The one 'what the feck?' moment for me today was:
Written completely without irony, when it quite clearly wasn't a fecking fair summation as I'd only copy and pasted the negative bits
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I really couldn't figure out if you were taking the piss on that one! Thought it was really funny either way.
We'd actually picked Enzo intending to use him either as a false 9 or left-sided forward in a 4-3-3, but changed our minds after seeing how good he was in a more traditional CF role. Sjor compared his back to goal play with Mark Hughes in our convo and it made sense to me. I knew he was good but it's been a revelation watching him in more detail and I basically love the man now. The obvious comparisons for me when I was beginning to assess him were his contemporaries as AM/SS geniuses Laudrup and Roberto Baggio and while I haven't really seen him produce a passing masterclass to their level yet, his dribbling is extraordinary, as his attitude, and he's got facets to his game that the other two lack in terms of his ability to operate as a lone centre-forward. More videos from various stages of his career to follow I think, regardless of who goes through here.
Look forward to it! Agreed about his dribbling. Zidane's reverence for him at the start of
@antohan's video is really telling too. He managed to amaze Zidane with his skill while still being this productive, selfless, reliable forward. Quite something.
Agreed on the Reus and especially the Maicon videos. I was bored to tears making the Maicon one as it was so long and (barring the brilliant goal) so unbelievably repetitive. Honestly though my concentration span is so incredibly shite that starting one of those videos is about as effective a way as I've found to actually make sure I watch the entire match and concentrate fully. The amount of old matches I've sat down to watch, before finding myself doing something else entirely after 15 minutes, is unreal. Makes it all the more impressive that you've seen virtually all of the post-footage era WC semi-finals in their entirety as I'm nowhere near doing so to be honest. Also, making one of those videos makes me feel like I'm actually doing something semi-constructive here as opposed to just waffling away endlessly for thousands of posts, and I imagine you feel similarly about the data visualisation.
I'm getting a bit more like that now! I just had a phase about 5 years ago where I was absolutely mesmerised by the whole thing. I was in this in-between phase in life where I'd come back home to Belfast for a placement year, "working" for my uncle's company for a year, and then I'd be going back to do my final year after - so it just felt like I was kind of frozen in time. I'd drifted away from my old school friends back home so it was just family, all my close mates were in Liverpool at this stage, and I had absolutely no interest in getting a job and being productive, but also, there's not all that much to do in Belfast after 20-odd years there! So I just turned to football, weirdly. All because I happened to stumble upon this forum when I was 16 or something, and never left. It's a funny world.
Started watching Maradona because of the Messi comparisons, and of course found him amazing, but I was so surprised to see someone of Careca's talent alongside him. Made me realise how bastardised most descriptions of football back then was by most modern fans. Then
@Fortitude gave me a nudge to watch Pélé and I was just blown away, that was me set. Probably had a week where I just watched all the Brazil games from '58 to '70, and then I guess I moved onto Cruyff. Couldn't believe what I was seeing at that point.
These days, it's much more of an effort!! I swear phones are eroding away at our ability to concentrate at a ridiculous rate...
Agreed about being productive though. At the end of the day, creating things, whatever those things are, is a really valuable thing in life IMO. I made these data vis things as skills development, just playing around with different kinds of data, and personal projects are the best way to keep learning for me. But then when I end up making them I'm just really satisfied to have made something. It really doesn't matter what that thing is. Just one of those deep human needs, for me at least.
The interesting thing about the Maicon video for me was comparing the end result to an all-touches video I made for Silvio Marzolini. The difference stylistically and in terms of their roles was just night and day really. Over the years in drafts we've tended to grant the Niltons and Facchettis near-superhero status, and probably sold the better recent FBs (including Leandro for sure) really short in comparison in failing to acknowledge the sheer amount of ground they cover, in addition to how technically accomplished and well-rounded they are.
There's still far more research to be done there, and sadly probably inadequate footage, but the evolution of the full back role is very interesting to us draft forum anorak-types.
As regards Reus vs Salah, I think I'd still go with Reus with very little confidence that my choice will stand the test of time well. I rate his all-around game so highly and along with Messi and Modric he's probably the non-Utd player I enjoy watching most these days. It's worth pointing out too that he's put up fairly prodigious numbers while mostly being his team's secondary goalscorer behind the likes of Lewandowski and Aubameyang. I will point out that I still refuse to give a definitive answer as to who was better between van Nistelrooy and Henry, so I'll acknowledge that I'm liable to be swayed by bias at times
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Totally agree on this one! I'm sure folks like Jonathan Wilson and co. have written many interesting things about it, but I'd love to see some footage just pulling it all together and really showing that progression. Fullbacks these days get through a crazy amount of work, and there's so much variety in the kind of roles they play.
