Re: The Official Balon d'Or 2014 Thread

[McAgger]

At least he's not as plastic as Ronaldo.



look at that plastic face ffs. It'd take a bat to it.

[rwo power]

43% of Real Madrid's goals have come from Ronaldo.

And that brings me to another question - do the goals come from CR7 because there was no one else who could score or did he get the amount of goals because he grabbed all scoring opportunities even when other players were positioned better, and thus he got more goals, but on the other hand he thus stopped others from scoring?

(This is a genuine question as I don't have any stats at hand that would show how many shots on goal CR7 took for Portugal as opposed of passing opportunities he would have had to set up a fellow player for a goal.)

I don't even like Ronaldo but for God's sake don''t say Muller's more important for his teams than Ronaldo is.

Well, I always remember a quote from one of the guys with whom Müller played in the youth: "He was never the first player who was selected into a team, but the team in which he played always won."

[zigra]

Better than Ronaldo (in 2014 or always, whatever you like):
Messi, Neuer, Benzema, Müller, Lahm

Please add more players to that list. I'm pretty sure we can find at least 2 more in the german national team.

[Valkyrja]

Better than Ronaldo (in 2014 or always, whatever you like):
Messi, Neuer, Benzema, Müller, Lahm

Please add more players to that list. I'm pretty sure we can find at least 2 more in the german national team.

Kroos and Boateng

[EarlyPrototype]

Muller

Jesus *bleep* christ

[zigra]

Better than Ronaldo (in 2014 or always, whatever you like):
Messi, Neuer, Benzema, Müller, Lahm

Please add more players to that list. I'm pretty sure we can find at least 2 more in the german national team.

Kroos and Boateng

Great shouts especially as they are both good without scoring goals. I'll add Robben as a player who's been better in 2014 so now we only need 2 more players to kick him out of the top 10

[Harmonica]

2014 (23.11) in official games

Messi 49 (7pen) goals, 25 assists = directly part of 74 goals
Cronaldo 54 (11pen) goals, 17 assists = directly part of 71 goals

Benzema 32 (1pen) goals, 21 assists = directly part of 53 goals

Müller 29 (6pen) goals, 14 assists = directly part of 43 goals
Neymar 32 (0pen) goals, 10 assists = directly part of 42 goals
Bale 22 (0pen) goals, 19 assists = directly part of 41 goals

Zlatan 28 (4pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 39 goals
James 21 (3pen) goals, 18 assists = directly part of 39 goals
Di Maria 10 (0pen) goals, 28 assists = directly part of 38 goals
Götze 24 (0pen) goals, 13 assists = directly part of 37 goals
Robben 21 (3pen) goals, 16 assists = directly part of 37 goals
Suarez 17 (0pen) goals, 19 assists = directly part of 36 goals (not shortlisted)


Costa 26 (2pen) goals, 3 assists = directly part of 29 goals
Toure 17 (5pen) goals, 9 assists = directly part of 26 goals
Hazard 14 (7pen) goals, 10 assists = directly part of 24 goals
Pobga 11 (0pen) goals, 12 assists = directly part of 23 goals

Kroos 8 (0pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 19 goals
Iniesta 3 (0pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 14 goals
Schweinsteiger 6 (0pen) goals, 5 assists = directly part of 11 goals

Defenders

Lahm
Mascherano
Ramos

Goalies

Neuer

[Freeza]

Where did you get the Messi 25 assists stat from? can only find places that say 21 this year.

[Pip]

Imagine if Benzema took Real Madrid's penalties.

@Freeza - what do you expect from Harmonica? Boosting Messi's stats so he is higher ranked than Ronaldo.

[Valkyrja]

2014 (23.11) in official games

Messi 49 (7pen) goals, 25 assists = directly part of 74 goals
Cronaldo 54 (11pen) goals, 17 assists = directly part of 71 goals

Benzema 32 (1pen) goals, 21 assists = directly part of 53 goals

Müller 29 (6pen) goals, 14 assists = directly part of 43 goals
Neymar 32 (0pen) goals, 10 assists = directly part of 42 goals
Bale 22 (0pen) goals, 19 assists = directly part of 41 goals

Zlatan 28 (4pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 39 goals
James 21 (3pen) goals, 18 assists = directly part of 39 goals
Di Maria 10 (0pen) goals, 28 assists = directly part of 38 goals
Götze 24 (0pen) goals, 13 assists = directly part of 37 goals
Robben 21 (3pen) goals, 16 assists = directly part of 37 goals
Suarez 17 (0pen) goals, 19 assists = directly part of 36 goals (not shortlisted)


