Players Who Are Only Great Playing One Specific Way

gooDevil

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Im thinking about Falcao, and this idea that he would still be great if you built a team around him, playing the kind of balls he likes, in the kind of areas he likes. That he would still be a top striker if used in one very specific way, tactically.

What other players are/were fantastic played in one specific way, but can't come close to that quality if he's played in a different way, though still in the same position?

Who has the widest gulf?
 
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You're talking about virtually every player in the world. Xavi Hernandez is one of the greatest midfielders of his generation, but if you put him in a team that prefers the direct ball to patient build up he looks half the player. Its one of the many reasons why Xavi was never truly valued under Rijkaard, remember there were rumours we'd sign him in 2008? Guardiola was key to both his and Iniesta's careers. You can see the difference Tata and Lucho's tactics have had on both of them.

Systems make players. Its arguable that Mata would be much less effective playing on the right of the front three without Herrera to interplay, interchange with and vice versa. I'm sure if Herrera played with a winger that hated one touch passing, and just got his head down and headed down the touchline every time he got the ball he'd look less good too.
 
#07 said:
You're talking about virtually every player in the world. Xavi Hernandez is one of the greatest midfielders of his generation, but if you put him in a team that prefers the direct ball to patient build up he looks half the player. Its one of the many reasons why Xavi was never truly valued under Rijkaard, remember there were rumours we'd sign him in 2008? Guardiola was key to both his and Iniesta's careers. You can see the difference Tata and Lucho's tactics have had on both of them.

Systems make players. Its arguable that Mata would be much less effective playing on the right of the front three without Herrera to interplay, interchange with and vice versa. I'm sure if Herrera played with a winger that hated one touch passing, and just got his head down and headed down the touchline every time he got the ball he'd look less good too.
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So was Luis Aragones. Before Euro 2008, many people in Spain were questioning whether so many "small" guys and players that were not very physical could play together in midfield and be successful.
 
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Well it can't be Ashley Young...
 
#07 said:
You're talking about virtually every player in the world. Xavi Hernandez is one of the greatest midfielders of his generation, but if you put him in a team that prefers the direct ball to patient build up he looks half the player. Its one of the many reasons why Xavi was never truly valued under Rijkaard, remember there were rumours we'd sign him in 2008? Guardiola was key to both his and Iniesta's careers. You can see the difference Tata and Lucho's tactics have had on both of them.

Systems make players. Its arguable that Mata would be much less effective playing on the right of the front three without Herrera to interplay, interchange with and vice versa. I'm sure if Herrera played with a winger that hated one touch passing, and just got his head down and headed down the touchline every time he got the ball he'd look less good too.
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Exactly! It never fails to amaze me how players are given a specific value and people just assume that they have one level. When English clubs fail in the European stage, you get a lot of nonsense about how it's simply about the players being inferior when most of them at some point or another have played for those European clubs and vice versa. It might have something to do with the British obsession about dominant individuals i.e: the tough tackler, energetic box to box midfielder, pacey winger and strong center forward. But like you said, I believe just like Xavi and Iniesta made that system at Barcelona perfect, the system also enabled them to flourish as it was designed specifically for them. If the players were the be all and end all, Real Madrid would have much more than the measly 1 league title, 2 Cups and 1 European Cup in the 6 years when they broke the world transfer record 3 times.
 
Diego Costa. He's a very good player that's played in systems that suit him perfectly, but he's not a great player.

I've only seen a handful of games at Atletico before his time at Chelsea, so if he's played in more offensive systems and done well, then I'll gladly admit I'm wrong. I've just not seen it.
 
Any player that has played under Klopp at Dortmund (including Götze and Lewandowski).
 
Don't teams buy players in order to use them in a specific way anyway, though? For example, if we wanted a Silva type winger (false winger) we'd buy someone who we feel could play that role. However, if we bought that player and asked him to play like Robben, it wouldn't happen, despite playing in the same position.
 
I think a better question is which players have been great in multiple systems. Immediately some class of 92 people come to mind.
 
