I understand the point you're making. In order to play well with Messi you had to "surrender" the ball to him in a way. But you are overlooking the fact that messi linked up incredibly well with the players who did that. Messi and Ney were more in sync and looked absolutely in tandem with one another. If you dropped back to look for the ball and playmake you'd be doing a disservice both to yourself and to the team, simply because he was much better at it.
Kylian Mbappé | Real Madrid watch
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It's not as simple as that tbh. Mbappe and Vinicus while being players with very different attributes, like to dominate the exact same zones. The also thrive off a reference striker like Giroud, Benzema, Joselu etc... Madrid's problems are also compounded by the fact that they have no threat down the right. If opponents flood the left flank they shut them down. Which is why Valverde down the right looked so good against City. But he's not a winger nor creative so when things changed he couldn't produce.
He was really good at linking up, but that still doesn't change the fact that you couldn't put other high volume playmakers next to him in attack
It isn't a coincidence that Neymar's best match in Barcelona, the one everybody remembers about him, was the one in which they actually ran the attack through him, and Messi's performance that night can be summed up with "he also played in that match"
In my view:
I do agree though that they both play better with a reference striker. If neither had an ego though the best would be to play like BBC with Vini - ? - Mbappé, they could if they wanted. It could be like Mane - Firmino - Salah but even more devastating.
Do you think that having only Messi doing the bulk of the creative work, while your other talented forwards are always limited to following his movement patterns as foils, is better than having the actions distributed, with all of your forwards alternating tasks during the game, and Messi naturally being the most active merely because of his "technical" (yeah, lazy word) superiority rather than by design? Do you think that makes them more solid and harder to deal with?
For me Griezmann and Benzema are good examples of brilliant link-up play, not Messi. They'd gel their teams' actions together enhancing their partners rather than using them as pawns. Neymar too, but he lost his way after his first season at PSG, trying too hard to be Messi (he restored that element of his game in his last season there, but his body wasn't nearly the same at that point).
That's a good observation. When Messi wasn't up to it, which was rare in general but not nearly as rare in big UCL games, you were basically a man down on the field, since he a) was a nullity defensively and b) couldn't perform the role of the supportive playmaker/foil attacker.
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Mbappé is right footed. He hasn't spent any significant amount of time playing off the right since 2020.
Furthermore, we would need to find a striker with the Benzema/Firmino skillset in this market
Furthermore - playing with 3 strikers when one of them gives you nothing defensively and the other is bad even when he puts in the effort, requires the third to be a defensive monster with an insane motor
i don't think it's impossible to make this partnership work, but it's just very very difficult and I don't see a willingness at club level to make the necessary cuts here
I agree. Though I saw something in that legendary Bayern of 12/13 that I never thought I would see.
After losing the 11/12 UCL final at home to Chelsea the team came back and all of a sudden Robben and Ribéry became defensive monsters. The team replaced Mario Gomez with Mario Mandzukic, the superior goal scorer gave way for the more hard working striker.
If, and it is a huge IF, Vini and Mbappé could put their egos aside then they could replicate Ribery and Robben or Mane and Salah who also had great work rate. And with their talent that would be very scary.
The perfect striker would be... I dont know. Probably someone only scoring 15-20 goals a season but facilitating everything.
It's not a problem of egos though. Mbappé and Vini don't play the way they do because of their ego, they play that way because that's how they know to play. That's what makes them as good as they are
Could they play better defensively? Vini for sure, and I think it's just a matter of having a manager who he trusts who asks him to track back more. Mbappé though? He's just not wired like that. It's not even that he doesn't want to do it, his brain is just not wired to make him press and track back consistently. Doesn't have the focus for it. Cristiano was like this too, Messi was like this too, Rashford is like this too
In attack, I think they could function together but again, it all depends on the players around them. Cristiano and Bale operated on opposite flanks, and had Benzema tying them together. And even then, Real Madrid were generally a better team with only one of them on the pitch - this despite Bale willingly sacrifing quite a bit for the sake of the team. Bale in particular was unquestionably better without Cristiano
Salah and Mane not only operated on different flanks, but had far more complementary skillsets on top. Hell, Mane in particular could even play Firmino's role better than Firmino
Probably. We do have conclusive, unequivocal evidence that catering to Messi and running the team's attack entirely through him worked very successfully at the highest level of the sport
Similar thing goes for Cristiano
Would Barcelona have been better off with Ribery, Robben and Lewandowski instead of what they had? I don't think so. Not to mention, the MSN was likely the best attacking trio in football history. Who cares how much Neymar had to sacrifice his game to make it work? It worked, that's what matters
I seem to remember Messi pressing a lot in the Pep era. That did change as he advanced through his career, but by then he'd achieved an astonishing amount and sort of 'earned the right' to not defend as much. Mbappe hasn't, really.
Not to mention, when Mbappe, Messi and Neymar were together at PSG, I'm pretty sure that Mbappe had the lowest pressing stats of the three, which is saying something, as Neymar is Neymar, and Messi was 35.
Messi definitely did at first. I think Mbappe got used to French football that isn't the top level and international football which is different. He was able to get away with bad habits so he sees defending as beneath him plus he knows most people judge forwards by what they do with the ball so he can focus on scoring goals and get away with letting his team down.
