Sol Campbell

[aRdja]

Terry's medals, European record and longevity at the highest level speaks otherwise.

Still not as good a defender though.

 

Andy Cole won more medals than Shearer, etc.

[Guest Alex_K]

Right - so you've got no arguement beyond a bit of hapless rhetoric. Reel off Campbell's world-class performances against elite teams in Europe and internationally, or indeed against great domestic sides.

 

I'll wait.

[TheHowieLama]

Well -- pretty much every match between 2001 and 2004 he was one of the best defenders in the country. Won cups with three different sides -- shut down Argentina in 02, not his fault Seaman gets loobed there is it - - was one of the best players in the Euro in 04 over the whole thing. Beckham buries a penalty there and they are through to the semis.

They blank everyone through the 2006 CL and he scores in the final against Barca down a man.

[Creator Supreme]

Not for me, I'd have taken Sami and Carra every time.

[lifetime fan]

As much as he’s a prick I’d have Ferdinand above Campbell every time.

[VladimirIlyich]

He was a very good footballer. Not elite. Accomplished nothing in Europe or on the international stage. Ferdinand & Terry comparisons are off.

Played in a CL final and scored too. He was a superb defender but is a very strangely behaved human being.

[Einch]

I think he’s watched that jarg Hercules movie with Arnie one too many times.

[A Red]

Hes a man of no principles, he even touted himself to go back to Spurs because he heard their strike force was bent and keane

[Anubis]

Very good player. Took abominable stick from Spurs supporters (who have short memories when it comes to their own indiscretions). But a walking, talking ego with no introspection whatsoever.

[aRdja]

As much as he’s a prick I’d have Ferdinand above Campbell every time.

It’s a close one. Ferdinand the better footballer, but Sol was a better defender IMO. My all-time centre half partnership for England from those I’ve actually seen play.

[lebron]

Slightly off topic, but I remember Owen always struggling more against Campbell than any of the other great CB's in that generation. Still amazes me that England couldn't produce better results with the players they had in the late 90's, early/mid 2000s.

 

For the record; I'd rank them:

 

1. Ferdinand - Manc cunt, but had everything you'd want from a CB, pace, strength, height, great 1v1, very comfortable on the ball. Hopefully VVD can become our Ferdinand

2. Terry - Horrible person, great CB. A touch behind Ferdinand in most aspects, but immense ability to score goals from set pieces and clear crosses with that huge forehead of his. Good passer of the ball with both feet.

3. Campbell - Possibly the best 1v1 defender of the three. Uncomfortable at times with the ball, and didn't seem as dominant in big games (apart from v us/Owen as mentioned). 

 

King/Carragher and Woodgate a level below, although all of them had very good/great seasons for their respective clubs, and would have been 1st choice NT players in most other eras.

[aRdja]

Slightly off topic, but I remember Owen always struggling more against Campbell than any of the other great CB's in that generation. Still amazes me that England couldn't produce better results with the players they had in the late 90's, early/mid 2000s.

 

For the record; I'd rank them:

 

1. Ferdinand - Manc cunt, but had everything you'd want from a CB, pace, strength, height, great 1v1, very comfortable on the ball. Hopefully VVD can become our Ferdinand

2. Terry - Horrible person, great CB. A touch behind Ferdinand in most aspects, but immense ability to score goals from set pieces and clear crosses with that huge forehead of his. Good passer of the ball with both feet.

3. Campbell - Possibly the best 1v1 defender of the three. Uncomfortable at times with the ball, and didn't seem as dominant in big games (apart from v us/Owen as mentioned).

 

King/Carragher and Woodgate a level below, although all of them had very good/great seasons for their respective clubs, and would have been 1st choice NT players in most other eras.

Good write up...

 

I’d rank them as below though. Sol was faster and stronger than the other two from memory.

 

1. Campbell

2. Ferdinand

3. Terry

 

England had some very good players in the lates 90s early 00s for sure.. but still when you compare them with their competitors, they were still a touch behind.

 

Focusing on the centre of defence; Germany had Sammer, Kohler starting for them for example.. with the likes of Thon and Matthaeus couldn’t get a game. Italy had a proper embarrassment of riches at the back; Nesta, Cannavaro, Maldini, Costacurta. France had Desailly and later Thuram.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Matthaus only played as a sweeper late in his career.

