Football Fanats 2014 - The year of World Cup

[CTG]

ETO song from Aurora (famous punk band in the 90s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSomIaTXlJ4

[CTG]

WHAT AN OWN GOAL, LOL!

https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/663EC3FBEE1143288226505732096_34db82ca943.0.1.3894706299360858031.mp4?versionId=cbywNlxw4bIqGECF1wair34VkuUNeFn6

[alanrotoi]

LOL Gimnasia did a Captain Tsubasa goal few years ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2EkkTR31CA

[CTG]

According to goal.com, the 5 best football player ever:

- Pelé
- Diego Maradona
- Zinedine Zidane
- Ferenc Puskás
- (will be revealed tomorrow)

[BonzaiJoe]

Didn't those players (including Messi) all play the same position?

[CTG]

Didn't those players (including Messi) all play the same position?

Tactics changed a lot, I guess their role was slightly different. Zidane was a creative attacking midfield, the other three were pure strikers.

It's always strange to compare players from different era. You can't say Pelé was better than Messi - football was so different (training methods, key skills, strategies). Nowadays, sportsmen are physically perfect Terminators, following the manager's commands. Somehow I feel that gameplay intelligence and individual genius had a more significant role in the past. And don't forget about charisma. Maybe Puskás had no stamina / speed, but he was a leader and an icon (and of course had an alien sense to score).

[alanrotoi]

Maradona wasn't a pure striker player. His main role was creating the attacking game.

[Chulk]

Didn't those players (including Messi) all play the same position?

IMHO they didn't.
Messi is a small, fast striker. A Second Striker (like Agüero, Götze, Rooney, Depay) that usuallly stands behind (or next to) a different kind of striker: powerfull, tall Strikers (like Batistuta, Van Basten, Ronaldo (the really good one) or Klose).

Zidane was an offensive midfielder, the likes of Litmanen, Valderrama or Platini himself.

Maradona was somewhere between the first class and the last. He had an incredible speed, dribbling and scoring skill, but he also had the abbility to "see" everything that was going on the field and do a decisive play without even running (this can be noticed in the later years of his career, where he no longer had enough speed to play second striker and adapted to playing OMF instead).

Pele was a striker back in a time where slow, tall, strong strikers didn't exist so he was a pure striker by that time's standarss. He would play a similar position to Maradona's in today's football I think.

- (will be revealed tomorrow)

If they didn't say, it's probably an unexpected one (maybe a still active one) in which case I would say Messi.
If not, chances are Di Stefano or Cruyff are the last choice.

[alanrotoi]

Unfortunately they'll never know about Bochini.

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

To be the best player of all time, you have to dribble like Maradona, shoot like van Basten and have the playmaking ability of Zidane. I don't think anybody was born with being world class skilled at more than two of these three skills by now.

[alanrotoi]

To be the best player of all time, you have to dribble like Maradona, shoot like van Basten and have the playmaking ability of Zidane. I don't think anybody was born with being world class skilled at more than two of these three skills by now.

I agree. It's like in Zak's imaginery fastest time based on section times in montly statistics. You can have many fastest section times but nobody did the fastest time the entire career.

[CTG]

Greece - Faroe Islands 0-1

[BonzaiJoe]

Greece - Faroe Islands 0-1

This victory of our Faroe brothers almost made me more happy than Denmark's victory last night!

[CTG]

Greece - Faroe Islands 0-1

This victory of our Faroe brothers almost made me more happy than Denmark's victory last night!

Our group is fuckin' crazy so far. Greece came from the first pot and stands at the last place after 4 rounds with a single point.

1 sheep fucker gypsies 10 pts (6-1)
2 Northern Ireland 9 pts (6-3)
3 Hungary 7 pts (4-3)
4 Finland 4 pts (4-5)
5 Faroe Islands 3 pts (2-6), only 6 goals in their net, quite solid defense from a mini-country!
6 Greece 1 pt (1-5)

[BonzaiJoe]

It's an interesting group. Very difficult to predict because Northern Ireland is overperforming and Greece is underperforming. Hungary vs Greece in the next will be important because Greece will practically be out of the running for 2nd place if they lose, and this will seriously increase Hungary's chance of qualifying.