Your Opinion: Is football really a collective game?

Neoexodus

Neoexodus

SLB Juve Barça Arsenal
8 November 2007
Portugal
Your Opinion: Is football really a collective game?
Yes, thats a question that im asking, we all know that it is, 11 man on a pitch with the goal of scoring in the opposing net. But in nowadays Metagame, is that really all about the 11 men or that 1 star that, when playing, the team wins?
For example, the biggest competition in Europe:

2008 Manchester United

They had an outstanding Ronaldo that ended up scoring 31 gols in the Premier League and 8 goals in the Champions League, one of which in the Final.

2007 AC Milan

An outstanding Kaká that was on his best, ripping teams left and right, to end up winning their 7th Champions League.

2006 FC Barcelona

Ronaldinho. It was his brilliance that made him the star he is, and what he did in this specific year was crazy. Completely ripping apart Real Madrid and making Santiago Barnabeu applaud him instead of Real was the highest in addition to Winning the Champions League, he was just unstoppable and had the full library of dribbles on his mind in every pass and every run.

Well i could move on talking about this, but the point is that football is starting to look like that Adidas marketing "*Name the Player* +10", nowadays its the same, we talk about a specific team that wins and its always this that we get.
So can a team only by their collective will and collective game win a Champions League, for example?
I think not a single team can do it.
Whats your opinion about this?
 
These are just players who stand out of a team, where did these stars get the ball from, past the ball to? Football and all sports will always need your team, You could argue Steven Gerrard, but he is just very inspirational.

But you can see a team like Barca, their success is through their team work and skill! Look at Arsenal when they have a poor performance, and then compare it to one of their better games and you can how their one-two's and fantastic team work lead to wins.

Adidas and Nike only sponsor individuals because they are popular among the fans, having big posters of Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard will surely get people's attention and possibly purchase the boots / equipment. The reason I bought my studs was because of a big advertisement with Kaka.
 
Without the team, those players wouldn't have shined. Ambrosini and Gattuso were doing all the dirty work, and Seedorf had to play deeper to allow Kaka to do what he does.
 
Yes, but it goes both ways; Anyone want to make a statistic of Barca 2004-07 results when Ronaldinho wasn't playing? Terrible.

Or now, when Messi isn't in form Barca kinda struggles. They win, but it's a difference in score.

So I'd say a brilliant player needs a good team, but usually good teams need a brilliant player to win the CL.
 
It definitely is a team game.
Like Milanista said: those stars need players to "serve" them.
A team like Atletico Madrid (or Inter to a lesser degree) is the living proof that football is a team game. Atletico have Aguero, Maxi Rodriguez, Simao, Forlan, Ujfalusi and Heitinga...yet they have no team spirit and play with ups and downs.
Put Messi, kaka or Ronanldinho in that team and it won't change a bit.

About Cr. Ronaldo: this player even needs more his team mates. It's true that last season he was fantastic, but that was becausetheteam was brilliant. Ronaldo rarely is the deciding factor when United sin't playing good. Messi can do that for Barcelona.

Players like Messi (or Maradonna) can make the difference now and then but they need a good team.

It's a myth that Maradonna won the 1986 WC all by himslef. He played in an excellent teaml with fatastic players like Brown, Burruchaga and Valdano. Their coach, Bilardo, was very defensive minded, that's why this wasn't the most spectacular team.
 
teddy touched the point. Im not questioning that Football is or isn't a team game, it needs to be, the thing that im questioning is that can a team win a competition like the CL just with a solid teamworking team and no stars or key players? Cous we see Barcelona (Messi), Arsenal (Cesc), Liverpool (Gerrard/Torres, rly don't know here), etc.
About Maradona, he is Historical because he could make a Napoli team that was a simple midtable team, to winning Serie As and a UEFA Cup, he was Master Class, but he wasn't alone of course, but if he wasn't playing the difference was astonishing!
What im questioning, again, is:
Can a team with no superstars and only team working players win anything nowadays?
 
Yes they can: look at Porto a couple of years ago (and look also at Porto against Man Utd the day before yesterday).
 
Ronaldinho did nothing in the Champions League final in 2006. The winning goal? Juilano Belletti. A good player, but hardly someone you would pick out as a match winner.

I'm afraid I have no time for this [Player] + 10 others argument. As others have pointed out, it's the team who provide the platform for these star players to shine. Ronaldo was on fire for Man United last year, but equally if not more important was the fact they had arguably the best defence in Europe, with Ferdinand and Vidic the key men.

