and is currently at 46 million. I think you might be getting the city confused with the state, the city itself was probably around 3 or 4 million at the time but the state is obviously much broader.
Lastly, and this is key, I talked about swings and roundabouts before. Haaland plays in a team that has a big financial advantage over all the other teams in the PL. Even at Dortmund, they have a financial advantage over many other teams in the Bundesliga. Santos had no financial advantage over other teams. They were a small club that managed to become one of the most famous in the world because they lucked out on a great team and a GOAT player.
The overall point is that I reject the notion that Pele (or any player from
that era, Puskas, Eusebio etc.) scored a lot of goals because it was somehow a lot easier to score a lot of goals back then. It wasn't. I accept that there were more goals in the past, be we are talking about a difference of less than a goal a game.
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Fair enough, I think that’s a good point.
Hence it would be very hard to compare Haaland directly with someone like Benzema, as what they are offering up front are quite different.
Normally I don’t think it’s too far off when comparing their goals/goals threat as that’s their primarily role as no.9 of their respective team, but in modern football the line become even harder to draw as there are supporting role for no.9 in advance wing forward system too, to which Benzema excelled in such role.
So end of the day, I guess it’s more all about how well Haaland excelled in his traditional no.9 among his peers (ie Lewandowski, Lukaku, Nunez etc), as opposed to how well Benzema excelled in his hybrid/supportive no.9 role among his peers (Griezmann, Kane, Martial etc). And I personally still think the extent Haaland excelled in his role, is greater than anything else I have seen this season.
Yeah it's convenient also that people leave out the fact that Barcelona and Real Madrid when Messi and Ronaldo set a lot of their records were two of the greatest superteams ever assembled and the financial disparity over the rest of the league was obscene. A league where the champions finished 39 points ahead of third, second finished 30 points ahead.
Exactly. Why is stuff like that never considered in these debates?
Because people believe the myth that it was "organic"
Benzema has been performing at a high level since 19 also, he just had to play a secondary more playmaking role to help get the best out of one of the greatest players of all time, if he had not played alongside a Ronaldo he would have been showing the type of form he has been showing now much sooner, that if anything speaks for his overall greatness.
You've also got the whole old Soviet bloc. Chess is extremely popular, but not very Western.
Munch has been mentioned, there's also Ibsen and Grieg. Thor Heyerdahl. All of these should win out, I'd think, though not on Redcafe or among young people. The polar expedition guys as maybes: Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen. Possibly Sonja Henie and Liv Ullmann. Knut Hamsun. Norwegians like to claim Roald Dahl, but he's a Brit. All of these except Ullmann are dead, and she's 84, so Haaland and probably Ole would crush the youth vote. I don't know who could compete on that front, maybe Kygo or Alan Walker.
Indeed. Weird comment, Benzema was the next big thing in 07 when we knocked them out of the CL, scored a great goal against us as well.
Yes, undoubtedly.
Take the obvious example: 1966. World Cup final. Charlton (the best player, that's one thing, but also the most likely goal scorer in his own right, i.e. the one player most likely to produce a goal from "nothing") actually ends up man-marking Beckenbauer. And does so. Efficiently. Brilliantly, even.
(Beckenbauer was a box-to-box monster in '66, he scored four goals in that tournament. But was kept quiet in the final.)
There's no chance in hell that Messi * would've done that. He wouldn't have known where to begin.
* Or Maradona, obviously. Or Platini. Or Zico. Or Zidane...and so forth.
Well Messi is a forward to begin with as opposed to Charlton who was a midfielder. And as we said it was the requirement of that system that made them do that. I see central midfielders who would usually be dictating play for their team for most of the season get into defensive roles in big games all the time. Schweinsteiger was the heart of Bayern when they dominated the CL and won the treble as one of the best teams to win the CL of this era and one year later he man marked Messi in a final. In the England Germany example it happened to be that both teams had central midfielders as their primary threats and they went against each other. That duel is similar to a Keane-Vieira going out and sacrificing their natural game to nullify each other because they knew that both of them if allowed to control the game would take the piss and bury you. Both of them generally played alongside more defensive minded players who would do the "dirty work" in most games but in those league games they could easily switch to a one on one battle. I mean again the likes of Charlton are great in general and those performances are a big reason for that but I can't say that the best players playing in similar positions in other eras weren't capable of the same.
The thing is...as was discussed in another thread: generational differences.
The fact that someone has X followers on Tiktok or Instagram is just one factor to consider. The average person in the world is getting older and older, for one thing. And many older people do not use social media at all, or do not actively follow celebrity accounts.
This is relevant for the likes of Amundsen but I suspect it makes no difference, ultimately, if we're talking about who is - here and now - the most famous Norwegian across all demographics: famous, as in: known by the biggest number of people living in the world as per April 2023.
That would be:
Haaland or Ole.
And Ole is included for the reason stated above: Ole was very recently the manager of the most famous football club in the world (yeah, yeah - or close), so the question is : if you know Haaland, how likely is it that you don't know Ole?
Quite likely actually. Tiktok or Instagram are full of people only looking at highlights, so essentially only at players. Ole was a player before the social media hype and social media rarely cares about managers, but about players.
A lot of the users of these platforms are simply too young to have ever seen Ole do something interesting, so why would they know him?
He was nowhere near Charlton in terms of attacking capacity.
(Look, I'm not sure what we're discussing anymore - I was just responding to a particular question. But Schweinsteiger isn't comparable to Charlton in this context.)
Yeah, but if they followed football (in general), they couldn't have missed that he was the manager of Manchester United (one of the most, if not THE most featured football club)(s in any kind of media you can imagine).
If you look at strictly the roles they played for their respective teams, sure but then that should be clear given their teams and the tasks given to them were miles apart. But the analogy is drawn because Bastian was the most important player in his team when they had the ball, and offensively in general but was easily switch to a defensive role when the team needed it and marked who with all due respect to Charlton or Beckenbauer, is Lionel Messi. If you draw the reverse hypothetical and think of Bastian playing in the setups of the 60s and have a similar trajectory as players like Charlton it isn't exy unthinkable, while obviously hypothetical completely. For me you need to be less limited to sticking to exact evidence when comparing players across eras and be a lot more imaginative because otherwise there's very little room for any comparison.
I find all this discussion of old football is detracting from the actual good and pertinent discussion about famous norwegians so take it elsewhere please
Question is, how many will he score tonight?
I think the difference is pretty huge. Arteta is probably more famous than Solskjær if we just consider them as managers. Or we could look at Rangnick, maybe: Solskjær would win, obviously, but the point is that being a low profile manager in a high profile but unsuccessful club for a pretty short time isn't that huge. Not considering his player career, Solskjær now is probably less famous than Moyes was in 2015,
Very overrated, can't even score a peno. Weghorst with better positioning, that's all.
fecking fraud, crossbar-hitting chancer.
HEY U GUYS!!
Alvarez is a better fit for City medium and Long term...
Sell him
Sack Pep, sell Haaland
scores when he wants
Such an ugly cnut. Hope someone decks him.
Suppose you look like Brad Pitt
Nah I’m ugly too.