Modric deserves Ballon d'Or, but Ronaldo will get it

It's always been more about achievements. Best players from the best teams. It's as much a team award as anything else which is odd.

Going by that formula, Modric winning it is just fine. He's been incredible over the years (yes it's not a multiple year award) and was absolutely brilliant at the WC which seems to be key.

I agree.

If it was just about who is the best player, then Messi would win it every year.
 
I agree.

If it was just about who is the best player, then Messi would win it every year.

There are years where even Barcelona fans agree he wasn't...

Can anyone seriously argue Messi was the best player in the world in 2018 with the disappointing CL and WC campaigns? Come on...

Fans purposely misunderstanding how the awards work is the problem.
 
If Modric is so good at dictating play, why did France steam roller all over Croatia in the final?

Pogba and Mbappe both scored in an area I would expect Modric to be dictating play.

You didn't even watch the final right?
 
Without Modric Real Madrid still goes on to win the Champions League.
Funny that you'd say that. The one time we were without Modric in CL was the one time we didn't win the CL over the last 5 seasons
 
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Good post. And I'm not surprised by the impact of his absence on Real Madrid. It's hardly a surprise that your team has dominated Europe only when you had the best midfield in the world of which Modric is clearly the best.

But however history may remember him, he isn't as good as Xavi and Iniesta for me. Definitely among the best 5 CMs I've seen and a complete joy to watch. One of my favourite kinds of players.

About your Modric vs Iniesta vs Xavi comparison, I think it's very subjective. They left bigger mark on football in general as a part of that great Barca team and that elevates them on another level.

Modric has more champions leagues trophies but it's a different team, less dominating in the way they play, just a different thing all together.

I can totally understand your point and probably most football enthusiasts feel that way.

I personally like Modric more, mostly because of his unparalleled diversitiy and completeness as a midfielder, but that's just me.
 
There are years where even Barcelona fans agree he wasn't...

Can anyone seriously argue Messi was the best player in the world in 2018 with the disappointing CL and WC campaigns? Come on...

Fans purposely misunderstanding how the awards work is the problem.

Messi was still the best in the World in 2018.
 
Messi was still the best in the World in 2018.

How is that possible when there were players that clearly had both a better World Cup and a better Champions League campaign?

Even with an incredible league season, it's pretty much impossible to catch up since the others did pretty well there too. If all matches and all competitions were as important as eachother he'd have won it but they aren't.
 
Atributing the 2015 CL exit of Madrid against Juve due to Modric not being there is incredibly simplistic.

There was no Casemiro and they played a midfield of Kroos, Isco and James with Chicharito and Illaramendi being the best options off the bench. Still lost by just one goal and were the better team across two legs.
 
Atributing the 2015 CL exit of Madrid against Juve due to Modric not being there is incredibly simplistic.
That's not what i'm doing. Poster said we could win the CL without Modric. Reality is we won it with him, and didn't win it without him
 
Other way round. They would've gotten to the semis with this team without him and from there on, Ronaldo was non-existant.

They would have what now? :lol::lol::lol:

Real Madrid would have had absolutely no chance at all of getting to the Champions League semifinals last season if it wasn't for Cristiano Ronaldo. They won 3-0 away to Juventus in a game where Juventus was the better team 11 vs 11. They were being clearly inferior to PSG in the round of 16 until the 2-1 happened.

Even in the second Juve match, he only had one half-decent play. Modric was way more important.

The only match where Modric had a bbetter performance than Ronaldo in the CL last season was the final for fecks sake.

In the second leg against Juve, the game that you say Ronaldo had one half-decent play all game was the game where he was considered the best Real Madrid player on the pitch by every single newspaper, ratings website and every football fan with a pair of eyes. You can check it yourself. It was also the same game Modric got subbed off in the 75th minute by Mateo Kovacic with the result tied at 3-3 due to being dominated all game for the second time in a row.

The only game Madrid managed to control the midfield in last year's Champions Leage was PSG away from home, a game that Modric didn't play in. If you want to rewrite history you might want to wait more than a few months to do it.

