Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season
gerd there isn't a pond big enough to make francesco look like a small fish.
those who watched francesco playing during his peak will know he he would have overshadowed any player in any team (except maradona maybe.... and i'm not even sure).
gigi i wouldn't describe him as the best first touch passer in the last 15 years only.... his overall passing ability is probably the best i've ever seen indeed..... and to be sincere i find it hard to believe that someone in the past (even before 15 years ago) has ever been able to do the things he did..... with the same consistency he showed.
i can't think of any other player who showed such an insane consistency all along his peak period... i mean u can take any totti match from 1999 to 2004 (except his italy matches) and come up with a 3 minutes video compilation.
an italian journalist specialized in stats came out with an unbelievable data last year: if u take the seasons from 1999 to 2002 the 38% of totti's passes turned out to be assists to a goal......that's just crazy.... we're not talking about a player who doesn't get involved in the game that often... we're talking about the fulcrum of the team... the player who gets more balls than anybody else during each game..... and he was able (despite a pretty much constant double marking) to transform almost half of the balls he received into assists..... van basten, baggio, zidane they could only dream such consistency.
it would be impossible to experience such consistency even in a videogame. i mean take a player on fifa or pes, boost all his stats to 99 and then try to get with that player more balls than any other and to turn 4 out of 10 of his plays into assists.... that is just unreal... even for a videogame.
and let's not forget that the majority of those assists didn't came out from "normal" brilliant passes or through balls (as it is for any other trequartista in the history of the game)..... most of those assists came out from no-look 1st touch pinpoint passes.
people created the word "no-look pass" when ronaldinho began to perform some 10 meters sweet no look sweet through balls....
the truth is, years before ronaldinho, totti used to perform
on a weekly basis 10, 20 meters no-look passes and
30 meters no-look lobs...... and not in spain (where u can confortably sit in the trequartista's area with no pressure at all)... he did it in italy... wich means dealing with 2 men (one on zone coverage and another on man marking) already on your 2nd touch (that is infact the reason why he decided to focus himself on 1-touch passing game... it was impossible for him to hold the ball for more than 1 second without having to deal with a sliding tackle).
and that wasn't a "highlight move" for him.... u could count 3,4 of those unbelievable passes for each and every match.... that was infact his most common move.
so yes gigi, an amazing overall passer, but as for 1st touch passing i wouldn't even say he's the best of the last 15 years. because by saying he was "the best" u're implying a comparison with others great 1st touch passers..... while i don't think such a comparison is possible.
- most of the greatest 1st touch passers used to play with their eyes on their targets, while francesco used to deliver those passes "blind" (as his targets were on his backs.... and that's another unique feature of francesco.... every trequartista always played with his eyes oriented on his targets, while francesco used to play with his back oriented to his targets, as if he were a foward).
- all the greatests first touch passers were able, thanks to their vision, to skip 1 single tempo (1 play, one pass). that is "anticipating the game". totti instead (as caressa correctly remarked just a few days ago) is the only one who has ever been able to skip 2 tempos..... and that's beyond the concept of anticipation..... that isn't vision. that's visionary. as a trequartista totti didn't just anticipate the game.... he used to live the entire match on a different tempo than every other player on the pitch, and that's the only possible explanation for his passes.
a great trequartista with a great fist touch passing game
sees his teammates movement,
reads the play and then
anticipates it with a killer pass.
that's not what totti used to do. he never
saw his targets, as he used to play with his back to them... he
didn't read the game (because to read, u gotta see, and u can't really see a thing when u're watching on the other side of the pitch)... he
felt the game, and that makes all the difference in the world.
that's what makes him unique... absolutely uncomparable to any other great 1st touch passer.... because his 1st touch passes were just something different from zidane's, baggio's, mancini's, ronaldinho's first touch passes.
when u see a player (even a great player like the ones i mentioned) performing a blind 30 meters through ball wich lands with a ridiculous accuracy right on the feet of the target, then u're seeing that player performing the pass of his life.
