Commendable!

simiife:



Na dat Dortmund match vex me pass,as if tiki taka forbid them from shooting, too much passes without end product

LOL. Barcelona does not even play Tiki-Taka anymore. We play Tiki-Incompetence (courtesy of Ernesto Disaster).

IKON360:

Abeg what is Catemaccio tactical system? Or just help me understand it. Thank you

It's a team's playing style that is entirely defensive, just like "Park the Bus."

tesppidd:
Football is really really a game for attackers and midfielders (especially attackers).

For defenders, how does one accurately actually measure their individual performances?

Van Dijk was a rock! Van Dijk was a rock!!
But how do we rate his individual performances across the season?

Were his performances equivalent to a 30-goal season for an attacker?
Were his performances equivalent to a 50-goal season for an attacker?
Were his performances equivalent to a 70-goal season for an attacker?

How do we extrapolate?

Defenders just need to come to terms with reality;
Football is an attacker's game, all about goals!




In 2018, I never thought that Messi deserved the awards; my pick was always Griezman, even ahead of Modric.

For last night, VDK was great for Liverpool all season.
But there is one player who excelled above VDK in that Liverool team, and his name is Sadio Mane.
But VDK had the media and the crusaders for defenders solidly blowing his trumpet.

For Mane; If only he was white and his name was SadioSergio Manelinho and he had all that Liverpool /British campaign machinery behind him!!



But one thing is for sure, Ronaldo had no business being in the top 3.

1. Sadio Mane.
2. Messi/VDK.
4. Bernado Silva.
5. Ronaldo.
6. De Jong/De Ligt.

Maybe in a time when Catenaccio tactical system is dominant, like it was in the 50s and 60s and in the late 90s as was used by Milan in Seria A, maybe then the spotlight would be on defenders.

kendrick93:

mumu.
is van djik white?

But he plays for the Netherlands, while Mane plays for a third-world nation.

kendrick93:

as a Liverpool fan I am, I can assure you we can cope without mane but we definitely can't do without Van djik.
Last season he was our most important player...
every Liverpool fan even klopp know s this

Show me proof. Empirical evidence. Let me see his figures. So most of the defensive effectiveness came only from VVD? How so? Not also from Matip? Or Arnold? Or Robertson? How about Fabiano at DMF? I like to think all of these other players contributed their own quota to Liverpool's defense, and that it wasn't the lone effort of VVD that made them effective defensively.

And I doubt Liverpool would have gone as far as they did without Mane, who banged in a whooping 22 goals (sharing the Golden boot prize with Salah and Aubemeyang).

franklinfresh7:
I think messi would be happy SB else does the scoring as long as he eventually wins a senior international trophy.....Fifa has simply said that if messi continues having this kind of goalscoring stats and fails to win the biggest prices, he will continue to win the world best.That's wrong...For u 2 be d best the best, u have to have a say in the big games

Eder had the say, not Ronaldo. This is pure desperation.

By your logic, Mario Gotze is bigger than Ronaldo in International football since Gotze had the say in a World Cup final match and also has a World Cup trophy under his belt, the biggest of them all, which Ronaldo does not have.

Besides, we are talking about 2019 here. How does a EURO 2016 trophy make Ronaldo qualified to win the FIFA 2019 Best Player award? Desperation!

Adiwana:


I won't necessarily tag it being African but Mane is not sellable like Ronaldo and co which unfortunately is a major factor this days in all this best awards.

Hazard that wasn't the best in the league and Europa league who is on the cover on fifa20 is included but Sterling,mane especially Bernardo that was a beast in all competitions he played last season were completely ignored for Mbappe who was only good in Ligue 1.

Nobody awards real talents and achievements anymore

I think I agree with the "marketability" angle. You have a good point.

Messi votes Ronaldo. Ronaldo did not vote Messi. Tactical voting or subtle bitterness?

Well-deserved 6th FIFA Player of the Year award for Leo Messi. Hopefully this heralds a return to the good old days when such awards actually went to the player who has shown consistency in his individual performance all through the season, rather than to one who simply rode on the coattails of his team's achievement, with his occasional UCL knockout brilliance.

Leo Messi deserved it last year as well -- certainly not Modric --, as well as the year before that, and arguably the year before that.

