TsuWave
Full Member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2013
- Messages
- 15,845
you see that outside of the foot pass, then think about bruno's horrible attempts
man...
man...
Modric's average position has always made less frequent for him to hit those long passes than Pirlo who was ideally set up for it. In terms of execution and accuracy, I never noticed that much of a gap between them. Going into a further comparison between would be difficult because the different role would impact it too much. At their best, I'd still take Modric without a single doubt in my mindNah, not really. Pirlo was a better passer from deep and had better vision. Modric more dynamic and a better dribbler. Pirlo for set pieces. Modric was never the controller Pirlo was but he has the ability to run the transition and is more incisive and dangerous near the box. Slightly different players, I'd put them on the same level. Only Xavi has been better in the last 30 years
These threads are pretty useful in highlighting which posters have no clue about the different roles midfielders have in various teams. It's usually McT being compared to Rice, so it's refreshing to see that the same lack of insight can be applied to a wide spread of completely different types of midfielder.
You can't just say something outrageous and put 'arguably' to it to make it a supporting narrative! That's more a strawman than anything.Nothing weird about it Xavi had Messi scoring or assisting 2-3 goals a game easy to look good in a successful team and David Silva was arguably more instrumental for Spain. Great midfielder don’t get me wrong but still benefited from the teams he played in..
Nothing weird about it Xavi had Messi scoring or assisting 2-3 goals a game easy to look good in a successful team and David Silva was arguably more instrumental for Spain. Great midfielder don’t get me wrong but still benefited from the teams he played in..
you see that outside of the foot pass, then think about bruno's horrible attempts
man...
Keane could do literally everything Xavi could do along with having greater athleticism, defensive positioning, goalscoring ability and aerial prowess. The only player in that Barca midfield who he couldn't easily replace was Iniesta. Which figures, because I rate Iniesta higher than Xavi anyway.
I do. Xavi and Pirlo were marginalized if a match was evens never mind if the opposition was actually on the front foot. Meanwhile Scholes could still affect a match in so many different ways.
Case in point the screamer against Barca in the CL.
Well above Xavi for me. That being said, the Xavi love in always baffled me. Overly risk averse (frequently refused to play killer passes and opted for ball retention at all costs) which he could get away with because of the quality of his teammates.
Put it this way, switch peak Xavi and peak Keane: Barca would be no worse whereas United... let's just say I'd love to see Xavi attempt to control a game playing in a midfield 2.
Lots of you underplaying the fact that Xavi had a whole cohort of players, both at club and country level, that played a style maximising his talents. Tiki Taka was *the* identity at club and country around the 2010 time. Bravo to him for shining in that environment. But Modric never had it so good.
Barca had a whole development school La Masia for producing these types, for goodness sake.
Interesting read this one.It’s a good thing that we have seen Xavi and modric play against each other so we have some evidence to play with and the evidence was Xavi made Modric look completely mediocre when they played. I’m not talking about real or barca as a whole. I’m just talking about the midfield battle and in those games Xavi made a fool out of Modric every time. Never stood out, Couldn’t get near him, couldn’t touch him and that was a Xavi close to retirement and Modric in his prime age. Recency bias is the worst thing and I hate it. Xavi is the best CM of all time bar none. He made every midfielder look poor to bang average. Schooled everyone of them. No one is fit to lace his boots. Never seen a midfielder that dominant ever in football. As fabulous as Modric still is right now , there is a real dearth of world class midfielders, a time where Jorginho is one of the best midfielders on the planet. If only Xavi was still playing and we could see then, oh wait they did play in the same era and we know what happened and who was better.
Go watch his games again for barca or Spain whether against Scholes or Modric or pirlo or anyone if you have some confusion left in you. Stupid mindless chatter is what it is declaring Modric better than Xavi.
Spain have won nothing since Xavi and Barcelona haven’t got the CL final without Xavi in their squad, despite having some star midfielders.
Nothing weird about it Xavi had Messi scoring or assisting 2-3 goals a game easy to look good in a successful team and David Silva was arguably more instrumental for Spain. Great midfielder don’t get me wrong but still benefited from the teams he played in..
