Ozil versus Hue

[Zeppo]

The fact that he wasn't able to make it in Sweden and the MLS should not be taken as confirmation that he was not good enough as a footballer. There are too many stories of players who found it difficult to operate in one particular league or the other, yet excel in the next.

So then in Hue's case we have to say that he has only been able to excel at the semi-professional level, right?

[Jangle]

You know what.............as Mosiah said......NO MORE HUE THREADS PLEASE.

[Karl]

Who is the slowest?

Ans: Hue

Who works least?

Ans: Hue

Slowest to react on the football field?

Ans: Hue

...as to level played...?

...and quality of play? Let us not go there. Those who consistently put Hue in the class of competent...yup! mere competent midfielders need to attend classes on 'what is football...acceptable on the football field?'...in other words those persons need 'head examined'.

Forget the nonsense of Hue being compared to top world midfielders.

[Mosiah]

But Stoni, how can anyone disagree with that? We all would like to see them all with "speed and skill". But it does not happen just because we want it to happen.

In the meantime, just like how we had Pirlo "surrounded by an excellent defensive, counter attacking team that allows all the dirty work to be sopped up and allows him the space to operate well within that system", that's how we should have been looking to use Hue on a regular basis because there was no one remotely close to his abilities in passing and creating goals.

And yuh can keep on talking like these players will never again be featured on a football field, that these kinda players were a 3 decade ago thing. Is Fabregas finished?

[Stonigut]

Exactly, look you have to go multiple generations to find some good slow man, that tell yuh everything. Last time el pibe played was three decades ago in the 90's and he is Colombian great, world good-ish, no legend, scholes, Gerrard overrated Englishmen, xavi is a great in his time but he is an underling to Ronaldo and Messi both of his time, the difference is speed. Pirlo is a great in his time and in the Italian team where he has his greatest honour at 2006 Copa he was surrounded by an excellent defensive, counter attacking team that allows all the dirty work to be sopped up and allows him the space to operate well within that system, at the end of the day he maybe makes the top five in his generation of ballers. Iniesta good in a system, weak production as an individual does not compare to speedsters at top of game.
Zidane is your best argument here a rare diamond, a true exception.

Again we will get immensely better when we recruit with multiple must haves, speed, skill, reaction time, durability, responsibility and work ethic. Speed is the final separator of good versus great all other things being equal.


Repeat after me, everybody, Identification of players with unusual does of speed and skill, that is the elixir to success in ball. No more slow, tie your shoes lace business, make one pass that leads to a goal every ten games. We need a goal per game or close to it, you only get that with speed and skill.

[Jangle]

Slow midfield general:

Carlos Valderama
Pirlo
Paul Scholes
Zidanne
Xavi
Iniesta
Gerrard
Hue

[Don1]

I am!

Stoni looks like he could coach in the USA. He fails to understand what speed means in football, how it is used, how it is assessed, how it is trained. He jumps on the latest trend as if it were gospel, and waits to pounce on the next one, always trying to mold our situation to the tactics of the day.

Suh whe yuh seh...Stoni ah one waggonist?? I think you're being a tad harsh.

Stoni has great ideas...but he gets off track sometimes by an over-reliance on statistics. We known the adage ...Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

I like statistics ...but one must have excellent context to them & the subject matter to determine how useful they are in describing reality

Without good context and logical interpretation.... statistics are just so much rubbish

[Assasin]

That is the beauty of football to any other sport. There is no one pre set standard to what makes a good footballer. Not brightness, not speed, not tallness or shortness, not ball control, not dribbling, not tricks, not fitness, yet all of them help.

[Mosiah]

Stoni fell for it, what can I say!

[Assasin]

Exactly. Most of the REAL FAST players are nowhere near the top.

How many yard baller you think Messi coulda beat in a 100 meter?

Players like John Terry, Pirlo etc. Some 12 year running a champs coulda beat them.

[Mosiah]

Stoni, no one has overrated anything. Everyone knows Maestro's limitations, as we all recognize Iniesta's. Of course, we would love if each and every Reggae Boy was 6' tall, could jump 7' and run a 10.4 100m. We tried that with the U20 team in January and the results were disastrous!

The only time the team looked half decent was when Luca Levee, Martin Davis and Khallil Stewart were on the field. Hue would run whey left any and all of them on the track. Stacked head to foot, they would struggle to match the height of Javaun Waugh, the big central defender. But they could pass and they could move and they understood the game.

The point is football is not about getting the best athletes together and placing a football in their midst. And playing fast is not just about running fast. Fast footballers don't, just because, play fast. Our coaches need to know how to coach and train for the faster game.

So, this Ozil vs Hue thread is flattering yet ignorant. The Reggae Boyz laboured for years not having a player, a creative midfielder, a genius, who could place a ball on that 6'-2", sprinter's eyebrow. Would I have preferred if Hue could glide down the sidelines like Ozil while performing his magic? What do you think? Thank God we're blessed with athletes because you cannot coach genius. When you find these players you do everything to develop the other parts of their game.

Time for us to look forward and search for that player who would satisfy that athletic ability that we ALL would like to see, while being able to play fast, think the game, make great passes and shoot like thunder. Until that happens, our best teams will continue to be a mixture of styles and qualities, not some cookie-cutter bunch of robotic Bolts.

No more Hue threads, please!

[Stonigut]

Mo, the point is we overrate what we see as skill at the detriment of speed and this is repeated over and over in our best players, the hyped players not being able to even cling on for survival in pro leagues because the bottom line is they are not good athletes, success in sports starts with superior athletes, that is just the bottom line. We have done a poor job of producing a conveyor belt that sharpens skill and marries this with good athletes.

[Stonigut]

Hahahah bdl funny stuff Mo, I have personally used the exact thing I have preached from my first day on this site, you guys overthink this thing, speed and skill is the base, all, all of our best ballers have this combination, all our best ballers that produced at a high level in top professional leagues, everybody else just had magical moments on rare occasion, so our best in last thirty years of football you can count on less than one hand, the best is somewhere between Bibi and Fuller and next best a rung down is Marshall and Williams both appreciably slower than the first two, all with strong will to succeed and persevere thus the long careers at a very high level. Speed and skill is the foundation, the faster you figure it out the better the results all other things held equal.

[Mosiah]

It is an eediat list! Stoni uses it to prove, try to prove, that the best players are the fastest, when these are not necessarily the fastest players in football. The real fast ones, some of them, are major ruxes!!!

[Mosiah]

agreed

Success or failure at a VERY competitive & long-tailed activity like football is complicated since it's enveloped in a web of interconnected strands

Reducing that complexity to a few discrete cause/effect constructs is often too simplistic

Mind you I'm not accusing Stoni of being simplistic.... necessarily

I am!

Stoni looks like he could coach in the USA. He fails to understand what speed means in football, how it is used, how it is assessed, how it is trained. He jumps on the latest trend as if it were gospel, and waits to pounce on the next one, always trying to mold our situation to the tactics of the day.