Ronaldo, Marcelo and Ramos were easily more important than Modric for Real Madrid in the Champions League last season. If there's a player to be compared with Ronaldo in terms of performances in the CL last season for Madrid then it has to be Marcelo who had the best CL campaign I'm pretty sure I'll ever see a fullback have. Modric was nowhere near as good as Marcelo either in the Champions League last season.
 
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That's not what i'm doing. Poster said we could win the CL without Modric. Reality is we won it with him, and didn't win it without him

Sure, but you still could have won it without him. This last one especially.

In 2015, you played Sergio Ramos in midfield away to Juventus in a Champions League semifinal, brought Jese, Chicharito and Illaramendi off the bench and were still unlucky not to have made it through. Modric not being there wasn't the problem, the problem was having no adequate replacement in case of injury.

If Modric wasn't playing but he was replaced by Pjanic, Eriksen, Rakitic, Kovacic, etc. and Madrid lost it would be one thing, but that's not what happened.
 
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I normally dislike "what if" kind of debates, but Ramos instead of Modric in midfield was terrible in the first leg and the 4-3-3 formation in the second leg had three players out of position in the middle. As many others I also feel Madrid would've qualified with Modric in the side.
 
Messi is amazing, but being absent in many key games in Europe doesn't help his purposes.
 
Sure, but you still could have won it without him. This last one especially.
That's your opinion. Reality is we haven't won the CL without Modric. Could we have done it without him anyways? Maybe. But we haven't. And the one time we had the chance to indeed win the CL without him, we didn't. Not interested in opinions you cannot prove. We have actual evidence pointing in the other direction.

What ifs are irrelevant
 
That's your opinion. Reality is we haven't won the CL without Modric. Could we have done it without him anyways? Maybe. But we haven't. And the one time we had the chance to indeed win the CL without him, we didn't. Not interested in opinions you cannot prove. We have actual evidence pointing in the other direction.

What ifs are irrelevant

Correlation isn't causation. Having not won the CL without Modric is not in any way proof that you couldn't have done it without him.
 
Correlation isn't causation. Having not won the CL without Modric is not in any way proof that you couldn't have done it without him.
Sure. You can say the same thing for Cristiano, Benzema, Ramos, etc. Fact of the matter is we won WITH those players. To say we could have won it without those players is meaningless. It's an opinion that cannot be proven. What can be proven, because it happened, is that we won the CL 4 times in the last 5 seasons, and the one season we didn't win it, Modric was injured. Which means we literally could not win the CL without him. What would have happened if we never signed Modric in the first place is irrelevant

You can make the same argument with Casemiro. Could we have won it without him? Maybe. But we didn't.
 
Messi was still the best in the World in 2018.

Statements like this just show that the Messi fanbois are just as bad as those of Ronaldo. Where was Messi at the World Cup? He knew that was his last chance there and he seemed like he didn't care...

And where was Messi in Rome when his team needed him most and Manolas turned into a legend? He was walking across the pitch looking lost, like a deer in headlights... at least he isn't vomiting everywhere anymore like he used to...

He had games last season in the league and CL where he almost ran less distance than his goalkeeper, in some games he was actually a pedestrian...
 
Without Modric Real Madrid still goes on to win the Champions League. Without CR7 they don't. I love Modric. He is the best midfielder in the world right now. But CR7 and Messi are on a different level. I know everyone wants to see someone new win it, but let's not go handing out awards to new people just because they had a really good season. To knock CR7 or Messi out, you have to be at a whole different level...
THIS 100X its as simple as that. I feel people want to give the award to someone new just because.
 
So if Modric played for a better international team he would win the award? Makes sense. Croatia got further in the tournament than a few much better squads, largely down to Modric.
"largely down to modric" that is an exaggeration. Zidane WC in 06 that is what I call leading a nation to the final and whiskers away from winning it.
 