#07 said:
You're talking about virtually every player in the world. Xavi Hernandez is one of the greatest midfielders of his generation, but if you put him in a team that prefers the direct ball to patient build up he looks half the player. Its one of the many reasons why Xavi was never truly valued under Rijkaard, remember there were rumours we'd sign him in 2008? Guardiola was key to both his and Iniesta's careers. You can see the difference Tata and Lucho's tactics have had on both of them.

Systems make players. Its arguable that Mata would be much less effective playing on the right of the front three without Herrera to interplay, interchange with and vice versa. I'm sure if Herrera played with a winger that hated one touch passing, and just got his head down and headed down the touchline every time he got the ball he'd look less good too.
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I'd like to point out I'm not talking about different positions, not that you said I was. I'm not even really talking about playing as a lone striker vs. playing with a partner.

We've play Falcao up top on his own, he still looked terrible because we weren't playing to his strengths. He simply has no game outside of his very narrow speciality. He's very extreme in this regard. It's not like we're hoofing it to him and asking him to win headers, something completely alien to his game. We haven't been asking him to do anything all that different to what he's bene used to, like asking Xavi to play in Stoke's spray-and-pray style.

England has certainly been a study in playing players in different positions and different roles and watching them suck their own balls. It boggles my mind that international managers don't play their players exclusively with the tactics that suit them. Never mind playing Gerrard and Lampard in center mid, that's just madness. Its the fact that you don't have any real time to get an international team to gel, if they haven't already done so by playing together at international youth level.

So if I'm England manager circa 2007 or so, I play Rooney, Scholes and Carrick for England, and I play them the same way they play for United. Because they are very familiar with this system, with these tactics, moreso than you could ever establish through international competition and training. Lampard or Gerrard would have fit in fine as a support striker/attacking midfielder.
 
Definitely agree with @#07 and IMO a lot of, if not most of the best footballers around could fall into the category. Players like Ibrahimovic and Cavani, or dare I say Ronaldo spring to mind. You have to essentially build around these players because of their individual dominance, make them the focal point of the attack and cater to their needs to extract the 100% out of their ability.

Ibrahimovic struggled at times at Barcelona not just because of the personality clash with Guardiola, but by virtue of being cast in a style of play that didn't accentuate his best qualities and being an also ran in a team where Messi was the cornerstone of their play in the final third. Much of the same with Ronaldo, can he thrive and score 60-70 goals per season in a style of play where he has to be his own creator of sorts, where the #9 is more of a finisher, the primary goalscorer and recipient of a high percentage of the best chances (like maybe Falcao) ? And not a great foil like Benzema whose movement and hold up play brings Ronaldo to the fore. Ronaldo would probably still be great, but not the GOAT type degree that he is right now.

Conversely, attacking players like Eto'o are a lot more versatile and not overly reliant on the system or pattern of play. He was equally effective as a prototypical #9 at Barcelona in with Ronaldinho and Deco, then later as a wide forward for Messi in a possession based team and Milito at Internazionale under Mourinho in a counter-attacking outfit.
 
Raul Madrid said:
So was Luis Aragones. Before Euro 2008, many people in Spain were questioning whether so many "small" guys and players that were not very physical could play together in midfield and be successful.
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Yep. Xavi was already voted best player of Euro 2008 before Guardiola even started coaching him.

But generally I agree with what the poster was saying. For example in the current Dortmund or Atletico sides I am not sure if Xavi even at his best would have been as great as he was for Spain and Barca. He would still have been very good, but even a player like him needs at least a few others who can also keep possession well as well as a suitable system.
 
MJJ said:
He only really thrived in one setup. He needs a particular setup to shine.
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I've been unclear as far as what I meant, I think. The thing that is so strange to me is that we're not asking Falcao to play a type of football completely the opposite of what he's used to. I mean, LVG certainly must have thought he could adapt to the type of football he was going to be asked to play.

Sure, as someone said above, if you ask Xavi, or Falcao, to play for Stoke and a hoofball style of football, then of course their skills would be completely invisible. But I don't think we're asking Falcao to do something so completely different to what he's done in the past.

It's a fair point that most players struggle to thrive the further away they are asked to play from the way they specialize in. Ask Beckham to beat a man instead of cross it and he'd look pretty poor. But if you asked him to keep possession and recycle it, stay wide and create space and not cross, he'd look good, because he is good on the ball and a great passer, which is part of why he thrives at his favored way of playing.

Falcao is reminding me of Hernandez, someone who can play on the shoulder and is a great poacher, but looks completely average and, at the top level, useless if asked to play a possession style.
 
The old style 10s come to mind. Riquelme especially. Not physically gifted nor willing to really work on it but supreme with the ball. It's either his way or no way hence why he probably didn't win as much as he should have in Europe. I say most of the Dortmund team would not do too well elsewhere. Kagawa and Sahin both struggled elsewhere and I think the system suits these profile players to a tee but they were identified by Dortmund for exactly their system. Take the individual out would they thrive? Reus probably. Hummels, Gundogan, Abameyang perhaps?
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
That was almost at the start of his career, to be considered flexibility!
He is a class act only when playing in front of the defence with a hard working midfield built around him.
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Having followed his career for Italy I have to disagree, he didn't need to play as a regista before he lost his legs. He could excel as a trequartista, or anywhere in central midfield. In my humble opinion.
 
gooDevil said:
I've been unclear as far as what I meant, I think. The thing that is so strange to me is that we're not asking Falcao to play a type of football completely the opposite of what he's used to. I mean, LVG certainly must have thought he could adapt to the type of football he was going to be asked to play.

Sure, as someone said above, if you ask Xavi, or Falcao, to play for Stoke and a hoofball style of football, then of course their skills would be completely invisible. But I don't think we're asking Falcao to do something so completely different to what he's done in the past.

It's a fair point that most players struggle to thrive the further away they are asked to play from the way they specialize in. Ask Beckham to beat a man instead of cross it and he'd look pretty poor. But if you asked him to keep possession and recycle it, stay wide and create space and not cross, he'd look good, because he is good on the ball and a great passer, which is part of why he thrives at his favored way of playing.

Falcao is reminding me of Hernandez, someone who can play on the shoulder and is a great poacher, but looks completely average and, at the top level, useless if asked to play a possession style.
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I think it's more that he isn't the Falcao he was than anything else this season.

He looks to me like he can barely lift the leg that he injured his knee on and certainly doesn't trust it when he plants the foot down again which explains the awful touch (people say his touch was never the best but it was also never consistently this bad) and the fact that he falls over a lot.

We'll never know what the Falcao that tore Chelsea a new one could do in a different system because he's gone for good.
 
Super Pippo Inzaghi. He was born in offside.
 
Tommy said:
Diego Costa. He's a very good player that's played in systems that suit him perfectly, but he's not a great player.

I've only seen a handful of games at Atletico before his time at Chelsea, so if he's played in more offensive systems and done well, then I'll gladly admit I'm wrong. I've just not seen it.
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Falcao's last season at Atletico, he was playing more on the wing and he was a dangerous player there.
 
Kagawa. He just likes to pass and move. Watched him when he was with Dortmund and looked absolutely fantastic. Shame it did not work out with United.
 
united_99 said:
Yep. Xavi was already voted best player of Euro 2008 before Guardiola even started coaching him.

But generally I agree with what the poster was saying. For example in the current Dortmund or Atletico sides I am not sure if Xavi even at his best would have been as great as he was for Spain and Barca. He would still have been very good, but even a player like him needs at least a few others who can also keep possession well as well as a suitable system.
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Yeah, I agree with it too. If Xavi was playing in a counter-attacking team he would not have reached the level he did for Barcelona/Spain but he would still be good and capable of finding players on the break with quick passes but playing in such a system would not make the most of his ability like Spain and Barcelona's systems and ways of playing did.
 
Veron in England springs to mind and Gudjohnsen at Stoke.
 
gooDevil said:
Having followed his career for Italy I have to disagree, he didn't need to play as a regista before he lost his legs. He could excel as a trequartista, or anywhere in central midfield. In my humble opinion.
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Nah, no worries. I've seem him as a regista (4-3-1-2) and in a midfield 2 (4-4-2), so based it upon that. Again, maybe he has not played it often, but I do agree that he certainly has the talent to perform as trequartista.
 
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