First of all, I think people should be more careful and more fair when comparing players. Saying X or Y is THE goat is very superficial, How do you even try to compare, for example, Messi with any legendary player from literally any other position? Messi is better than Beckenbauer huh? Better than Cafu, manybe? No. We should start being more specific about what we are exactly talking about, if people keep discussion like this, football will be reduced and oversimplified. It is easier, Yes, but we must fraction every single aspect of the game to have a proper and meaningful debate; Messi is maybe the most talented player of all time relatively to his position? Maybe, but this is it: relatively to his position and role.
Not only that, but people should stop using stats like maniacs to try to get their point across. Football is not played through stats, and mind you, for example, the attacker with the most goals is not necessarily the best, the Midfielder with the most assist is not necessarily the best, etc. People should watch the full matches of the players they are talking about: Watch footaball. Stats are indeed a good way to have a north, but they do not speak for themselves, and they should, at the very least, be contextualized, which is not the case most of the times. People are more worried about getting their point across than actually having a meaningful and fun debate.
Lastly, people should analyse better each player’s role in the specific team and why and how they performances that role, even tho they play at the same position? For instance, Haaland is an attacker with top tier positioning and scoring efficency, but that does not necessarily make him a better attacker than another attacker Who plays in a completely different way and does not score that much. Haaland is much more dependent at a good team who creates the opportinities for him, and if the rest of the team performs well, he will score, but if the team does not perform well or is not able to get through the opponents defense, Haaland is unable to do virtually anything, and he won’t be the one to create the opportunity 90% of the time. Whereas attackers like Neymar or Mbappe, who do not have the same strenghts as him and that will most likely end up with less goals than Haaland, have the capabilities of helping the team in a way Haaland cannot, and they will play a completely different game, because as I said, each player has a different role and characteristics. I think I got my point across, this post is not about Haaland lol, and even tho I think it’s obvious, I’m not hating on Haaland in any way, the dude is a great player, I just used him as the base of my last argument.
So, what do you think? Is any player THE goat? Stats matter that much? Can you compare completely different players from the Same position?
I’m honestly just thinking out loud for the sake of a debate hahahahaha
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There are only two circumstances where comparisons make any sense:
- Mates in the pub arguing based on personal prejudice.
- Journalists desperate to sell copy and make themselves sound insightful.
In other words, can be fun but is always bollocks.
So basically, football is a team sport, and taking one player out of a team and saying there amazing is like taking one stat to prove that a player is the best. I strongly agree with you here, and I’d also like to add that goats should be abandoned as it’s impossible to compare players from different eras, styles ect.
You can’t,
If you use stats then use stats but that doesn’t give you the WHOLE picture, just a numerical one in a specific sample size,
The “eye test” also doesn’t give you ALL of the picture,
Just a personal bias based on your preferred playing style and the type of football you like to watch/ admire.
IF you could Compare Original Ronaldo to Henry for example then football has lost it’s magic IMO,
Roberto Carlos and Cafu weren’t the same type of defenders,
Nor was Keown compared to Tony Adams!
It’s about Eras and the rules in which the players played, the situations in which they could thrive and the types of football systems they were told to play in.
A key to comparing players is to do it in competitions they’ve both played, preferrably in the same era. For example, Ronaldo and Messi played in the UCL at the exact same time, yet Ronaldo has achieved much more success (objectively), both in team achievements and individually (goals, assists, wins, trophies).
Also people comparing players based on their NT careers is useless. Yeah Mbappe has a better NT career than Haaland, who would have thought.
I guess it comes down to who you would rather have in your team.
It’s impossible to compare a striker to a defender in terms of what they do, but you can still say if I had one free pick that’s the player I would choose.