Funny that you'd say that. The one time we were without Modric in CL was the one time we didn't win the CL over the last 5 seasons
We will find out this season if that is true. From the current statistics and facts we have now they would be no where near the final without Ronaldo. But its a norm for Real Madrid fans to disrespect their legends or players in general.
 
We will find out this season if that is true. From the current statistics and facts we have now they would be no where near the final without Ronaldo. But its a norm for Real Madrid fans to disrespect their legends or players in general.
Where did you see me say anything about Cristiano?
 
Where and when did i ever did that?
Correct me if I am wrong because this is how I read it.

"The one time we were without Modric in CL was the one time we didn't win the CL over the last 5 seasons"

If I am wrong I will gladly admit it but it seemed like an implication to me.
 
Any thoughts from fanboys about Cristiano and Messi not showing up? When they win, they come. For me, pathetic behaviour from both of them but especially from Ronaldo because he played with Modric 5 years.
 
Sure. You can say the same thing for Cristiano, Benzema, Ramos, etc. Fact of the matter is we won WITH those players. To say we could have won it without those players is meaningless. It's an opinion that cannot be proven. What can be proven, because it happened, is that we won the CL 4 times in the last 5 seasons, and the one season we didn't win it, Modric was injured. Which means we literally could not win the CL without him. What would have happened if we never signed Modric in the first place is irrelevant

You can make the same argument with Casemiro. Could we have won it without him? Maybe. But we didn't.

I still don't understand what the problem is. Of course it can't be proven and of course it's just an opinion. Most opinions here can't be objectively proven but from watching the games you can form opinions on it, how is this any different?

Saying you could have won the Champions League with a different top goalkeeper instead of Navas can't be proven either but it's easily infered from watching the games.
 
Correct me if I am wrong because this is how I read it.

"The one time we were without Modric in CL was the one time we didn't win the CL over the last 5 seasons"

If I am wrong I will gladly admit it but it seemed like an implication to me.
Those are simple facts. If you get more from what he said then it is on you IMO
 
@Peyroteo is working very hard to earn his salary

If one of the people here with more incentive than me actually disagreed and argued with me instead of leaving a snarky comment about my bias every time I comment as an attempt to get others to disregard my point then at least I'd feel like I'd deserve something.
 
Correct me if I am wrong because this is how I read it.

"The one time we were without Modric in CL was the one time we didn't win the CL over the last 5 seasons"

If I am wrong I will gladly admit it but it seemed like an implication to me.
The implication is that the "team X could have won without player Y" is meaningless. It can't be proven. Modric's case is in particular highlights that by the fact that without him we didn't win. The argument holds true for all of our important players who played pivotal roles in our success. No, we could not have won without Modric. We could not have won without Casemiro. This we know for a fact, because when they weren't there we didn't win. With Cristiano, Benzema, Marcelo, Ramos etc the argument is irrelevant: we won WITH those players. We'll never know if we could have won without them

I still don't understand what the problem is. Of course it can't be proven and of course it's just an opinion. Most opinions here can't be objectively proven but from watching the games you can form opinions on it, how is this any different?

Saying you could have won the Champions League with a different top goalkeeper instead of Navas can't be proven either but it's easily infered from watching the games.
It's a meaningless argument. Real Madrid won. Not Modric. Not Cristiano. Not Keylor Navas. We didn't win because of any of those players, we won because of ALL of those players.

Could we have won without any one of those players? Maybe. But we'll never know. I could say we would have been even better and won more if we didn't have Keylor, Modric and Cristiano. And it's a valid opinion, but also one not rooted in reality and supported by actual evidence

We will know now in regards to Cristiano though, so you can all wait to see what happens in the next 2-3 years and come back to gloat if we win nothing :D
 
Any thoughts from fanboys about Cristiano and Messi not showing up? When they win, they come. For me, pathetic behaviour from both of them but especially from Ronaldo because he played with Modric 5 years.

I think they should have come, to be fair to Messi he wasn't nominated in the final 3 so didn't have a chance to win.