The question at hand is obviously the one above, but I don't want to make this thread solely about him. I would like to hear differing opinions on who is the best CB of this generation if there is disagreement about Thiago Silva, which I assume.
"Generation" is always hard to define. To try to give some framework to the discussion, I would suggest taking a look at performances in this decade. That means I am not looking for contributions how much better Vidic and Ferdinand were because everyone knows that anyway
They had their best days in the last decade and I want to look if there is a broad consensus about the next CBs worthy of being called the best of their generation.
Now I can start making my case for Thiago Silva: He is fast, he is strong, he is very good in the air despite being small and his average height gives him an advantage in many cases. Jerome Boateng for example is also very fast, but accelerates slowly because of his massive frame and has big problems when defending nimble dribblers like Messi
Always have a grin on my face watching that
Thiago Silva is much better defending small dribblers and did it on practically all occasions. Serie A and Ligue 1 are not the strongest leagues, but he also performed very good in multiple CL campaigns and at the 2016 World Cup.
He turns 34 this year and I thought he was on a bit of a decline, but here is his highlights video from this season (skip to 10 seconds in):
Obviously that is only a highlights video and the creator will not show his mistakes, but I just saw so much intelligent defending I was impressed by in that video. Many CBs would be happy to have this highlights over the course of their career.
Other factors speaking in his favor would be he is a very good ball playing CB, he is a leader and he had to endure playing alongside Mexes and David Luiz for several seasons
.
The reason I made a thread at this point is I want to see everyone's opinion before the recency bias clouds the people's judgement, after one top CB makes a crucial mistake at the WC for everyone to see. Also I thought it could be fun to revisit this thread during and after the tournament to laugh at some suggestions in hindsight
Other candidates worthy of the discussion in my opinion:
Diego Godin
Sergio Ramos
Pepe
Feel free to add as you like..
btw my first thread and all that, I hope the media works
"Generation" is always hard to define. To try to give some framework to the discussion, I would suggest taking a look at performances in this decade. That means I am not looking for contributions how much better Vidic and Ferdinand were because everyone knows that anyway
They had their best days in the last decade and I want to look if there is a broad consensus about the next CBs worthy of being called the best of their generation.Now I can start making my case for Thiago Silva: He is fast, he is strong, he is very good in the air despite being small and his average height gives him an advantage in many cases. Jerome Boateng for example is also very fast, but accelerates slowly because of his massive frame and has big problems when defending nimble dribblers like Messi
Always have a grin on my face watching that
Thiago Silva is much better defending small dribblers and did it on practically all occasions. Serie A and Ligue 1 are not the strongest leagues, but he also performed very good in multiple CL campaigns and at the 2016 World Cup.
He turns 34 this year and I thought he was on a bit of a decline, but here is his highlights video from this season (skip to 10 seconds in):
Obviously that is only a highlights video and the creator will not show his mistakes, but I just saw so much intelligent defending I was impressed by in that video. Many CBs would be happy to have this highlights over the course of their career.
Other factors speaking in his favor would be he is a very good ball playing CB, he is a leader and he had to endure playing alongside Mexes and David Luiz for several seasons
.The reason I made a thread at this point is I want to see everyone's opinion before the recency bias clouds the people's judgement, after one top CB makes a crucial mistake at the WC for everyone to see. Also I thought it could be fun to revisit this thread during and after the tournament to laugh at some suggestions in hindsight
Other candidates worthy of the discussion in my opinion:
Diego Godin
Sergio Ramos
Pepe
Feel free to add as you like..
btw my first thread and all that, I hope the media works