RealGM

I know this board isn't the most active on realgm and it mgiht be a drag for many, but I was wondering if anyone could make a top 3 players in each position list. I love player comparison and I can't find a good PC board on soccer anywhere online, and I feel like I learned alot more about basketball on the PC board when I was younger. Now that we have the lockout I've started following soccer religiously (always been a big fan but never had the time. All i have right now to go by are limited knowledge on what I've seen by myself and Fifa 2012 rankings

Based on quality and a bit on current form:

Strikers:

Van Persie
Suarez
Rooney

Attacking midfielders:

Lionel Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo
David Silva

Wingers:

Di Maria
Nani
Gareth Bale

Central midfielders:

Xavi
Iniesta
Xabi Alonso

Full backs:

Ashley Cole
Dani Alves
Marcelo

Central Defenders:

Nemanja Vidic
Vincent Kompany
Gerard Pique

Goal Keepers:

Iker Casillas
Petr Cech
Pepe Reina

Sorry but there is just no way that Franck Ribery isn't on the list right now. In the absence of Robben he's been the heart and soul of Bayern Munich.
Pretty sure he has outplayed all three of Nani, Di Maria and Bale this season easily.

Schweinsteiger should be in there as well over Xabi Alonso and Neuer's season stats are 4 goals against in 17 games.
I guess you could argue that Neuer hasn't had that much to do this season because of Munich's dominance but then again Manchester City wasn't able to score on him either.

Petr Cech didn't look all that good in that 5-3 defeat against Arsenal btw.
2:2, 2:3 and 3:5 all could've been saved by him. Obviously, it was a mistake by the defenders to let the Arsenal players get so free in front of Cech but come on that's 3 shots who were in Cech's reach. He's gotta keep at least two of them.

If you're looking for somewhere to begin watching the best players then slava's list is as good as any. If you want to argue a definitive list, i'm not sure it works for soccer. The positions aren't set like they are for nfl and basketball, so you can't directly compare 'forwards' or 'central midfielders' because different players in those positions bring different things to the table. You could split the positions into more categories but that would kind of defeat the point. The more logical discussion would be 'who would be in the best team' because that includes team balance etc which is as important in soccer as individual brilliance. :twocents:

Foye wrote:Sorry but there is just no way that Franck Ribery isn't on the list right now. In the absence of Robben he's been the heart and soul of Bayern Munich.
Pretty sure he has outplayed all three of Nani, Di Maria and Bale this season easily.

Schweinsteiger should be in there as well over Xabi Alonso and Neuer's season stats are 4 goals against in 17 games.
I guess you could argue that Neuer hasn't had that much to do this season because of Munich's dominance but then again Manchester City wasn't able to score on him either.

nobody cares about German league

Foye wrote:Petr Cech didn't look all that good in that 5-3 defeat against Arsenal btw.
2:2, 2:3 and 3:5 all could've been saved by him. Obviously, it was a mistake by the defenders to let the Arsenal players get so free in front of Cech but come on that's 3 shots who were in Cech's reach. He's gotta keep at least two of them.

You can't judge a player just by looking at one game. He was easily Chelsea's player of the year last year; and the previous game, he single-handedly won the game for us by making some crucial saves (including the penalty + rebound saves). And like you said, all of the goals he conceded against Arsenal were easy chances created by some awful defending.

But I do agree that Neuer has to be on the list. Other than him, I would consider adding Cavani, Neymar and maybe Gomez (not really a fan, but #s don' lie ) to Slava's list. I'd drop Pique too but can't think of the best replacement at the moment.

GK: Neuer, Casillas
RB: Maicon, (Lahm) Sergio Ramos
LB: Marcelo, Coentrão
CB: Thiago Silva, Piqué, Vidic, Chiellini.
DM: De Rossi, Essieb
CM: Schweinsteiger, Iniesta, Xavi and Marchisio
AM: Messi, Fabregas
FW: Ronaldo, Aguero
ST: Rooney, Ibrahimovic

Yeah to be fair, I totally forgot the German league. I atleast tried to include someone from Serie A but couldn't figure any.

I'd easily add Ribery ahead of Bale, Neuer ahead of Casillas and Schweinsteiger ahead of Alonso.

bbms wrote:GK: Neuer, Casillas
RB: Maicon, (Lahm) Sergio Ramos
LB: Marcelo, Coentrão
CB: Thiago Silva, Piqué, Vidic, Chiellini.
DM: De Rossi, Essien
CM: Schweinsteiger, Iniesta, Xavi and Marchisio
AM: Messi, Fabregas
FW: Ronaldo, Aguero
ST: Rooney, Ibrahimovic

Green = Agree
Red = Disagree

Essien hasn't been relevant for a couple of seasons now.

GK: Neuer, Casillas
RB: Lahm, Dani Alves
CB: Vidic, Chiellini, Sergio Ramos, John Terry
LB: Marcelo, Ashley Cole
DM: Yaya Toure, Xavi
MC: Iniesta, Lampard
ML: Messi, C.Ronaldo
MR:Mesut Ozil, Ribery
ST: Rooney, Soldado

Neither Terry or Lampard should be on there, imo. This year there isn't a striker in the world playing better than RvP.