Don’t get me wrong. I love Pirlo. Brilliant player. But this is the problem with him and Xavi. They were majestic as long as the team was performing but if the chips are down you’d rather have Modric in the side every day of the week. Despite being a shite tackler Scholes was more useful in a true midfield battle than Pirlo or Xavi.
Would Xavi have as many plaudits without Messi though?
How are these allowed to be promoted ? Inspirational stuff.“As many”.
Xavi still an amazing player, but when you club is winning 5,6-0 every week because you have a super midget up front, it’ll make you look a whole lot better..
Well above Xavi for me. That being said, the Xavi love in always baffled me. Overly risk averse (frequently refused to play killer passes and opted for ball retention at all costs) which he could get away with because of the quality of his teammates.
Put it this way, switch peak Xavi and peak Keane: Barca would be no worse whereas United... let's just say I'd love to see Xavi attempt to control a game playing in a midfield 2.
And then there is this. Kill me now.Keane could do literally everything Xavi could do along with having greater athleticism, defensive positioning, goalscoring ability and aerial prowess. The only player in that Barca midfield who he couldn't easily replace was Iniesta. Which figures, because I rate Iniesta higher than Xavi anyway.
Lots of you are underplaying the fact that Xavi had a whole cohort of players at club and country that dominated using a style playing to his strengths. Tiki Taka was *the* identity around the 2010 time. Bravo to him for shining in that environment, but Modric never had it so good.
They had a whole development school La Masia dedicated to it, for goodness sake.
Modric was carrying the likes of Assou Ekotto and Kaboul.
I love that Vernon posted this twice and it is my copy paste you chose to reply to.For a few years at Spurs but since then Modric has been at one of the most expensively assembled teams ever for nearly 10 years alongside two of the best pure passers of their generation (Kroos and Alonso) and for country a Barcelona star midfielder (Rakitic), so he hasn’t been with complete mugs. Modric and Kroos on paper could dominate midfield like Xavi but they’ve allowed the opposition to take a foothold on games too often, relative to any Xavi team.
Haha I blame my dodgy phone - have deleted the duplicate!I love that Vernon posted this twice and it is my copy paste you chose to reply to.
Prime, premier-league-player-of-the-year, Juan Mata couldn't get into the team around then. You're comparing 2 different levels of depths.
For having a differing of opinion about Xavi?How are these allowed to be promoted ? Inspirational stuff.
And then there is this. Kill me now.
: “David Silva is one of the most talented players that Spain has ever produced - without a shadow of a doubtYou can't just say something outrageous and put 'arguably' to it to make it a supporting narrative! That's more a strawman than anything.
Xavi was the heartbeat for his country and has a fair claim for club too. Others contributed for both, of course they did, but Xavi was the reason systems flourished. There's literally no player in history not in complementary teams, and if we are talking Roy Of The Rovers, that's not a discussion for any player who has been mentioned in this thread and is more the realm of a Robson or whoever else who had to do everything (relatively) by themselves.
If you're going to say 'arguably" David Silva had more influence than Xavi, support that claim.
Lucky he didn’t play for Liverpool then..I am just not sure Messi would have been as good if he long balls pumped to him all the time instead of playing with xaviesta.
And Ronaldo is good at heading.
QED
I am just not sure Messi would have been as good if he long balls pumped to him all the time instead of playing with xaviesta.
And Ronaldo is good at heading.
QED
It’s a decent point though, if we’re honest Scholes did very little or next to nothing at international level whereas the other 3 excelled, Messi is still getting judged below Maradona for it for God’s sake..
That is not supporting your claim. Games, data, frames of reference?: “David Silva is one of the most talented players that Spain has ever produced - without a shadow of a doubt
“He’s a spectacular footballer! He has been throughout his entire career.
“Right from when he played for Eibar and Celta, and when he went back to Valencia.
“For the national team he has been a cornerstone, of that generation of highly talented Spanish footballers.
There’s a quote from Xavi himself..
Who’s downplaying him to win an argument for Modric? I was saying the other poster had a good point about Scholes and international level, wasn’t even the one to bring Scholes up, but I also believe how good as Scholes was he wasn’t in the same tier as the other 3 and mostly that is because of international success.To think that Modric, Pirlo and Xavi was on a higher level to Scholes is fair enough, though I disagree. What is not fair enough is forgetting all the times Scholes was instrumental against the best teams at the highest level - which is one thing I pointed out. The other thing that I pointed out is the tendency to think that any of those four always were good or functioned well even.