No. He pressed on occasion and often opportunistically, but otherwise was generally never asked to spend energy on defence.
That said, Mbappé is evem worse than Messi in this regard, yes
He pressed well until 2008/09. Then they decided to take away the pressing to (a) protect his hamstring which had been a persistant problem until that point, and (b) Guardiola wanted him in space with energy to burn when he did get the ball. All of that coincided by the time Messi moved in-field later in 08/09 and permanently thereafter.
Yeah I agree.
Barcelona hit the sweet spot in 2010/11 and 2014/15. They arguably went too far building solely around Messi around 2012 and then around 2018, when despite his brilliance Barcelona ultimately got caught out. That was either down to Messi being stopped, lack of alternative threats to pick up the slack (see Chelsea in 2012), drop in the quality of the midfield and defence (Bayern in 2013) or latterly careful exposing his lack of running off the ball (Liverpool in 2019). But bottom line is that the model of building around him, and letting him do little off the ball, worked at the elite level.
Hmm. Did he fly off to France? I doubt that he's using an illegal stream.
This is just not true. Guardiola in 09, 10, 11 played a high pressing system so all of the forward players pressed a lot early on, including Messi - that was their whole thing.
He's just a primadonna isn't he?
What a surprise, so much drama just to stay in the papers.
Not really. They did play a high press, but a high press doesn't require everyone to press aggressively all the time. They average nearly 70% possession, most of their preasing was counter-pressing
Yup. Guardiola used to employ a 6 second rule which he took from Bielsa and it only concerns three players at a time.
Last time they faced Barca, Frenkie De Jong tried to break his leg after just 5min coming on as a sub...
That's his job, no wonder ten hag chased him for 2 seasons
Realistically who can afford them? Can't imagine one of them fecking off to Saudi at this stage of their career. Out of the English teams only us, Liverpool and Arsenal need to upgrade their left wing.
You're playing semantics. My original point is that Messi used to press a lot, and that remains a fact.
He’s really blown an excellent chance for a Ballon d’Or this season. Had an incredible start and just seemed to get in his own way.
He hasn't, at all. As I was saying to that French PSG fan poster (who hates Mbappe like the guy did something to his family), the Ballon D'Or will be decided by the World Cup.
If France win the World Cup, Mbappe will likely score a lot of goals, and if he does that, he will become the highest goalscorer in World Cup history. If that happens, he will almost certainly win the Ballon D'Or.
The guy was talking about Dembele and Olise, but Dembele won it last year (great player, but can't see him going back to back) and Olise plays out of position for France. Mbappe is the big dog in that team, and luckily for him, he doesn't have to defend for them to win.
Back to PSG although they would be worse as a team.
Chelsea's left wing is Garnacho.
No mention of Vini or Mbappe. Hmm....
Let's remember too that almost everything in Spain it's used by the Media to fuel narratives, a very Club oriented media.
Messi has been playing since day one lots of roles without needing such an extra demand as it's said at times.
In fact one of the biggest issues for Barca and Argentina it's his biggest problem: when he disconnects from the game, when his teammates intentionally avoid him or can't find him.
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He pressed beyond a lot with Rikjaard. His first years he was a lightning Bolt all over the place
Not with Pep. With Pep, he started to decide when to do it, when not to do it, yet Pep required of him to at times at least keep some position to make bigger the field and at least bother the rival's backline, by that time Messi just coming near them made most defenses put the ball in the sky just in case
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Problem is, all those players were before oil clubs. Unless the player has a desire to play for Madrid like Mbappe then they may opt for money. If Saudi Arabia really wanted Yamal and he was open to it, they could get him in the summer.
Don't think PSG would bother with him, they seem to be a better team without him.
Mbappe criticised the far right in France. Whenever he actually says something in public, I do respect it. Unfortunately he is really frustrating as a footballer. He won the world cup nearly 8 years ago and that's still his only major trophy.
He had lost finals in CL and WC, it's not that he hasn't been there and far from a passenger in his teams in terms of contributing to achieve those mentioned finals
Fair. He could have easily won 2 world cups. It still feels like he's an amazing player who doesn't improve the teams he plays for as much as he should.
Maybe because at PSG he was stuck with Neymar and Messi who didnt do much work either and now he's at Madrid with Vini competing for the same spot.
He scored 0 goals in PSG's 2020 knockout campaign and missed some games through injury + passed it to Neuer in the biggest moment
You'll be surprise for instance how actually Mr Champions played many matches and even some of his finals of CL...meaning that we can't be that nitpicking, he had great campaings in CLs winning or not, he played two very good to great WCs, sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. To criticize Mbappe on some aspects of his game, of even perhaps his personality and how this affects his perfomances it's more than ok, yet to fall in our typical hiperboles when assessing players, I always find that a tad extreme.
PD: as a side note, I think many times we give too much improtance to the "big games", the "KO" matches and at times many players had great perfomances in instances that aren't those, yet the later wouldn't even existed if those perfomances didn't exist.
Just come on to whistles and boos against Oviedo.
EDIT: Whistles from the Bernabeau every time he touches the ball. Wow
EDIT: Whistles from the Bernabeau every time he touches the ball. Wow
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