I guess that peak would be 1967 thru 1971 when Best scored 32, 22, 23, 22, and 27? Unlike Ronaldo who scored 23, 42, 26, 33, 53, 60, 55, 51, 61, 51 starting in 2006
Yeah, about that, quality of goals > quantity of goals. Scoring 25 goals in 4-5 goals blowout against minnows looks very good when you look at stats. Not so much when somebody actually watches you score 5 against espanyol and then disappear in the champions league semifinal AND final. Cristiano Ronaldo, and to a lesser extent Messi, are the biggest stats-padding players ever.
Also? Goals are the most important aspect of the game, sure. But simply scoring more goals doesn't automatically make one the better player
It definitely was. 60 goals and 15 assists. It took an all-time, historic record-breaking year from Messi to beat him to the Balon D'or. It was undoubtedly better. What did Zidane offer over the course of an entire season that came close to that? Try not to give the usual "look beyond the goals" response that you like to use.
Not better, on par with it. He absolutely dominated nearly every second of nearly every game. Cristiano scored 60 goals, of which like 20 came late in blowouts. Not exactly important goals. That wasn't his best season because of how many goals he scored, it's because of his overall contributions to the team. Goals were just a big part of it, but the way he scored several of goals and the way he was a constant threat to the opponents, even 70 yards away from the goal. That season was the perfect combination of ridiculous goalscoring numbers and devastating play on the ball. That, and 2007-2008, were the two best seasons of his career
There is nothing to suggest he could have beaten a player like Messi to an award. He never competed against such a player.
He did, and he won, in 1998
He wasn't. He was considered the best alongside Ronaldo.
No, after ronnie got injured at inter, there was no debate about him being the best
He did not dominate the game at all like Messi has. Messi is on another level. He would not have been able to compete with Messi like Ronaldo has.
Of course he didn't dominate like Messi. Messi in on another level than Zidane. He's also on another level than cristiano. To say that zidane, a guy who scored a brace in a WC final and was by far the best player in another, would not have been able to compete with messi is just bs. Especially when it comes to the FIFA popularity contest in the age of globalization.
The award goes to who the majority think has been the best over the year. It went to Ronaldo in 2013, despite him not winning anything. Messi also won it in 2010
Yeah, they won those years because of popularity. Cristiano only won it over Messi because of the portugal-sweden playoff in november, otherwise it would have gone to messi. Meanwhile, ribery had an incredible year, being consistently the best player for the world-conquering bayern munich and generally playing at the same level as cristiano(messi was consistently better than both, but missed a good chunck of the year to injury). Ribery won the journos vote overwhelmingly.
Likewise, in 2010, Messi didn't even make the top 3 among the journos(neither did cristiano)
and 2012, despite not winning any of them competitions.
Messi's 2012 was almost comparable to Maradona's '86. We're talking about one of the 3-5 greatest individual years by any player ever. Of course he won.
That proves that what you said is not the case. That is because people believe they were better than everyone else that year.
No. The FIFA votes in this era generally go to the perceived best player in the world overall, not the one who was the best that year. Messi and Cristiano have been the two best players in the world for the last 8 years, but they weren't always the two best in terms of performance.
Of course the best player in a CL/WC/Euros winning team has a good chance of winning it. If they were the best player in such a team, they must have had a very strong campaign. It does not guarantee winning it though, like we have seen with Xavi, Iniesta, Sneijder and Ribery.
If the BoD had remained separate from FIFA, sneijder and ribery would have won
Politics, bias, just not having seen enough football to form an actual opinion and just going with the one of the two best players in the world who was perceived as having the better year...
Agreed, but Ronaldo was a different player. Zidane may beat him in a short sprint, but Ronaldo wins the marathon between the two. Simply having a higher peak is not enough for a player to be considered better than another by the majority.
We disagree on this
If it was the case, Zidane would have more individual Balon D'ors/World Player of the Year awards than Ronaldo, but he doesn't, despite Ronaldo being up against Messi who is better than anyone Zidane competed against.
Zidane won has many FIFA WPOTY as cristiano(who will likely surpass him come january). Cristiano has one more BoD, which he won because his teams happened to win CL and Euros, and despite him not being the best player on either in terms of performance, he's cristiano ronaldo, so the award goes to him
No, they are not. You will not find many who agree with that. The sheer number of goals and assists Ronaldo provides over the course of the season exceeds anything Zidane did.
Zidane dominated games from beginning to end, was a difference maker in nearly every big game his teama played, and massively improved his teammates.
Zidane could never have beaten Messi to a Balon D'or relying on just a season/year at club level, and he was criticised for being inconsistent.
Wrong. Zidane wins the CL with madrid, scoring in the winner in the final, scoring at the camp nou in the semi, and generally being the best player on the pitch by far and pretty every game, he beats messi to the BoD
That is a criticism that has rarely, if ever, being aimed at Cristiano.
Let me level my criticism at cristiano. It makes no difference to us if he scores 1 goal in a 4-0 blowout instead of 3 in a 6-0 blowout. It makes a huge difference if he shows up in a CL semi-final or final. Cristiano only ever played like an all time great in 1 semi-final game in a madrid shirt, 2012 at the bernabeu vs bayern. He was a nonentity on both finals. Zidane lasted little more than two seasons at his best with us, but in the CL, he was always a monster.
Agreed, but I am pretty confident his overall campaign will still be better than any of Zidanes.
Zidane led us to a CL win. Cristiano hasn't done it yet, not at that level and with that level of consistency game-to-game, round-to-round
Ronaldo did contribute most to the team which won that campaign, why are you being so harsh?
He didn't, really. He contributed justcas much as Bale, Kroos, Modric, Pepe, Casemiro, Marcelo, Carvajal, Keylor and Ramos. There was no real standout player for us in the last CL. In 2013-14, Di Maria, Bale, Ramos and Modric contributed as much or more than him(certainly Di Maria and Bale did), for all that he scored 6 goals in 3 games against galatasaray and copenaghen, two meaningless goals against bayern, 1 meaningless goal in the final...