I think it’s well known why Scholes had an ok carreer with England but not much more. I think for those of us who have watched Pirlo and Xavi in good and bad days, it’s easy to imagine how they might have looked if put on the right wing or as a second striker in a team playing like England. Good for them, they both experienced a period of time at their NT where a coach put them in their best role in a team that played to their strengths. That very seldom happened to Scholes, and if we look at the coaches in question, the competition and the rest of the context, it explains a lot. Now, you might still want to put Xavi, Pirlo and Modric higher based on their NT carreers, and that’s fair enough, but using the NT carreer of Scholes without mentioning the context, I think is unfair revision against Scholes.
Of all these, I think Modric is the most rounded player, he would do well in almost any team, and he’s been one of my favorites since he broke through for Croatia. It would be revisionism though, to omit the fact that several periods at club level, people have counted him as ‘overhyped’, ‘through’, ‘reached his level’ or similar things, things I would attribute more to team factors than to his level, but still. He has been made to shine, and shined, at especially two international tournaments, and that colurs peoples memories. And he deserves it!
I just think Paul Scholes also deserves being remembered in the right light, no need to downplay him to win am argument for Modric.
I'd have it Iniesta, Xavi, Modric, but for me Iniesta is ahead of both of them. The ultimate big game player who had that magic and deciding factor surrounding him, moreso than anyone else.
Modric still playing at a higher level late in his 30s than Xavi or Iniesta doesn't really change anything for me, it's a tiebreaker when you're in the same tier but he's in a tier below for me. And it's actually Benzema who is running the show and dragging Real through this year's CL, even though Modric is quite clearly still class.
I agree they're different players but you'd still place Zidane ahead of Pirlo even though they were different midfielders, no? Or any CAM who is in your opinion a tier above a DM.Xavi isn’t going to win polls or even be credited in the same way as the other two. In fact, Xavi may even be seen as boring and one-track with his ‘subtle’ game.
Iniesta is primed to win such things because his work was done further upfield and led to more direct goal actions, plus his style is the most aesthetically pleasing of the lot by some distance. He shouldn’t even be in a poll with the other two; his competition is Zidane, Ronaldinho and anyone else who played in those more nebulous areas of the pitch which blur the lines of what position the player actually plays in or is defined by.
I don’t expect Zidane or anyone else mentioned to come close to Pirlo as a deep-lying playmaker, equally, Pirlo is expected to be no match for any of these guys in an interactive game. I think the gauge, if there must be one, is in who was more exceptional at their role, which is where we can say Zidane or Iniesta are better players than Pirlo despite not having a prayer of recreating what he did on the pitch.I agree they're different players but you'd still place Zidane ahead of Pirlo even though they were different midfielders, no? Or any CAM who is in your opinion a tier above a DM.
There's always some subjectivity to these things of course. Maybe Xavi would have scored the winning goal in the 2010 final had he played Iniesta's position, but he didn't and Iniesta did score that goal.
Agree with the overall point and Xavi certainly dominated the majority of those games, but to be fair to Modric, this was a brilliant do-or-die performance against a juggernaut of a Spanish midfield.It’s a good thing that we have seen Xavi and modric play against each other so we have some evidence to play with and the evidence was Xavi made Modric look completely mediocre when they played. I’m not talking about real or barca as a whole. I’m just talking about the midfield battle and in those games Xavi made a fool out of Modric every time. Never stood out, Couldn’t get near him, couldn’t touch him and that was a Xavi close to retirement and Modric in his prime age. Recency bias is the worst thing and I hate it. Xavi is the best CM of all time bar none. He made every midfielder look poor to bang average. Schooled everyone of them. No one is fit to lace his boots. Never seen a midfielder that dominant ever in football. As fabulous as Modric still is right now , there is a real dearth of world class midfielders, a time where Jorginho is one of the best midfielders on the planet. If only Xavi was still playing and we could see then, oh wait they did play in the same era and we know what happened and who was better.
Go watch his games again for barca or Spain whether against Scholes or Modric or pirlo or anyone if you have some confusion left in you. Stupid mindless chatter is what it is declaring Modric better than Xavi.