but when u see a player performing that pass 3, 4 times per match on a weekly basis for 3 years, then u're witnessing something unique. something that just can't be compared to anything else. and that's what i'm talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHiv3JngHoU&fmt=18
u can write "zidane passes" or "baggio's passes" on youtube and u'll find dozens of compilations with the same plays repeated over and over. do it with totti and u won't see the same play twice. that gives u a pretty good idea of his consistency
gigi said:
Totti decided to stay in Rome also because there he's been the 8th king of the city, while in Madrid or Milan he'd been "only" one of the great player of a team full of great players.
no way mate. he would have become the star player in every team in europe... he would have overshadowed zidane too in madrid. u sure followed zidane's experience in madrid and totti's carreer in roma.... and, by reading your post, i can see u got a chance to watch totti during his peak (wich means u also watched zidane during his peak, as they were pretty much coeval)....given the world-wide legendary reputation zidane earned himself in madrid, u really believe totti wouldn't have earned an even bigger reputation if he would have accepted florentino's offers? i tell you, he would be even beyond zidane right now (as, let's be honest, zidane had almost the same class of totti, but his consistency was nowhere near totti's consistency).... he would be mentioned along with crujff, maradona and baggio right now.
sure by staying in roma, he became the city idol, but most of the fans outside italy consider him nothing more than a very talented player. if he would have gone to madrid or milano he would have become a world-wide legend, not just a roma legend... that's what he left by choosing to stay in roma, and i believe that's also the reason why now he's getting such a profitable contract. it's roma's way to say "thank u for not leaving us when u got the chance, thank u for giving up to world-wide glory when u where the best offensive midfielder in the world".
gigi said:
another negative aspect about him is the "lack of nuts" , he has never done something like other players mentioned by lo zio: i mean, bringing a team to victory (or a final match) in a big international competition....baggio did it,maradona did it, cruyff did it, zidane did it
sorry but i gotta disagree on this one too mate. all the legends u mentioned played in the best clubs in the world (juve, milan, real madrid, barcelona, argentina's national team.... even maradona's napoli was pretty much on par with milan those days.... and that milan was one of the best teams in the world). victory in football is never an individual thing. no matter how great are the individuals, victory is always a team effort in football, so we can't really say that crujff (alone) brought barcelona to victory or that zidane (alone) brought real madrid and france to victory or that baggio (alone) brought juventus to victory.
totti unlike, all those legends, had just one chance to play in one of the world best teams (during capello's era at roma, when roma actually was one of the best teams) and when he got that chance, he won the scudetto.... and let me say that (most of the guys here won't really understand this point, but being italian, i'm sure u will) winning a scudetto in roma is more impressive than winning 5 titles in a row with a team like real madrid, barca, juve or milan.
Gerd, the reason why totti never performed with italy's shirt is pretty simple. totti's game main feature lies in his unpredictability.... just take a look at that vid i posted. he gets the ball.... he's gonna hold it for less than 1 second.... and his opponents have absolutely no idea where the ball is gonna be in the next 3 seconds... it might be on montella's feet (who might well be 30 meters far from totti), it might be on batistuta's feet, it might be on cafu's feet (i'm picking them as they were his teammates back in the days when he used to play at midfield). with italy instead, he always had just 1 striker ahead of him (first vieri, then toni).
and if u give totti just one available target, then it gets pretty easy to nullify him.... since u can't pretty much get the ball away from him (as totti holds it for just the time of a single touch) u set up a tight double marking on his only possible target.... and here u go, totti's passing game becomes pretty much harmless. so bottom line his poor performances with italy weren't really totti's fault... it's more trapattoni's fault.
and that result is totally liar. I've never seen a Juve this good in the last months... probably because everyone is pretty pissed off 
a noticeable Poulsen wins the Juve MotM imo (and I always despised him)
.