[G Richards]

1. Ferdinand

2. Campbell

3. Terry

 

That’s how I’d rank them. As someone else said, I hope VVD will be our own version of Ferdinand. He’s starting to settle down nicely.

 

As for Campbell, strange fella. Hopefully he gets a job and a chance to show what he can do. It’s probably not racism: it’s just that he comes across as full of himself and weird.

[aRdja]

Matthaus only played as a sweeper late in his career.

Yeah late 90s...

[G Richards]

He wasn’t that old!

[magicrat]

Campbell was as good as Sami at his best . That's as good as it gets, 

[Bjornebye]

As much as he’s a prick I’d have Ferdinand above Campbell every time.

Same

[Bjornebye]

Adams was class too

[lebron]

While I have really fond memories of a lot of our players, and of Hyypia and a few others in particular, I think we tend to overrate them based on our feelings towards them. I know fandom is supposed to be biased, but I think you also have to acknowledge some of their shortcomings as we haven't been successful for such a long period.

 

Hyypia was perfect for us in the couple of seasons where we played really compact and pragmatic/defensive football. Likewise Carragher. Having Hamann (and later Mascherano) in front of them and a keeper alert to rushing off the line to sweep behind them suited them perfectly. I credit Houllier (and later Rafa) for getting so much out of both of them. As has been repeatedly mentioned on here, both would have been eaten alive playing the kind of system we/City do now, and they would also have struggled massively being asked to play for Ferguson in the 90s/00s. For all their game-reading and positioning and leadership/vocality, both struggled with 1v1 defending (this is relative of course, I'm comparing to the upper echelon of players here) and having to cover large areas of space. Imo this is one of the reasons why Man Utd were so successful, and always seemed to be able to flood the box with attacking players, they were more than comfortable with leaving (especially) Ferdinand 1v1 with any attacker out there. Stam was the same, and apart from Torres Vidic could handle most threats too.

 

It's also one of the reasons I'm so optimistic about our future now. We're finally being the ones daring to "throw the kitchen sink" at teams. With buying VVD we've also gone to extreme lengths to finally solve our longstanding problem (again imo) with defenders without enough pace to cope with counters/1v1s. All of our fullbacks are now among the quickest in the league (at a guess, but still), and whenever Gomez is moved into the middle, he will be among the quickest CBs too. I think it's pivotal to how we play and open ourselves up to counters. I wouldn't mind a Xabi type player in the middle, but we seem superfocused on pace and stamina, and I believe we will reap dividends from it once the puzzle is complete.

 

 

I loved Rafa and our 05-09 team, but apart from that last season, I didn't really believe we would win the league playing like we did. We were perfectly set up for Europe, mind. 

 

If (big if) we can keep the core of the players we've got now, and City ease off just a smidgeon, I can see us winning the league again in the next couple of years, and at least produce credible title challenges. Another CB in the mould of VVD (Gomez), a midfield dynamo (Keita) and possibly a playmaker (Zielinski?) and we'd be better set for a title challenge than I can remember. 

 

Apologies for the thread detraction!!

[Section_31]

Campbell shits all over Terry he was one of the best CBs in the world in his pomp. Best way to judge a player is by watching them play rather than on stats. By that logic, Dixon and Winterburn were two of the best fullbacks ever to play the game.

 

Terry was part of a team that played under ultra defensive coaches with money to spend and top class defenders, goalie and DMs around him.

 

Campbell played under Christian Gross.

[cloggypop]

One of the greatest minds in football? Nope!

 

I do hope he gets a job as a manager though. I don’t think it’s racism but there is a little whiff of that in the air, given the low proportion of black managers. So hopefully Campbell gets a gig somewhere and proves his ability as a manager one way or the other.

I hope he gets the Arsenal job. Or Spurs.

[TheHowieLama]

Playing next to Desaiily may have helped. Gallas was a beast back then too. And Carvalho was a better player. Near 10 years before he was even the best defender on his team. Was good for quite awhile though and helps to have won stuff.

[cloggypop]

Managed to copy the article on my phone. Fuck knows what's up with my laptop.

 

Sol Campbell’s managerial genius may be the only thing holding him back

Barry Glendenning

 

 

When the former England defender said his was one of the great minds in football Oxford United, looking for a new manager, were entitled to wonder what he had to show for it

Sol Campbell has yet to test his managerial qualifications beyond a short coaching stint with Trinidad & Tobago

 

Sol Campbell found himself the subject of much public derision last week when he described himself as “one of the greatest minds in football”. It was a bold claim and the general reaction to the former player’s modest self-evaluation suggested that if the erstwhile Saturday night quiz show Family Fortunes had surveyed 100 people to fill in the blank in the sentence: “Sol Campbell is one of the greatest [bLANKS] in football”, the word “minds” would scarcely have featured among the few broadcastable answers, let alone those all-important top ones.

