Football: Attempting to stay ahead (in your) City.

[baxus]

Giving the award to one player when there's a more deserving player does make a mockery of the award, doesn't it?

[Spockydog]

The entire concept of the Ballon d'Or is absurd. It should be mocked at every opportunity. I don't know anyone IRL who gives a single fuck about it.

 

[mormont]

44 minutes ago, baxus said:

Giving the award to one player when there's a more deserving player does make a mockery of the award, doesn't it?

No.

As I already noted, the 'most deserving' doesn't always win any award. The Oscars, employee of the month, and yes, the Ballon D'Or. Which is why only one goalkeeper has ever won, for example. By your criterion, most awards would be a mockery, which makes no sense. Maybe there's a world in between where someone wins who maybe doesn't strictly deserve to, but we can all just accept it and be gracious about it? 

[Heartofice]

To be honest I've always been more irritated when players win it purely on their names. Sure Ronaldo and Messi have been clearly the best players on the planet for a while, but they tend to win these awards even when they have not had good seasons. 

I think we should care about these awards as much as those who vote in them do.. which is not very much.

[Consigliere]

I definitely would have been more gracious if it were a closer run thing. But when the guy who wins the award should not have been anywhere near it based on performances over the entirety of the preceding season then yeah, I'm gonna speak the truth and call it a joke and a mockery. If that makes me churlish then so be it. 

Hell, I can name half a dozen midfielders who performed much better than Modric last season - KdB, D. Silva, Eriksen, Casemiro, Pjanic and Kante.

Then there's still the likes of Hazard, Salah and Griezmann all of whom performed better than Modric. Then there's the usual suspects of Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar. Finally, there's also Varane who was simply outstanding last season for both club and country - easily the best season of his career to date.

Based on performances over the entire season, Modric should not have even placed in the top 10 let alone win it. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

Giving the award to one player when there's a more deserving player does make a mockery of the award, doesn't it?

It happens in every sport though. Voters get fatigued giving it to the same player or two every year. For example, you could argue that LeBron should have won the MVP nearly every year over the last decade.

[BigFatCoward]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It happens in every sport though. Voters get fatigued giving it to the same player or two every year. For example, you could argue that LeBron should have won the MVP nearly every year over the last decade.

But the people that won instead were deserving, if a number of players had won this year instead of CR/LM I would have no problem, Modric is the issue.  For me he has won based on performances in about 5 games, out of a season when i'd imagine he played close to 60.  And by the way i really like Modric, and his style of play, but to suggest he would even get in to the starting line up of a world 11 is pushing it, never mind being the best on the planet.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

8 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Personally, I guess Walcott keeps his place on account of being a better defender. However, Lookman's game has improved greatly from last season defensively as well. I'm hopeful that Lookman will start vs Newcastle.

Maybe I am overly critical of Walcott, but to me he is kinda of pace merchant, who has lost quite a bit of it. He is still an okay EPL player, but really not exceptional.

[baxus]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It happens in every sport though. Voters get fatigued giving it to the same player or two every year. For example, you could argue that LeBron should have won the MVP nearly every year over the last decade.

That it happens in other sports as well doesn't make it right.  

1 hour ago, mormont said:

No.

As I already noted, the 'most deserving' doesn't always win any award. The Oscars, employee of the month, and yes, the Ballon D'Or. Which is why only one goalkeeper has ever won, for example. By your criterion, most awards would be a mockery, which makes no sense. Maybe there's a world in between where someone wins who maybe doesn't strictly deserve to, but we can all just accept it and be gracious about it? 

That's why some awards are taken more seriously than others. If an award is not given to the most worthy recipient then the award will either not be taken seriously or, at the very least, it will cause controversy as this one seems to have.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I'll drop in to add 2 cents to the Ballon D'or shenanigans.

