Luis Suarez - Barcelona Player

Amar__

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Snow said:
For me it's about the end product
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For me it's about trophies and success, and Barca's trio just won them treble last year and will probably win more than Real again this year.

Barca's trio is better than Real's man by man however you look at it. Messi is better than any of those three, and Suarez and Neymar are easily better than both Benzema and Bale, and they are at least on the same level as Ronaldo, many people will say that both of them are better than Ronaldo this year too. But even if you think that Ronaldo is better than any of them(which he obviously isn't), still any of Suarez, Messi and Neymar are on another level to Benzema and Bale.

Real Madrig scoring 10 goals against Vallecano and having the "end product" in their favour means absolutely nothing.
 

matherto

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Raul Madrid said:
Here are his goalscoring stats vs top teams in La Liga since he joined Madrid (these are stats from last September).

Cristiano (RM career),
21 goals v Sevilla (in 13 apps) -- 1.62 gpg
15 goals v Atlético (in 22 apps) -- 0.68 gpg
15 goals v Barça (in 23 apps) -- 0.65 gpg
14 goals v Athletic (in 12 apps) -- 1.17 gpg
14 goals v Málaga (in 14 apps) -- 1.00 gpg
9 goals v Valencia (in 13 apps) -- 0.69 gpg
Stats courtesy of @Skorenzy

Those are very impressive statistics. Some of those gpg's are even better than Messi's (who is the best in the world IMO so that is a great achievement). They are impressive by any standards. In the CL for Madrid, he has 9 goals in 12 last 16 matches, 8 in 10 QF matches and 7 in 10 SF matches. Those are very impressive numbers and there will not be many players, if any (probably Messi will be the only one), that will have better numbers than that. So you are factually wrong about Ronaldo struggling against the tougher opposition.
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We know Cristiano puts up incredible numbers that are usually as a result of being the finisher of team moves and yet people wonder why he seemingly 'struggles' in the final stages of the CL or for Portugal when he hasn't got better players around him. Real have a fantastic team at times but most of them are very patchy in their form and they've been found wanting as a whole team on every occasion but when they won the Decima, they're almost typical chokers. Obviously Ronaldo could do more to help out at times but we all know he's never been that type of player and never will be.

If he was Suarez in the Barça team he'd be scoring a billion.
 

Raul Madrid

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VorZakone said:
Agree, but this has been Real's problem for a long time now. Why can't they create that same level of chemistry Barca's players have?
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Personally, I would put it down to a number of things. The constant changing of players is one. We had a great midfield in Alonso, Di Maria and Modric that had clicked and started to work together in the 2nd half of the 13/14 season. That midfield was comfortable in possession, good on the counter and good defensively. It was a very balanced midfield, despite being a bit unorthodox (ie Di Maria on the left). Most teams would build on such a strong midfield, but instead Perez decided to scrap it and start again, which was extremely stupid. Alonso has still not been replaced, and James, while a better and more talented player than Di Maria IMO, is not as versatile and has not become as vital a player for the team as Di Maria was in 2014.

Despite the changes that Perez makes each year, the team clicks eventually at some point in the season, but that is normally after having dropped lots of points while trying to find the best way to fit the new signings in the team. Madrid lost the league by two points last season. Just two points. Imagine if the team did not drop points at the start of the season, trying to fit the likes of James and Kroos in and had stuck with the midfield from the following season. Imagine, that if instead of signing "Galacticos", we had signed back-up players so that Ancelotti could rotate more. Maybe then Madrid would have not crashed in the 2nd half of the season due to lack of rotation (although Ancelotti still should have done better in that regard). There are no guarantees that Madrid would have won, but who knows? We would have at least had a better chance IMO.

The constant changing of philosophy or way of playing is another one IMO. The constant changing of managers has brought different ways of playing. Barcelona have a more consistent way of playing. They do change managers a lot too, but the managers do not change the clubs philosophy or way of playing as much. I would say there is more of an evolution of Barcelona's philosophy and way of playing under each new manager, rather than the big changes that happen with each new manager at Madrid. The club going from Mourinho to Ancelotti was probably the closest Madrid came to that. Pellegrini to Mourinho, Ancelotti to Benitez and now Benitez to Zidane are pretty big changes IMO. Barcelona sign players that suit and fit their philosophy and way of playing, whereas Madrid sign players and then change their philosophy and way of playing to fit then in, despite it not suiting other players that they already have.

There are a lot of other reasons, but those are, IMO, two big ones. If I were to talk about them all, I would be writing essays.
 

Snow

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Cait Sith said:
The Real trio is feasting on scrubs. Against Rayo Vallecano, Levante, Malmö etc. Real's trio can rack up the goals as much as Barca's trio obviously and those games make up the majority of a season (80 % of total games played in a season if not more). So if you just compare total number of goals scored without context the numbers might seem similar to Barca's trio. What separates men from boys and delivers trophies are games against the tougher opponents and that's where Madrid's trio sees no light against Barca's trio.



Barca's current top scorer vs. Madrid's current top scorer.

Total numbers without context: 23 vs. 21 goals.

With context:

Suarez: 14 goals against the top half of the table.
Ronaldo: 4 goals against the top half of the table.

Suarez: 9 goals against the bottom half of the table.
Ronaldo: 17 goals against the bottom half of the table (8 goals against just 1 team)


There is a reason why Barca's trio have won ever single game against Atletico (arguably the fiercest defense in Europe) whereas Madrid have won only 2 of their last 10 games against Atletico.
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You're just comparing two players in each trio here and this doesn't take into account whether the player has played once or twice against each opposition. If you look at Benzema you'll see how good he's been at finding the goal this season. He failed in those 0-0 games against Villarreal and Malága. Obviously he failed against Barca but to be fair to him that was his first game after injury and he only played 5 minutes in the next game. He has scored or assisted in every other game. It's similar to Suarez (although the numbers are less) in that Suarez failed to score or assist against Celta and Sevilla, the games that Barca lost. Sevilla is a big game and Celta have been this season.

It's a very scrutinizing discussion when you're comparing two teams in which 3 of the players in either side have score together 60 goals and assisted 20-30. Talking about separating men from boys is silly as the margin is very slim. Barca are better, no doubt about that, but the Real trio are still producing a similar amount of goals as the best trio ever.
 

amolbhatia50k

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The margins aren't slim, though. Individually, and collectively, the Barcelona is better. Collectively their level of cohesion and selflessness is visibly better to anyone who watches the two teams. Individually, it's not a contest either. Bale vs Neymar is a complete and utter mismatch, not to mention the other two where Barcelona are better. Barcelona's front three not only gets you goals and assists and wins matches, a player like Messi also drops deep and helps control things. The Madrid trio has nothing of the sort.

As I've said before, they do make up for it (hence similar quantity of goals) by having better playmakers and attacking midfielders in James, Isco and Modric.
 

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matherto said:
We know Cristiano puts up incredible numbers that are usually as a result of being the finisher of team moves and yet people wonder why he seemingly 'struggles' in the final stages of the CL or for Portugal when he hasn't got better players around him. Real have a fantastic team at times but most of them are very patchy in their form and they've been found wanting as a whole team on every occasion but when they won the Decima, they're almost typical chokers. Obviously Ronaldo could do more to help out at times but we all know he's never been that type of player and never will be.

If he was Suarez in the Barça team he'd be scoring a billion.
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:lol: That statement is true only for this season.
 

adexkola

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Vialli_92 said:
I remember last season a big majority of his goals came from 1-2 touches as well.

He has altered his game in recent seasons to be a finisher.
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Prior to this season Ronaldo was more involved in Real's counter-attack. His goals may have been 1-2 touchy but his assist count and watching him indicated he wasn't a pure poacher prior to this season, like the other poster was insinuating. Pretty much the same tired cliche.
 

Cait Sith

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Snow said:
You're just comparing two players in each trio here and this doesn't take into account whether the player has played once or twice against each opposition. If you look at Benzema you'll see how good he's been at finding the goal this season. He failed in those 0-0 games against Villarreal and Malága. Obviously he failed against Barca but to be fair to him that was his first game after injury and he only played 5 minutes in the next game. He has scored or assisted in every other game. It's similar to Suarez (although the numbers are less) in that Suarez failed to score or assist against Celta and Sevilla, the games that Barca lost. Sevilla is a big game and Celta have been this season.

It's a very scrutinizing discussion when you're comparing two teams in which 3 of the players in either side have score together 60 goals and assisted 20-30. Talking about separating men from boys is silly as the margin is very slim. Barca are better, no doubt about that, but the Real trio are still producing a similar amount of goals as the best trio ever.
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Actually I've given the specific example of "Suarez vs. Ronaldo" because I happened to stumble upon that one specific graphic and don't have it for all "3 vs. 3". But I'm certain it will look similar when done for "MSN vs. BBC" as a whole. Actually I'm tempted to research it now.

If we narrow down the big games as "CL knockout games + games against the top 4 in the league", this is what we get:

Last season:

Top 4 opponents in the league:

Barca/Madrid (Clasico)
Atletico
Valencia
Sevilla
----------------------------------------
Goals MSN: 14
Goals BBC: 8

CL knockout rounds:

Manchester City/Schalke (Round of 16)
PSG/Atletico Madrid (Quarters)
Bayern/Juventus (Semis)
Juventus (Final, only for Barca obviously)
----------------------------------------
Goals MSN: 14
Goals BBC: 7

Current season thus far:

Top 4 opponents in the league:

Barca/Madrid (Clasico)
Atletico
Villarreal
Sevilla
----------------------------------------
Goals MSN: 11
Goals BBC: 1 (:lol:)

That's 39 vs. 16 goals when only CL knockout rounds and games against the top 4 are counted. Which is an enormous gap. If we'd also add assist numbers, the gap would grow even more in favour of Barca's trio, I'm sure of that but too lazy to actually count all the assists now.
 

amolbhatia50k

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@Cait Sith Good post. Anyone who can't see the gap is in denial, or doesn't watch the two teams that much. The lamest thing about opinions on football these days, is using gross numbers (without context) to form an opinion, rather than a holistic view incorporating both statistics as well the things we see our own two eyes that can give as clear a picture as any.
 

Raul Madrid

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Benzema, Bale and Ronaldo scored 15 goals between them in the CL knockouts in the 13/14 season. They are capable of a lot in the big games when the team performs and functions well. They have struggled in the big league games like the rest of the team. Obviously, they are not as dangerous as the Barcelona trio, but if Madrid as a team performed better in the big games like Barcelona do, they would have much better numbers in such games than they currently do.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Raul Madrid said:
Benzema, Bale and Ronaldo scored 15 goals between them in the CL knockouts in the 13/14 season. They are capable of a lot in the big games when the team performs and functions well. They have struggled in the big league games like the rest of the team. Obviously, they are not as dangerous as the Barcelona trio, but if Madrid as a team performed better in the big games like Barcelona do, they would have much better numbers in such games than they currently do.
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Are they as good? And is there much between the two trios?
 

Hernandez - BFA

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Suarez was the perfect signing for Barca. It's astonishing how he clicks with Neymar and Messi.

Best #9 in the world. For me, on track to win next Ballon d'Or ahead of anyone else.

I hate how he's become my favourite player to watch. He's just so versatile. The runs he makes, his finishing, his determination.
 

Cait Sith

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Raul Madrid said:
Benzema, Bale and Ronaldo scored 15 goals between them in the CL knockouts in the 13/14 season. They are capable of a lot in the big games when the team performs and functions well. They have struggled in the big league games like the rest of the team. Obviously, they are not as dangerous as the Barcelona trio, but if Madrid as a team performed better in the big games like Barcelona do, they would have much better numbers in such games than they currently do.
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And more than half of them (8) came in the Schalke tie which ended 9-2 on aggregate. Even when we've already narrowed it down to "CL knockout rounds", Madrid still manage to cheat by drawing scrubs like Schalke. :p

Obviously Madrid's attack is great in its own right. To make it clear, my point was not so much to put down Madrid's trio but to highlight how ridiculous Barca's front 3 is, even compared to an already great one like Madrid's.

Maybe people will not agree with me but I see Messi as the best player of all time, Suarez only 2nd to Ronaldo Fenomeno as far as "modern football" goes (Eusebio, Gerd Müller etc. belong to a different era for me) and Neymar is up there with Ronaldinho at his best. That's how I rate that trio.
 

Snow

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amolbhatia50k said:
@Cait Sith Good post. Anyone who can't see the gap is in denial, or doesn't watch the two teams that much. The lamest thing about opinions on football these days, is using gross numbers (without context) to form an opinion, rather than a holistic view incorporating both statistics as well the things we see our own two eyes that can give as clear a picture as any.
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I'm not doing that, I'm arguing that the "nowhere near their level" gap is hyperbolic.
 

FC Ronaldo

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And he misses a penalty straight after I post that. Typical :lol:
 

CLARiiON

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His conversion rate is very good, considering he hardly scored anything from penalties.

 

FC Ronaldo

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More non-penalty goals than anyone else in top 5 leagues in 2015 yet wasn't in the Ballon D'Or...
 
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