Players that appear to perform better for their country

Gandalf Greyhame said:
Richarlison. Thank God Spurs don't get the Brazilian version.
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I think his international career is just a completely different dynamic. It's obvious he performs better but I'm not sure there are two versions, seems more like opportunity to me.

Playing in a top international side with creativity in abundance as the out and out striker versus playing in a totally average Everton outfit, or playing second fiddle to Kane and often shunted out wide for both clubs. Incomparable really.
 
Ziyech for Morocco.

Rabiot and Griezmann for France.
 
hasanejaz88 said:
Hate it when Klose is mentioned, he struggled at Bayern because he was playing in a different system with Luca Toni where Toni was the fulcrum of the attack, but other than that he was great at his other clubs (Bremen, Lazio, Kaiserslautern). He had a very good club career as well and would have been better had he not joined Bayern but gone somewhere else (I think he was linked with Spurs in 06 before they signed Berbatov).
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It says more about how good he was for Germany that his (albeit really good) club career seems underwhelming in comparison.
 
Andre Kagawa said:
Griezmann is a great shout.
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Griezmann was top notch at Atlético and Real Sociedad, as great as he always has been for France.
His underwhelming stint at club level was at Barca just for 2 seasons.

Giroud is a better shout, as he never reached the levels of Griezmann at club level, and he is now top goalscorer in the history France.
 
Abraxas said:
I think his international career is just a completely different dynamic. It's obvious he performs better but I'm not sure there are two versions, seems more like opportunity to me.

Playing in a top international side with creativity in abundance as the out and out striker versus playing in a totally average Everton outfit, or playing second fiddle to Kane and often shunted out wide for both clubs. Incomparable really.
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Think it's more to do with the quality of the opposition faced in the vast majority of games then anything else. Alot of international sides have championship quality defences.
 
Longshanks said:
Think it's more to do with the quality of the opposition faced in the vast majority of games then anything else. Alot of international sides have championship quality defences.
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Maybe that's a factor but if it was the main contributor you'd expect all forwards to perform better for country than club, but this isn't the case and it tends to vary. Depends on the international team and the opportunity the player has, which is my main argument, he has opportunity for Brazil rather than suddenly game raising.

With Richarlison you've got a 1 in 2 guy for Brazil so that's not staggering, it's probably par in a decent team. But you're going to have difficulty translating that conversion rate to an Everton side where you're sometimes out wide, they're a very poor, uncreative outfit where you're being asked to put in a shift. He wasn't lightyears off similar performance either, just enough that tells me that the main reason is opportunity and he's a relatively stable performer.
 
Mateo Kovacic
He is everything what people think FDJ is. He would be imense withe Case.
 
Shaqiri - More goals for the Swiss than for any of his clubs. One of those players who just never seemed to find the right home at club level.
 
Lukas Podolski had some great tournaments for Germany and looked like one of the best talents in Europe at WC 2006 when he was only 21. Was great at Euro 2008 and WC 2010 too. Didn't feature that much in 2012 and 2014 but still got the WC medal. 49 goals in 130 games mostly playing as a winger.

He never really replicated that kind of form on club level. Can't say he had a bad career (he's actually still playing) but after WC 2006 people were predicting that he would become an all-time great player. His club form was very inconsistent though, flashes of brilliance but couldn't establish himself at Bayern, going back to Köln and then a mostly underwhelming stint at Arsenal during their banter years.
 
LA BOMBA said:
Lukas Podolski had some great tournaments for Germany and looked like one of the best talents in Europe at WC 2006 when he was only 21. Was great at Euro 2008 and WC 2010 too. Didn't feature that much in 2012 and 2014 but still got the WC medal. 49 goals in 130 games mostly playing as a winger.

He never really replicated that kind of form on club level. Can't say he had a bad career (he's actually still playing) but after WC 2006 people were predicting that he would become an all-time great player. His club form was very inconsistent though, flashes of brilliance but couldn't establish himself at Bayern, going back to Köln and then a mostly underwhelming stint at Arsenal during their banter years.
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Podolski seems to be a player who relies a lot on the "feel-good-factor". He had that at his hometown club Köln, where they still adore him, and in the national team where he might not always have been an undoubted starter, but where he was always praised for how important he is for the team chemistry (less benevolent people think more of him as a team mascot/clown, not as a player). He never had that love and trust at Bayern or Arsenal, so it's not surprising that he didn't impress there.

Still seems to be a nice bloke, the fact that he plays for Zabrze more or less because he promised his grandma he would do that some day is just a beautiful story.
 
I think Robinho has always performed well with Brazil. Better than his performances at Real or City.
 
stefan92 said:
Podolski seems to be a player who relies a lot on the "feel-good-factor". He had that at his hometown club Köln, where they still adore him, and in the national team where he might not always have been an undoubted starter, but where he was always praised for how important he is for the team chemistry (less benevolent people think more of him as a team mascot/clown, not as a player). He never had that love and trust at Bayern or Arsenal, so it's not surprising that he didn't impress there.

Still seems to be a nice bloke, the fact that he plays for Zabrze more or less because he promised his grandma he would do that some day is just a beautiful story.
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That's a mint story. Always liked Podolski, he had a howitzer of a shot on him.
 
stefan92 said:
Podolski seems to be a player who relies a lot on the "feel-good-factor". He had that at his hometown club Köln, where they still adore him, and in the national team where he might not always have been an undoubted starter, but where he was always praised for how important he is for the team chemistry (less benevolent people think more of him as a team mascot/clown, not as a player). He never had that love and trust at Bayern or Arsenal, so it's not surprising that he didn't impress there.

Still seems to be a nice bloke, the fact that he plays for Zabrze more or less because he promised his grandma he would do that some day is just a beautiful story.
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He's a legend.

I heard he's doing really well with his business ventures as well and is now worth over US$200 million because of running a successful kebab business.
 
Don’t know if it was already mentioned here but for me Nani was the kind of guy I would always want to play for Portugal regardless of club form.

Much more reliable than certain City system players who look robots completely lost outside Guardiola ball.
 
All Brazilian players of the last 10 years, except Neymar, are exactly the opposite, unfortunately. Maybe Miranda.
 
Ferran Torres has 20 goals in 44 games for Spain. At club level he has 50 goals in 253 games.
 
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