In the past, that thing got (imho) justified criticism for not really taking the WC into account. So in 2010 that thing should've gone to Iniesta or Xavi. In 2014, you could'Ve made a perfectly fine case for Kroos, Neuer or Müller (or even Boateng for that matter). Who had all played fairly well for their club, and also won the WC. Having that said, I agree with everyone who says, that Modric should not have won it.

If you want to critisize it on a more general level, I'd go for the bias towards attacking players. So, somebody like Kante will probably never win it.

[mormont]

58 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I definitely would have been more gracious if it were a closer run thing. But when the guy who wins the award should not have been anywhere near it based on performances over the entirety of the preceding season then yeah, I'm gonna speak the truth and call it a joke and a mockery. If that makes me churlish then so be it. 

Hell, I can name half a dozen midfielders who performed much better than Modric last season - KdB, D. Silva, Eriksen, Casemiro, Pjanic and Kante.

Then there's still the likes of Hazard, Salah and Griezmann all of whom performed better than Modric. Then there's the usual suspects of Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar. Finally, there's also Varane who was simply outstanding last season for both club and country - easily the best season of his career to date.

Based on performances over the entire season, Modric should not have even placed in the top 10 let alone win it. 

See, here's the thing. You've named thirteen other candidates: one is a defender, two are defensive midfielders, and ten are attackers. 

Is that really a list of the thirteen best players last year? 

Not really. But we all know that attackers get more recognition in these awards, because what they do is more quantifiable and crucially, more noticeable than what defenders do. 

So the award is already largely made on the basis of doing more noticeable things. Like performing well at a World Cup. It's nothing new. 

Anyway, that really is my last word on this. Instead we should all chuckle at the single vote that Karim Benzema got. :p

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

But the people that won instead were deserving, if a number of players had won this year instead of CR/LM I would have no problem, Modric is the issue.  For me he has won based on performances in about 5 games, out of a season when i'd imagine he played close to 60.  And by the way i really like Modric, and his style of play, but to suggest he would even get in to the starting line up of a world 11 is pushing it, never mind being the best on the planet.

Perhaps. The second Curry MVP was valid, but I could argue all the others were not. Look at the Cavs this year after he left. They’re terrible. His value to them was greater than the other players to their respective teams, regardless of how good they were in the years they won MVP.

That said, you’re probably right in arguing that he was only great in a few games, but those were in the World Cup so they’re probably weighted more heavily than other games. Who exactly votes for the award? Because if us Yanks have a lot of voters, I’d guess that’s why he won it.  

12 minutes ago, baxus said:

That it happens in other sports as well doesn't make it right.  

I didn’t mean to imply that it’s right, it’s simply the nature of awards.  

[Calibandar]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Perhaps. The second Curry MVP was valid, but I could argue all the others were not. Look at the Cavs this year after he left. They’re terrible. His value to them was greater than the other players to their respective teams, regardless of how good they were in the years they won MVP.

That said, you’re probably right in arguing that he was only great in a few games, but those were in the World Cup so they’re probably weighted more heavily than other games. Who exactly votes for the award? Because if us Yanks have a lot of voters, I’d guess that’s why he won it.  

I didn’t mean to imply that it’s right, it’s simply the nature of awards.  

I think BFC's point is valid and stands, the comparison to Lebron in the NBA is not really appropriate because:

Yes, Lebron was still excellent the last seasons when he did not win, but the 3 other guys that have won, Curry, Durant and Harden were all extremely deserving of winning and were actually not necessarily worse than LeBron at all. It was a very close thing. I agree that voter fatigue definitely can come into play but I think in these cases clearly, the winners were deserved superstars in the league. The difference between Messi and Ronaldo compared to Modric is far greater and in that case voter fatigue should not mean that you then vote for a clearly inferior player. In your analogy, it would be if people voted for Jimmy Butler as the MVP instead of LeBron.

 

[BigFatCoward]

What he said. 

[Heartofice]

To be fair to Modric, he got to a World cup final being pretty much the best player in the Croatia side, and also won the Champions league and was a key player (some would argue THE key player) for them. 