Focusing only on the attacking talent is schoolboy football analysis.
 
Neoexodus said:
About Maradona, he is Historical because he could make a Napoli team that was a simple midtable team to winning Serie As and a UEFA Cup...
Click to expand...
a simple midtable team that had in his roster players like ferrara,francini,de napoli,carnevale,giordano,bagni,crippa (all of them played with Italian national team),a young zola,careca and alemao....

maradona was great,maybe the greatest,but Napoli was a really good team when he played there :)
 
ask us germans and our national team. football is ALWAYS a collective game and nothing else.

in every decade since the 1950's we played 1 or 2 finals or win minimum one title in a decade. do we have "worldstars" ?
 
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except in the last 10 years you always had stars in Germany.....do you remember beckembauer,muller,rumenigge,matthaus etc?

winning teams have always stars,even if without teamwork stars can't do anything
 
gigimarulla said:
a simple midtable team that had in his roster players like ferrara,francini,de napoli,carnevale,giordano,bagni,crippa (all of them played with Italian national team),a young zola,careca and alemao....

maradona was great,maybe the greatest,but Napoli was a really good team when he played there :)
Click to expand...

That is another Maradonna myth, that he played in an average napoli team...like you said: they had a class team...Maradonna was the icing on the cake...a class icing, but the cake was excellent too.
 
Still if there are 11 men playing, why can't a team like Barcelona play the same if Messi or Xavi aren't there? or Why can't Manchester Play the same way they played last season? only because Ronaldo isn't playing well? is that so? Why did Arsenal Play so average until Fabregas and Adebayor came from injury? They sure have 11 good team working guys to play well, right? Then why did they suddenly start playing like the big team they are? Why can't Real Madrid play well? just because Diarra and Van Nistelrooy are out for the season?
All this just to question, why are teams so focused in one single player when there are 11 players on the field playing? Why not focus on the team instead of the key player?
 
its a team game, its just that the vast majority of people who watch the game, particularly the younger audience are obseesed with the more 'glamarous' positions on the pitch.

Gerrard wouldn't have half the impact he does without Mascherano.
Same for Kaka without Gattuso.

Individuals do give teams confidence. If a certain player who can provide that moment of magic or drive is out, then it saps the confidence of the others.
 
Football Gifts

I like the question very much...Is football really a collective game? My answer is that football cannot be possible without team..
 
The best teams in the world contain=

experienced pro's
utillity players
world stars (inidivdual brilliance)
Competent players in their positions.
 
There are many different perspectives and angles one can look at this question but without getting into it much, in short I'd just say that in my opinion, overall, 'Yes, it's definitely a collective game!'.
 
As good as Robinho is, how much has he helped Man City this season?
Yeah, its definately still a collective game. It's just that even though the team is more important, someone has to take the spotlight. Even if you string together 30+ passes between all 11 players on the pitch, there can still only be one player who's gonna get the credit for the goal at the end.
Its just like making a movie. So much work goes into the music production, the cameras, the makeup, the lighting, etc. But in the end, the actors take the spotlight.
 
Also the fact Robinho aint all that good. I think what your getting at is the best players make a good team a great team. Sometimes a game would end 0-0 but one players does something that helps the team win 1-0 a great example is Ronaldo's goal against Porto. he made the difference. it was a collective performance from the team but that moment from Ronaldo was the difference.
 
No, what I mean is that teams have a star player because they have to have one. When you score a goal that took a lot of team effort, you'll still only find one name on the score sheet. Even if it was a collective team effort, someone had to take the responsibility of winning the game for the team. Which is why you rarely see a defender as a teams star player. Its the attackers job to win the game for you. The defenders job is to prevent the opposition from winning, not winning the game yourself.
 
I think what Neoxodus is talking about is something else. I beleive today's game is not very much about collective football. I think most of the succesful teams are not so because they display super creative teamwork for 90 minutes to open up the defense of the opposition and score their goals with defense splitting through passes preceded by 40 passes in the oppositions midfield.

I think today's game is more about having a team with high fighting power and resiliency and along with this as many offensive weapons as possible. The succesful teams of today are so because they manage to be very hard to play against, and their offensive weapons are of top quality which have that tendency to make the score to change the game to 1-0.

The concept of star player is different. JT is a star player for Chelsea. Mascherano is a star player for Liverpool. Star players aren't only goal scorers or offensive players. They are the key players in the team.

I couldn't explain myself fully, but I will write more as more responses come.
 
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