Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

John Charles is another who would lay claim to being the best Welsh player ever.

Gingerfinch wrote:John Charles is another who would lay claim to being the best Welsh player ever.

He often wins or makes the top of lists of best British players, but I am not sure his legacy is completely overblown. He played only one season of top flight English football, and while his initial success in Italy was hailed as a mark of his quality, the truth is he did very well in Serie A just before the league became anything of note. As a good example, Charles won Serie A with Juventus in his first year there..... but as a mark of how good the league was, a team called "Weiner Sports" from Austria beat Juventus 0-7 in Turin in the European Cup with Charles in the team. So, I dont think you can argue his time in Serie A was in parallel to its rise as a true powerhouse league. Juventus did nothing in Europe with Charles in the side.

Its not really until the early 60s that Italian football was anything special, with the emergence in both Milan teams with the catenaccio style that made those two teams a force in Europe..... Juventus by that stage were nearly relegated. Ad I think as the league got better generally, Charles returns thinned out, and he left Italy to go back to Leeds.

If you were to be fair to each era, I very much doubt someone would call you a legend of the history of the game if you never played in the PL, and had gone to a second rate league rather than step up to the the top.

Bale won multiple European cups, and played at the top level... for me there is no comparison.

Yeah fair enough. Hard, or impossible to compare a player from that era to now anyway.

Not saying he's better but I preferred watching Bale to Giggs.

Bale himself has a hard legacy to pin point. I cannot remember the exact stat because its a long time ago, but IIRC in games where he played more than a half of football, his first 20 games were all losses for Spurs, in an era where the team in general were finishing in the top 4 and doing really well. He was seen as a tremendous waste of money, a liability, and with the aforementioned stat, a curse on the team - they won every game without him, and lose every game with him. And in fairness he was absolute rubbish. I actually remember my friend mocking me at the time, because I said I had no idea why they played him at left back, and that I'd throw him up front because he was clearly a forward. The friend has since apologised years ago, but when they did move him to left wing or second striker, he just exploded.

But the memory I have is of a sort of prolonged period of dominance for a few years... the stats say otherwise, he basically had one season at Spurs (his 6th) where his numbers show top level quality, the rest are not notably great. And for a player at Madrid who played in a team that dominated European football, he never once scored 20 goals, and he had a 4 year lean spell where he barely deserved to be in the team.

All of that seems academic though. When the boy was at his top level, there was just something about it that sticks in the memory - scary pace, scary power. When he grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, you were in trouble. Maybe injuries robbed us off a Ronaldo like period of dominance, I think certainly at the stage he went to Real I would say there was potential for that. Very similar players at their peak in terms of what they offered, although Ronaldo was more lethal.

So what legacy does he leave behind? Did injury rob us of a true timeless talent? Or was he just not that good?

The eye test tells me he really could have been that good. That's my personal take. His body just failed him, and left him with a pretty disappointing career.....

Well, if multiple Champions' League, La Liga and Copa del Rey titles, plus leading your national side to their first semi ever and their first WC qualification in a generation constitute a disappointing career, most footballers have downright catastrophic careers . I reckon most would take Bale's achievements, even if you can argue how much he really contributed to the side.

I get what you're saying, SP, he probably could have been even better and perhaps didn't contribute as much as he might have to his club sides. But given the results Real achieved, perhaps he didn't need to, and was content to collect an enormous paycheck.

As an aside, I have occasionally wondered how fringe players feel when their side wins something but they didn't really contribute but get on the podium anyway. For example James Vince has a world cup medal with England, when playing 3 group matches, 2 of which were 2 of the 3 matches England lost, and scored a grand total of 40 runs in 3 games. But he has the medal. Hey, if it comes to that I have an interdepartmental cricket tournament winner's medal somewhere from my time in university representing the chem department. I think I played about 3 matches in the season, took one wicket, scored about ten runs and wasn't selected at all in the second half of the season, because I was cr@p and the department team wasn't (they won, after all). But I played in the team that season, so it technically counted...

Like Paul Collingwood's MBE!

bigfluffylemon wrote:Well, if multiple Champions' League, La Liga and Copa del Rey titles, plus leading your national side to their first semi ever and their first WC qualification in a generation constitute a disappointing career, most footballers have downright catastrophic careers . I reckon most would take Bale's achievements, even if you can argue how much he really contributed to the side

I think its fair to say that Wales got lucky to qualify for the WC, and I am not sure how much Bale had to do with it (hattrick against Belarus, then nothing). Belgium fielded an experimental XI with a few one cap wonders in that last group game (and still bombarded them without scoring a winner), and then Wales drew Ukraine, who had something like 13 players who hadn't been able to play football for months due to the war, and who also played Wales off the park till their lack of fitness told in the end.

Still, the point about his achievements stand.

Europa cup draw now....

USG v Manchester United... PLEASE!!

sussexpob wrote:Europa cup draw now....

USG v Manchester United... PLEASE!!

Union Berlin.... great. Thanks for that UEFA. You dished out the side we played in the group stage already first round of the knockouts.

In the Champions League, its not possible to play the same team as the groups until the round of 8.... why isnt it the same here?

Turns a potential glamourous tie into a boring game. Not only are Union Berlin not really a famous name, but they are not really famous name I have already paid to see this year.

At least we beat them in the groups and won the league.... so lets just do that again and get Juventus or United next.

Or alternatively, considering they are second on goal difference in the Bundasliga, finally get the 7-0 hiding we have been avoiding so far and crash out. First leg in Berlin, probably be over by the time we get them in Brussels.

sussexpob wrote:La Liga once again refuse to register Barcelona's players, but what seems apparent at this stage is Laporte is now green lighting further asset stripping to force these transfers through; and of course, that asks serious questions as to what damage to the future they are doing.

and on top of all this financial fiddling, Barcelona have now been charged with corruption after bunging a total of 7.4 million quid to a former referee boss between 2001 and 2018

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64918604

and still nothing will end up being done

sussexpob wrote:Dante Vanzier lives near the Union ground and is always in my local since moving to the club.

Nice kid....crossing all my fingers and toes he gets a first cap tonight for the Belgian team.

Dante tranferred to New York Red Bulls at the end of January, and has just been accused of racially abusing an opponent player in a match at the weekend vs San Jose.

This is not the Dante I know. I find it incredibly difficult to believe there is any truth in the accusations..... I hope this blows over and is untrue. Very sad.

I see that the bestest, bravest manager in the world (show some respect) has been sacked again

The Zwanze Derby, Racing White Daring Moleenbeek v Union SG, has always been the historically biggest football game in Brussels, and if you go back many decades when both teams used to actually win stuff, was the biggest derby in Belgium. This derby has always been noted for its friendly atmosphere. In fact, on the day of the game supporters have always drunk together and had a festival to celebrate "Zwanze" (Brussels) culture, with bands, bars, food, etc.

This year, the game at Molenbeek was scheduled for the 2nd weekend of the year, but was moved due to Union's participation in the Europa League qualifiers - the Belgian FA, who now contractually have no say on the scheduling of matches due to the TV rights, have now been informed by Eleven sports (the rights owners) that the game must be scheduled for 28.09 at 18h00 in the frigging early evening..... Not only does scheduling the game during a weekday at this time destroy the possibility of the traditional Zwanze parade + festivities, but how the flaming hell do they expect everyone to be able to finish work at 17h30-18h00 and get to see the game? It is totally ludicrous.

The reason is, Eleven Sports wish to exploit the purchase of the rights by showing every single game. But in order to do that with midweek games, they need to be spread out between Tuesday late afternoon and Thursday night, with three games scheduled (1800-2000-2200)..... midnight on a weekday is equally ludicrous, and shows a level of disrespect to families who go with kids that is not acceptable.

For this reason, tonight the Union Bhoys Fan Group will go to Molenbeek to meet our rivals, and we will celebrate the Zwanze together like is traditional. And we will shake hands on boycotting this idiotically scheduled match, both on TV and at the stadium. And we will be joined by fan groups from all over Belgium in our protest.....

Its time these organisations that run the game started to respect those who pay their wages.

quite right too

I see that Bennell the paedo has died in prison

He won't be a miss