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2 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

The idea that Mascherano was ‘too poor on the ball’ is fucking hilarious. 

I'm beginning to wonder if there must be another footballer who wore a Mascherano mask who fooled everyone. Christian Poulsen, was it you? Perhaps Charlie Adam? Or possibly Jean Michel Ferri? 

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7 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

Barca won everything with him at CB and did that in a dominant fashion. That's really all that matters. Whether he would have been a "top" CB anywhere else isn't really relevant. 

Obviously not. No serious football fan would claim that Pedro was a ‘top’ footballer for example, despite all the trophies, because well.. he’s a bit of a donkey. Trophies are important of course, but in measuring individual’s ability you have to take into account the player’s contribution to winning those trophies. In Didi’s case for example, he came on at half time in Istanbul and single-handedly turn the game around. Whereas with Mascherano, some people might claim that Barcelona won all those trophies in spite of him not because of him. However, we’re digressing... I have very little interest in discussing Mascherano as a centre half. As a DM, he was not nearly as good as Fabinho right now.

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4 hours ago, viRdjil said:

Obviously not. No serious football fan would claim that Pedro was a ‘top’ footballer for example, despite all the trophies, because well.. he’s a bit of a donkey. Trophies are important of course, but in measuring individual’s ability you have to take into account the player’s contribution to winning those trophies. In Didi’s case for example, he came on at half time in Istanbul and single-handedly turn the game around. Whereas with Mascherano, some people might claim that Barcelona won all those trophies in spite of him not because of him. However, we’re digressing... I have very little interest in discussing Mascherano as a centre half. As a DM, he was not nearly as good as Fabinho right now.

I don't quite see it that way.  Didi shut Kaka down, giving Gerrard et al licence to get ripped into the Italiians.  He was a key factor in it, but Gerrard had far more impact in pushing us on to win it, from scoring and earning the penalty to just being Gerrard and putting himself about.

 

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17 minutes ago, scudger99 said:

I don't quite see it that way.  Didi shut Kaka down, giving Gerrard et al licence to get ripped into the Italiians.  He was a key factor in it, but Gerrard had far more impact in pushing us on to win it, from scoring and earning the penalty to just being Gerrard and putting himself about.

 

Fair enough, Gerrard was a superhuman from the second half onwards. However, really the only thing different from us being 3-0 down and 3-3, was Didi Hamann on the pitch. Didi was a far better footballer than Mascherano. To use Masch’s stint at Barcelona to support the claim that he was a world class defensive midfielder is absurd. He wasn’t good enough to play in midfield for them.

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6 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

When you are trying to say Javier Mascherano wasn't a superb player there really is no argument to that.

He had a specific skill set of which he was excellent at. He was never a world class midfielder, and was far from the level Fabinho is showing currently. 

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1 hour ago, viRdjil said:

Fair enough, Gerrard was a superhuman from the second half onwards. However, really the only thing different from us being 3-0 down and 3-3, was Didi Hamann on the pitch. Didi was a far better footballer than Mascherano. To use Masch’s stint at Barcelona to support the claim that he was a world class defensive midfielder is absurd. He wasn’t good enough to play in midfield for them.

I'm inclined to agree with you about Didi and Mascherano.  Didi used his brain more to snuff out the danger while Mascherano relied on his Duracell bunny physicality (Didi also scored some fucking screamers).  But I can understand why folks would see it the other way.  It is all just opinions after all.

And I never could quite get my head round Barca making Mascherano a centre back.

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2 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

You're saying things that don't warrant a serious discussion. 

 

You do it regularly, hence some people just assuming you're trolling.

This is an outrageous post. A few of us are having actual football discussions about our players current and past. Some of you (namely Verbal Diarrhoea, Numero, and yourself) seem to have very little interest in it other thank taking snide jibes from the sideline. Fair enough, but to then to have the audacity to accuse me of trolling is just honestly embarrassing. 

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26 minutes ago, viRdjil said:

This is an outrageous post. A few of us are having actual football discussions about our players current and past. Some of you (namely Verbal Diarrhoea, Numero, and yourself) seem to have very little interest in it other thank taking snide jibes from the sideline. Fair enough, but to then to have the audacity to accuse me of trolling is just honestly embarrassing. 

 

D6FD525B-CB2A-4000-98C7-91ACF9FC6399.jpeg

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17 minutes ago, Soft Joe said:

Javier Mascherano wasn’t world class?

What the fuck?! This must be some kind of attention seeking thing. Just spout daft outlandish opinions for the sake of it. I love Didi and he was instrumental in turning the second half around in Istanbul but he wasn’t in the same class as Mascherano.

I wouldn’t go that far. Didi was better, but they were about the same class IMO. 

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10 hours ago, viRdjil said:

Obviously not. No serious football fan would claim that Pedro was a ‘top’ footballer for example, despite all the trophies, because well.. he’s a bit of a donkey. Trophies are important of course, but in measuring individual’s ability you have to take into account the player’s contribution to winning those trophies. In Didi’s case for example, he came on at half time in Istanbul and single-handedly turn the game around. Whereas with Mascherano, some people might claim that Barcelona won all those trophies in spite of him not because of him. However, we’re digressing... I have very little interest in discussing Mascherano as a centre half. As a DM, he was not nearly as good as Fabinho right now.

Pedro isn't a good example. He was a really good player to have on one of the wings ahead of Messi as he has intelligent movement and he's a decent finisher. All players in that Barca 2009-2011 starting 11 were important, that's why they were so great. It's ignorant to say otherwise.

 

And people are mentioning Mascherano's qualities compared to Fabinho, which happen to be being a good centre half for a great team. I still think Fabinho is better but it only adds to Mascherano's legacy as a very good player that he could play there and excel.

 

Not sure what the point is of adding Hamann to the conversation.

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