 

Campbell made his pronouncement while appearing as a guest on the Highbury & Heels podcast, where he bemoaned the reluctance of the powers that be at Oxford United to give him the vacant manager’s job that looks certain to go to Craig Bellamy. “Maybe it was a lack of experience,” he said. “Things like that, but it’s like a full circle. Experience? How do I get experience? Well, I need a job to get experience. I don’t want to go too low that it’s a struggle, and I don’t want to go too low that I’m under someone and thinking: ‘What am I doing here?’”

 

Sol Campbell: ‘I’m prepared to go to a non-league club and just get a win bonus’

 

While Campbell’s frustration with the catch-22 situation those entering such a competitive job market find themselves caught up in is understandable, his reluctance to get a foot in the door by taking a position he considers beneath him does him few favours. Bellamy’s assessment of his own position in football’s cerebral pantheon is unknown, but one suspects that even if he considers himself the equal of Campbell, it is one of few opinions the famously outspoken Welshman is sensible enough to keep to himself.

 

It is also a near certainty that during his time working on the coaching staff at Cardiff City under volatility’s Neil Warnock, the man they call “Bellers” occasionally wonders what he is doing there.

 

On a recent episode of their Feast of Football podcast, the comedian Elis James and former Wales internationals Danny Gabbidon and Iwan Roberts discussed Bellamy’s encyclopaedic knowledge of football history and willingness to go anywhere or do anything to best prepare himself for his first opportunity in management. Compare and contrast with Campbell’s blithe and rather arrogant insistence that he could figure out what’s required to make a success of managing a League One club in “two or three games” because “it’s not like it’s rocket science” and you can see how Oxford United’s recruitment panel might have plumped for Bellamy. “I’m one of the greatest minds in football and I’m being wasted because of a lack of experience,” said Campbell, who has a Uefa Pro Licence but has thus far applied his great mind to no task more taxing than a brief coaching role with Trinidad & Tobago.

 

While it should be stressed that Campbell did not say he is being discriminated against because he is black, many of those commenting on his public frustration at being overlooked for assorted managerial roles appear to have decided, correctly or incorrectly, that the implication is clear. In a different interview, with The Telegraph, he claimed he had applied for 10 jobs and been granted three interviews, which seems a decent return in a managerial job market where each vacancy attracts hundreds of applicants and those with little or no experience are automatically at a disadvantage.

 

Indeed, the very fact that three prospective employers were prepared to meet Campbell and hear his sales pitch suggests they would have been equally prepared to give him the job if he had impressed them. While the FA has adopted the “Rooney Rule” which dictates it must interview at least one BAME applicant for any future managerial vacancy, clubs such as Oxford United are as yet under no such obligation but allowed Campbell to lay out his manifesto anyway.

 

Writing in the Observer three years ago, Daniel Taylor told the story of how Helen Grant, the then sports minister, convened a pow-wow involving the Premier League, the Professional Footballers’ Association and the Football League at Whitehall to discuss the depressing paucity of black managers and coaches in the game, which continues to this day. As well as guests from Kick It Out and Show Racism The Red Card, Campbell was also invited to vent his frustration over the lack of managerial opportunities available to former black players.

 

Quizzing the FA’s technical director Dan Ashworth, he asked why Gary Neville had been fast-tracked to the England assistant manager’s job. It was an entirely reasonable question, but while having the nitty-gritty of Neville’s rapid rise to such a high-profile technical area explained to him, he interrupted Ashworth. “But I am Sol Campbell.” Unsure how to respond to such an interjection, Ashworth just finished his explanation. The counter-argument? Once more with feeling: “But I am Sol Campbell.”

 

While there is no doubt that there are shameful barriers preventing black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates from getting senior coaching and management roles in football, these insights into Campbell’s commendably high self-regard suggest this highly decorated if slightly eccentric former footballer is not being overlooked because he is black or inexperienced. The more simple explanation seems to be that it’s because he is Sol Campbell.

Tory behaviour

[G Richards]

I hope he gets the Arsenal job. Or Spurs.

Would be good!