Jugs wrote:

Foye wrote:Sorry but there is just no way that Franck Ribery isn't on the list right now. In the absence of Robben he's been the heart and soul of Bayern Munich.
Pretty sure he has outplayed all three of Nani, Di Maria and Bale this season easily.

Schweinsteiger should be in there as well over Xabi Alonso and Neuer's season stats are 4 goals against in 17 games.
I guess you could argue that Neuer hasn't had that much to do this season because of Munich's dominance but then again Manchester City wasn't able to score on him either.

nobody cares about German league

You don't care about the German league but that doesn't take away the fact that we actually have the 2nd most exciting league in the world behind the EPL. Serie A and La Liga are washed up. Obviously, Barca and Real are top teams but after the first 7 or 8 teams La Liga is very weak.
Serie A is taking a step into the right direction right now but they're still behind the Bundesliga in almost anything.
We're also among the three best teams in the world while having just three player playing outside of Germany (At the time of the WC it were only 2).

5DOM wrote:

Foye wrote:Petr Cech didn't look all that good in that 5-3 defeat against Arsenal btw.
2:2, 2:3 and 3:5 all could've been saved by him. Obviously, it was a mistake by the defenders to let the Arsenal players get so free in front of Cech but come on that's 3 shots who were in Cech's reach. He's gotta keep at least two of them.

You can't judge a player just by looking at one game. He was easily Chelsea's player of the year last year; and the previous game, he single-handedly won the game for us by making some crucial saves (including the penalty + rebound saves). And like you said, all of the goals he conceded against Arsenal were easy chances created by some awful defending.

But I do agree that Neuer has to be on the list. Other than him, I would consider adding Cavani, Neymar and maybe Gomez (not really a fan, but #s don' lie ) to Slava's list. I'd drop Pique too but can't think of the best replacement at the moment.

Obviously, you can't judge a goal keeper by one game, I know.
However, my general impression about Cech has been for a year or two that he's not as good anymore as he was a few years ago.
To be fair I don't watch many Chelsea games but whenever I do he didn't seem as good as a keeper as in his first 5 or 6 Chelsea years. He was a freakin beast back then. I actually agree that he's still one of the top keepers in the world but probably more top 5 or top 7 than top 3.

Foye wrote:Obviously, you can't judge a goal keeper by one game, I know.
However, my general impression about Cech has been for a year or two that he's not as good anymore as he was a few years ago.
To be fair I don't watch many Chelsea games but whenever I do he didn't seem as good as a keeper as in his first 5 or 6 Chelsea years. He was a freakin beast back then. I actually agree that he's still one of the top keepers in the world but probably more top 5 or top 7 than top 3.

I think his decline after the head injury is often greatly exaggerated, but I can sort of agree with this. The thing is it's so hard to tell the difference between the top 3 keeper and a top 5-7 one because the defence can change the keeper's reputation greatly. Cech went from having one of the greatest defensive teams ever in front of him to a team that conceded 5 to Arsenal at home. That's not really helping his case.

perhaps this can be done by naming the top few players per position by league. then we can decide on a starting XI or something of the sort. Clearly the bias on this board will be toward EPL, then obviously Barcelona/Real will fill in the rest of the spaces.

EPL
Van Persie, Rooney, Suarez, Balotelli
Aguero, Silva, Bale, Mata
Nani, Young, Modric, Toure
Cole, Bosingwa
Vidic, Terry, Kompany
Szczęsny, Cech, Hart

SerieA
Ibrahimovic, Cavani, Di Natale
Hernanes, Sniejder, Hamsik, Boateng,
Marchisio, Pirlo, De Rossi
Maicon, Abate, Maggio
Thiago Silva, Chiellini
Buffon, Handanovic, De Sanctis

Liga
Real Madrid
Barcelona

Bundesliga:
Bayern Munich + Götze

Others:
FWD: Neymar, Hulk, Eto'o
Mid: Danny, Pastore
Def: Rolando, Fucile, Lugano
GK: Muslera

Something like

CF: RVP, Rooney, Suarez, Hernandez
AM: Silva, VDV (October version)
W: Nani, Bale
CM: Modric, Wilshere
DM: Toure, Song
LB: Cole, Baines, Enrique
CB: Vidic, Kompany, Terry
RB: Ivanovic (if he plays RB), Richards, Sagna
GK: Cech, Reina, Hart

Not yet voting for Szczesny, Mata, Aguero, Balotelli or even Young

I'd stick Vermaelan on there, and maybe Scott Parker.

i'm surprised i haven't seen much mention of Higuain. He's been scoring pretty nicely so far this year.

RVP and Rooney in front of Yaya and Wilshere picks itself.

For the EPL THIS SEASON, I'd go:

GK: Cech, Hart, Vorm (Having a fantastic season for Swansea, have only conceeded one goal at home and that was on own goal)

LB: Ashley Cole, Jose Enrique, Baines

CB: Kompany, Vidic, Terry, Steven Taylor (Unbeaten for a reason), Heitinga

RB: Micah Richards, Kyle Walker, Ivanovic (when he plays there)

DM: Scott Parker, De Jong, Lucas

CM: Yaya Toure (Plays a lot more advanced these days), Ramires, Modric, Cabaye

AM: Silva, Van Der Vaart, Mata

LW: Bale, Nani, Gervinho

RW: Young, Walcott, Sturridge, Kuyt

ST: RVP, Aguero, Dzeko, Suarez, Rooney