The 2015-16 World Fitba Thread!

seems a bit of a stretch to denounce Gareth Bale as shit because he's not Diego Maradona, though

 

This. Absolutely this.

MTF

 

and speed IS part of a player's ability

If Pernell Whitaker had been slow, he wouldn't have been anywhere near what he was, does that mean he wasn't great?

 

He's the most expensive footballer of all time, isn't he? He's just won a European Cup medal among a fistful of other trophies. I don't think it's unfair to judge him by the standards of great players as a result.

MTF :dunno:

 

Yes, if it is PART of the ability. Thierry Henry was fucking fast but he was also tricky as hell, was an excellent passer of the ball, was very good in the air and had an exceptional football brain so he could create countless chances for himself and others by doing things better and faster than his opponents because he saw them quicker. No-one would dispute that Henry was a terrific footballer but his pace was just one facet of his makeup.

Bale is pace and pace and pace and pace and hard shots. Fuck all else.

MTF

 

Pernell Whittaker was not as fast as Roy Jones, but beat better competition and bigger men, pfp. Why...cos he had mad skills. Of course, if you had muscular atrophy and mild senility, then your ability to spot a pass will count for nought.

Sloths probably can spot great passes but can't do anything about them without falling out of their tree and being eaten by ants. This we know.

Basically Bale is a high frequency trader. Take his computer off him and he is shit. Its ALL he has. Its ALL HE HAS. He can't earn a living any other way. He would die behind the till in McDonalds.

 

Point in Case:

Maradona with a weight problem and a minor cocaine addiction was still scoring goals in 1994, thats a full 8 years after his pomp of 1986 and a full 12 years after he got kicked out of Spain '82

What will Gareth Bale be doing in 8 years....???

 

But he's really fucking successful as pace pace pace pace hard shots... the end result is goals/victory, etc. ... It seems like purely an aesthetic argument

As far as the highest transfer in history is concerned, some of that is just inflation, some of it is the fact that Real Madrid will pay insane fees as a matter of course in order to outbid everyone else on Earth, simply because they CAN... Bale doesn't have any control over what Real Madrid decides to spend for him

If you were to look through a list of record-breaking transfers over the years, there'd be probably be a few head-scratchers in there... Bale has been a success at Real Madrid and they just won the European Cup

 

The same thing he's doing now in relation to Diego Maradona, not being the greatest the footballer of all time... Practically every footballer compares unfavorably to Diego Maradona

If Johan Cruyff had enjoyed eating a lot and snorting cocaine, it probably would have affected his game more than it wound up affecting Maradona's... It wouldn't make him suddenly shit because he couldn't maintain his high standards while treating his body poorly... it would make him NOT Diego Maradona... Which essentially includes every footballer ever

 

I agree with the price bit, but people who dub Gareth Bale as one of the Worlds Greatest Footballers sound as ridiculous as people who think Wrestling is real. No its not.

Imagine Gareth Bale was a machine and you could turn his speed settings down........down to say the level of......Luis Suarez.

When Suarez scored the winner vs England in Brazil...he did it because of his sheer instinct.

Bale would not have managed it. He would not have known, in some primordial strand of his brain, that the chance even existed. Suarez just gambled, he KNEW the chance was ON before Gerrard even made the mistake.

It's like Vitali and Wlad. Vitali is all old and busted and injured and wears long socks for his shitty knees but finds angles and weird shots and locks guys down with no holding. Vitali arm punches guys to death from angles Wlad doesn't even know exist.

 

Johann Cruyff invented the Cruyff Turn which is basically the football equivalent of the Capriole. It is designed to get out of a tight space.

Gareth Bale would try to run past really fast. Its all he can do.

Cruyff would draw defenders, turn them like a dinghy turning a cruise liner and leave them for dead.

 

Man, I understand all that... Suarez is a footballing genius... how many players are there in the world on that level? A handful at best

For the record, I don't have find Bale aesthetically pleasing to watch myself... you and Feebs are 100% correct that he appears to have limited imagination and technical quality

My only argument is that it doesn't particularly matter at the present time because it is a results business and Bale gets them. We can theorize about turning down the speed but it doesn't matter because he has the speed, it's real and it gets results... We can say if Vitali had been 5'11 210, he wouldn't have been shit as a heavyweight boxer... but he wasn't 5'11, he was 6'7 or what have you... Gareth Bale isn't slow, he's fast as fuck and it works. It's not pretty like Laudrup or cheeky like Suarez, you aren't going to be moved to poetry by it, but it gets results and that is the name of the game

 

I rarely rag on fast white athletes. The one time I do, its about the fastest whitest athlete in the World and I get criticized. Irish cannot win.

 

Sure, I know all of that, but if Cruyff was an undisciplined, cokehead fatty, the Cruyff Turn probably doesn't get executed so well and it doesn't mean he's shit, it means he's not Diego Maradona

 

On the third paragraph I see what you are saying. I am just saying that Bale reduces football to a game of speed. Imagine Chess was reduced to a game of speed, where you had like NO TIME to make your next move. Any clown could win at it.

 

I agree... I don't like it... it's boring, to me

But until someone comes up with more ways to stifle it strategically, managers will utilize it if they have it

 

incidentally, I'm bummed that you (Irish) completely overlooked my hilarious theoretical summary of your thoughts on Bale:blackcloud:

 

Sure, I agree, he is very effective. He is the absolute model of a modern footballer - no brain, no instinct, no real skill but he runs really fast and scores a lot of goals that his really fast running creates for him.

Doesn't mean I have to like him or rate him. I don't.

MTF

 

Cruyff was a tab smoking, womanising, boozing egotist. He was hardly whiter than white.

MTF ::

 

but he wasn't fat, which helped::

Cruyff is probably a poor hypothetical choice because he's at worst like the 4th or 5th most important footballer ever... take someone else who is a legend but not like that

 

They do have a way! They coach other sprinters how to kick people. It is preferable if said sprinter is African, as they are much cheaper to buy and coach.

Repeat ad nauseum and what you have is a game bereft of proper football players save a handful of obvious exceptions with hundreds of afflettz being coached by the likes of Sam Allerdyce and Tony 'fuck off and die' Pullis.

MTF

 

There's always a counter... always... every single innovation or deviation ever in football has eventually been hit back with something else... someone will find a way to make sprinting down the touchline a worthless strategy and then someone else will figure out a way to get around that and back and forth it goes

 

If Maradona was as fast Bale......where would the bar be for a "Great Footballer"....

 

Pulis has left Palace. That's them going down.

 

He chickened out.

 

Name all of the other great footballers. That's probably where the bar would be.

 

The thing is he DOES have a footballing brain and it's being totally underrated here. I am almost certain the people saying Bale is just a sprinter barely watched him at all in La Liga. He frequently gets himself into good positions and has excellent off the ball movement. Speed is obviously a huge part of his game but it isn't the be all and end all. He has good vision too and can pick people out.

 

Platini?

 

There ya go... He'd still be pretty goddamned handy as a fat cokehead, though

 

What exactly is a "proper footballer" a shitty athlete that methodically plays in balls from yards away because he can't run and jump?

If they are so proper why aren't they more successful? :dunno: