Controversial but I think he was slightly overrated. He didn’t really offer much outside of goalscoring and his goal record was inflated by penalties. Without pens his best season was 20 league goals. Good record, in the same season Negredo scored 21 and Soldado scored 19. Not a shit player by any means if that’s how this is coming across, but a tier below the best strikers of his generation for me. Doesn’t touch the likes of Aguero, Suarez, Benzema in a million years.
Radamel Falcao at his peak | How good was he?
- Thread starter VorZakone
- Start date
There are some strikers who I just find revolutionary to a 9.
Falcao prime is in that list, along with David Villa and OG Ronaldo
Falcao prime is in that list, along with David Villa and OG Ronaldo
There was a time when every thing he touched turned to gold. He could pick the ball up, back to goal, 20 yards out and it would end up in the back of the net a second later out of nowhere, phenomenal striker. One of my all time favourites.
This.. what a player
Like Ibra but faster.
I don’t consider Messi/Cr7 as strikers. Yes he was better than Lewa. Lewa has a lot of revisionism. It was only a few years ago Lewa was being blasted for being overrated because he never showed up for Bayern in big UCL games.
He was the best 9 in the game. Such a shame we didn’t get his best. An absolute force.
A top class striker. Not quite Tevez level, but very simular.
Loved this goal he scored
Nah it’s a simple case of pre and post injury Falcao. From 2009-2013 he averaged 40 goals a season for club and country, demolishing top opposition time and time again (the one-man destruction of Chelsea, 4 goals in 5 games against prime Barcelona, basically never missing a chance against Mourinho’s Real, record goalscoring season in the UEFA cup, etc). Had a bad injury which affected his mobility and was never the same player again.
At his peak, he was head and shoulders above every no 9. Incredible striker.
a) your stats are wrong
b) they're very selective - pointlessly so. For example, he only played 1 CL season pre-ACL. Scored 4 in 8. He also scored 29 in 29 in UEFA Cup in the 2 years following. Even if you look at his whole CL career, most of which was played when he was well past his best, he scored 2 in 2 CL qualifying games and 12 in 29 CL appearances. If you ignore his last 2 CL seasons where he was basically finished then the record was 12 in 21 games - pretty good if you ask me.
It was weird. He wasn't that fast. He wasn't that skillful. He wasn't that tall. He wasn't that strong. He wasn't a great passer. I mean he wasn't BAD at any of that - But he was an unbelievably good player somehow, just one of those 9's that always knew where to be, what to do, and how to score. Shows how important a football brain is.
I'm too young to remember players like De Stefano, Puskas or Eusebio but in the modern game Falcaos name could be used in the same sentence as Van Basten, Romario, Batistuta, Stoichkov, R9 and it wouldn't be out of place although out of them all R9 for me is the best I've ever seen.
He actually went back to a very good level around December of his comeback to Monaco. One thing that people often neglect regarding his time in the PL is that he tore his ACL in January 2014, tried to rush his rehab in order to play the world cup and was underwhelming. He was stubborn and apparently didn't listen to what Monaco advised him but later admitted that he made a mistake, he was apparently still following a rehab program at United and had a special program when he went back to Monaco, I don't know how Chelsea tried to manage it though.
At his peak. Best 9 on the planet. Arguably of his generation. Worst mistake he did was rush rehab from his acl. Robbed him of 2 years of his peak. He was never the same
Absolute monster in his last season at Porto and for his first two seasons at Atletico. Best pure no.9 in the world during that period. We should have signed him when he was at Porto, would have been a great Ronaldo replacement.
That goal against City! Pure filth 
Nah you could see his physical decline. He couldn’t he stand up for longer than 5 minutes. He needed more time to recover. Even after he went back to Monaco and had that great game against City, it still wasn’t the Falcao before injury, he was physically not the same.
Rushing back from an ACL injury was a poor choice
Lethal and irresistible. Genuinely one of my favourite transfers when we announced him. Then we had to see LvG play him, RvP, up top with Rooney just behind and Mata out wide. Just a mess.
He would have killed it here if we signed him when he left Porto.
He would have killed it here if we signed him when he left Porto.
Zlatan and Ruud were miles better for me.
As far as I remember their used to be talks of him being among the best players after Messi and Cristiano. He was deadly. Sad that he became absolutely useless post injury for a period.
One of my favourite players to ever to watch, then joined United halfway through a cruciate injury. For context, Theo Walcott got injured at the same time with the same injury and came back at least 6 months later I believe. Sad to watch him at United struggle to keep his balance and look a shell of the player. Glad that he had a career renaissance at Monaco. But for Porto and Atletico he was lethal and had it all in the box. Too short a peak to be considered a great but a memorable striker.
Feel privileged to have seen one of his few goals for us live at a game
Batistuta imo better, in thinking back were they similar, my memory saying but could be wrong, signing peak Falcoa would it have hindered Rooney?
I think around the time he was at his peak only RVP was a better #9. I think people forget how utterly incredible 2011-2013 RVP was, Lewandowski and this seasons Benzema have been the only better 9s I've seen in last 15y
Definitely. If I could have any striker in their prime over the last 10-ish years it would be him. He was pretty much like if you took Aguero and added aerial prowess. Shame how it all unraveled though.
Totally agree, before the injury he was a very good striker, but if we are talking his peak when he was a world star, I would say it was only for about three seasons too, thats no slight though as you could argue with a similar amount of time with Ronaldhino and his peak years
At that time I only remember thinking Atlético de Madrid were a freaking factory of world class strikers. He was very good of course, specially in the box and seemed like a big game player, at least on finals for Atlético de Madrid but I also thought he was good since playing in River Plate.
Strikers and Goalies from the past decade has just been ludicrous from AM
What a username
Yes, Lewandowski reached a level where he got criticized for not carrying games against MSN Barcelona, or back-to-back-to-back CL winning Real Madrid.
If Falcao ever got close to that, maybe people would blast him too, who knows
Like many great strikers in past 10 years… we got him at least 4,5 years too late. Would have been perfect Tevez replacement for us in 2009.
Don't underrate 2010-2015 Ibra. Also, peak L.Suárez (2013-2018) was better than RVP any day of the week.
World class. That Monaco move was the start of his decline.
Very good player that could've been great if it wasn't for a combination of poor move to Monaco and a horrible ACL injury.
I saw him a little bit for Atleti but not much. Apart from that, I only really saw him for United… and I really hope that wasn’t his peak.
I was made up when we signed him. Massive summer of transfers with Di Maria at the same time and Mata having joined a few months before - nothing could stop us winning the league that season.
However, it was strange after Falcao’s first 10 minute cameo. It was as though everyone immediately realised that he wasn’t going to be good.
I was made up when we signed him. Massive summer of transfers with Di Maria at the same time and Mata having joined a few months before - nothing could stop us winning the league that season.
However, it was strange after Falcao’s first 10 minute cameo. It was as though everyone immediately realised that he wasn’t going to be good.
Weren't we making a serious move for him at that time?
Falcao and Kaká had similar poor career advisors. They were both pressured to make speedy recoveries by their federations and wrecked their knees.
I remember one article of one of the doctors who examined Kaká and said his knee looked like a senior citizen knee: completely wrecked.
I remember one article of one of the doctors who examined Kaká and said his knee looked like a senior citizen knee: completely wrecked.
That's what I would describe as a perfect goal