Messi had a good season in terms of goals and of course they won La Liga, but then Argentina were pretty awful at the WC and Barca didn't make the semis of the Champions League. 

Ronaldo scores some great goals still but I see him as becoming far more peripheral than he used to be, you barely notice he's playing sometimes. 

Usually the voting seems to be heavily weighted towards players who do well internationally and in the big cups, so I totally understand. I do also think Modric is a very underrated player in a way that many used to underrate Xavi. 

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

But we all know that attackers get more recognition in these awards, because what they do is more quantifiable and crucially, more noticeable than what defenders do.

I don't think that's necessarily wrong actually. Yeah, what attacking players do is more quantifiable and, perhaps more importantly, tends to make more highlight reels but football's a low scoring sport, scoring goals is harder than keeping them out. On top of that, although combinations are important at both ends of the pitch, defending is still probably more about the unit than goalscoring.

I'd say individual awards probably should be weighted more towards attacking players although maybe more recognition should be given to the significance of creating chances.

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Maybe I am overly critical of Walcott, but to me he is kinda of pace merchant, who has lost quite a bit of it. He is still an okay EPL player, but really not exceptional.

That more or less sums him up. But he can still threaten, and defends dilligently. I think that matters to Silva, though I do not know.

 

ETA: for precision: he still speeds past most people in the PL. However, he doesn't run at people as much as he runs in behind defenses, and needs that good threaded pass. This tends to make him less effective against defending teams (but excellent at, say, Bournemouth with 10 players - plenty of space to run). 

His first touch is sort of dodgy too often (see Chelsea away, and the beauty of a pass Sigurdsson threaded in the first half vs Liverpool). His finishing is generally good if he gets the first touch right, but it's a coin flip these days if it indeed is right.

[Consigliere]

55 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

To be fair to Modric, he got to a World cup final being pretty much the best player in the Croatia side, and also won the Champions league and was a key player (some would argue THE key player) for them. 

Modric was indeed the best player for Croatia but Rakitic was not far behind. Modric was just overhyped to the point that it made it seem like he was singlehandedly carrying Croatia when in reality that was not the case at all. Furthermore, Modric was not THE key player for Real Madrid - Ronaldo was in attack, Casemiro was in midfield and Varane was in defence. Once again, Modric has been overhyped based on a handful of games when in fact he was pretty much average throughout the season. The truth is Modric and Rakitic performed at a very similar level last season yet somehow Rakitic ended up joint 19th and Modric 1st.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Rorshach said:

However, he doesn't run at people as much as he runs in behind defenses, and needs that good threaded pass.

I'm assuming, though I haven't paid him an awful lot of attention since he moved, that he still also sucks at anticipating or making movement to create space for the pass and therefore needs the creatives to take the initiative and play passes he then reacts to?

He was always functionally slower than he actually is because of that  (and also because of his touch). Martial is a bit similar though he isn't as much of a coward as Walcott often was when he'd occasionally literally hide behind defenders to avoid being open for the pass and he obviously has much better control once it is under his spell.

[Heartofice]

20 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Modric was indeed the best player for Croatia but Rakitic was not far behind. Modric was just overhyped to the point that it made it seem like he was singlehandedly carrying Croatia when in reality that was not the case at all. Furthermore, Modric was not THE key player for Real Madrid - Ronaldo was in attack, Casemiro was in midfield and Varane was in defence. Once again, Modric has been overhyped based on a handful of games when in fact he was pretty much average throughout the season. The truth is Modric and Rakitic performed at a very similar level last season yet somehow Rakitic ended up joint 19th and Modric 1st.

Maybe he was overhyped based on a handful of games, but those are probably the games that people watched. I seem to remember Modric being great in the Champions league final (and Ronaldo being pretty anonymous almost every time I've seen him last season) and he was also really good in most of the games in the World Cup. 

I guess we just have to accept that players are going to be judged on what they do on the biggest stage, rather than having a consistent high quality over a year.