It's such a travesty that Virgil Van Dijk is even in the mix when Sardio Mane apparently had more influence on that Liverpool team. It beggars belief. Is it because Mane is African? Is this a case of social engineering -- relentless PR in this instance -- overriding objective reasoning? IMO, VVD is insanely over-hyped. I expect the noise around him to fizzle out in the months to come.

franklinfresh7:
Ronaldo is enjoying the tail end of his career.His priority now is keeping fit and winning 1 last UCL.He has simply done it all.He owes football nothing.Delivered on all fronts for country and club to the best of his ability.......with a mediocre Portugal, He has given them 2 international trophies nothing they never had b4.with Madrid he won 3 consecutive UCL titles.with manutd he became the 1st player to win the balon for considering the various greats that had played the EPL.. I jxt want to see Ronaldo play a little longer because he never stops fighting

Point of correction: Eder, with his stunning last-munite brilliance handed Portugal their EURO 2016 silverware. Give credit to whom credit is due.

And the UEFA Nations League is arguably an irrelavant competition. Even Jurgen Klopp described it as, "the most senseless competition in the world of football".
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45902326

temmypotter:
VVD has not done half of what Vidic, Terry and the likes have done.

This is an award for individual brilliance, Messi is the greatest man to even play the round leather game and last season, he was phenomenal again!

VVD has not done enough to win world's best player, come on! As a matter of fact, VVD is not even the best player in Liverpool FC.

Haters can hate! Messi is the Goat!

I'm also of the opinion that Sardio Mane was more impressive than VVD. It sucks that he's not getting due credit.

Adiwana:


The make or break point was that exit to Liverpool.Every other thing we have been playing is just to fufiill all things.

How many games did Malcom get the chance to play last season?Coutinho played out of positiion.De Jong played as a LM.Griezmann as a wide man.Umtiti completely frozen out of the squad.Busquet has played the worst games of his career under this man.No matter how bad Suarez plays,he plays the full game.Continously using Roberto in midfield when we have Arthur on the bench.

So many things going on with our management and still Bart is still keeping the idiot

Hate Perez all you want,but he has the balls to win things

The defeat at Anfield knocked down the first Domino piece and everything came tumbling down from that point. It was every bit a psychological defeat for the entire team, and the team is yet to recover from it. It's there! How could they possibly recover when even the coach's body language inspires gloom?

Last time I saw the Barça team that mentally defeated was in '13 when Bayern Munich buggered Barça home and away under Tito (7-0 on aggregate). Then came Enrique along with Neymar and Suarez, and the narrative changed. It's evident that a new head coach would by itself be much of a psychological boost to the team, rather than just new additions to the squad (De Jong and Griezmann).

I also don't understand why Valverde's contract is yet to be terminated, especially since the exit clause is in Barça's favour.

Emaprince:
And you post proves me right that barks fans are emotional and bunch of ediots. Your team is known to perform woefully when messi is out or having a bad game. Yes its normal they can have a one off victory without him.

You guys know nothing apart from messi. You all went supporting a team that was dorminating with the best team in the world..with the help of referees and uefa...but the day of your misery is almost here. More lamentations to your life as a barka fan.

Abeg, i'm here to pile on your agony.

Continue crying. Your tears are sweet.

Man, blaming Barcelona's recent poor run entirely on Messi's absence is quite simplistic reasoning, considering the fact that Messi's presence did not matter in the 2nd-leg against Liverpool, nor did it in the Copa Del Rey final against Valencia.

With an attacking trio comprising of Griezmann (who by the way is being played out of his natural position, as he functions optimally as a striker or SS, rather than on the wings), Luis Suarez, and Messi (even though he had only few minutes of play), FC Barcelona has no business losing in such a woeful manner to a recently promoted Granada side. Not to mention the fact that the squad boasts of midfield talents like Arthur (who stunningly was on the bench) and De Jong.

It's obvious Barça's problem is managerial. Quite a number of pundits on Twitter feel the same way. It's a managerial issue due to:

1) Perpetually wrong formation/tactics, culminating in the Roma and Liverpool CL debacle

2) Unhealthy over-reliance on Messi despite a number of attacking talents

3) Non-growth of players with loads of potential (case in point: Dembele, Malcolm (now sold), and Countinho, who by the way was MOTM in Bayern's game yesterday). The same thing is happening to Griezmann. To put it in context, compare how Sane or Sterling has fared under Pep with how Dembele has fared under Valvarde.

4) Pessimistic style of play (quite different from what obtains at the Etihad or Liverpool's Gegenpressing, or even what Barcelona used to play only 3 or 4 seasons ago)


Don't let your hatred for Barça blind you to the facts. Be a fan of "football," rather than a "club fan."