Costa 26 (2pen) goals, 3 assists = directly part of 29 goals
Toure 17 (5pen) goals, 9 assists = directly part of 26 goals
Hazard 14 (7pen) goals, 10 assists = directly part of 24 goals
Pobga 11 (0pen) goals, 12 assists = directly part of 23 goals

Kroos 8 (0pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 19 goals
Iniesta 3 (0pen) goals, 11 assists = directly part of 14 goals
Schweinsteiger 6 (0pen) goals, 5 assists = directly part of 11 goals

Defenders

Lahm
Mascherano
Ramos

Goalies

Neuer

how many games have Messi and Ronaldo played this year ?

[Bankz]

Imagine neymar took free kicks and penalties, same with benzema in real with penos.

[Footyfan]

If Benzema took PK's he would have 43 Goals, same as Ronaldo and many more Assists.

Haha, poor Ronnie, I feel he would not get the pleasure of celebrating like mad on scoring a 120th minute goal in a 4-1 in a CHL Final

[Harmonica]

Where did you get the Messi 25 assists stat from? can only find places that say 21 this year.

The source is transfermarkt.co.uk

It lists wide assists, which better portray involvement on goals.

[Kick]

What is a wide assist?

[futbol]

Deflected pass assists, shots that hit the woodwork first assists, penalties won counting as assists etc.

[Harmonica]

Rebounds, penalties earned who somebody else scored. Should be common knowledge among the who follow the sport.

[Kick]

I've never been one for caring that much about Stats to look wide assists up.

General numbers help, but the difference between Messi and Ronaldo in the stats you posted is pointless and more down to circumstance than actual numbers. However, the difference between Ronaldo and Bale is telling.

[Harmonica]

Why is the difference between Messi and Cronaldo pointless and circumstantial, and between Cronaldo and Bale not?

[Kick]

Because people make mistakes, where is the statistic that says how many mistakes where made by their team mates? For example, for Benzema missed 4 chances which would have counted as assists for Ronaldo, then, by no fault of his own, Ronaldo is behind despite the fact he should be infront. However, Bale is, by your count, 30 behind, that sort of thing cannot be down to human error.

[Harmonica]

So because people makes mistakes we are not to rank players which are close? I got it, it makes Cronaldo look better, but for us rational thinkers, we go by what the numbers say, and we don't assume certain degrees of mistakes when it suites us.

Btw Cronaldo won Ballon d'Or last year with 3% difference after voting deadline extension. Wasn't that a bigger mistake?

[Kick]

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I don't care about stats when it is that close. Both Messi and Ronaldo are great players, the best two in the world, your stats show that. But to conclusively say Messi is better because he has 3 more goals is silly.

While saying Messi is better than Bale because he has 30 more is better.

I'm not assuming Ronaldo is better (I actually dislike Ronaldo), I'm just saying when it is close, human error could play a part in the difference.

I'm just stating by I don't use statistics that much, hence why I don't know what a wide assist is (Something which you took a shot at me for).

I do have a question though, if team A has 50% possession in a game and team B has 51% possession in another game, is team B better in possession?
That 1% equates to 54 seconds more in possession.

[Harmonica]

Well this is a ranking and we can't change ranks just because of assumed mistakes.

And if we are to compare them relatively, these statistics flatter Cronaldo awfully lot, more penalties, more tap-ins, more shots, much more directly assisted goals, less participation in build up, passing, less dribbles, less marking, more help and so on. So relatively they are not close, but as this is a numerical ranking, we can't rationally include those in this can't we?

[Kick]

I never said changing the ranking

So what you're saying is that statistics do not help judge the overall play of the players?

[Harmonica]

That's not what I'm saying no, more statistics you include, better picture of the overall play you get. But then there is also the relativity of statistics itself which needs to be understood.

[futbol]

Actually in scientific measurements there is always a random error and "certain degree of mistakes" has to be accounted. If you study physics your lecturers will hammer into you in your 1st semester that measurements without error analysis are worthless. Tutors will never accept measurements without error bars, even when you measure simple things like the length of a desk. Scientifically "the desk is 5 meter long" is wrong. "The desk is (5.0 ± 0.1) meter long" is correct. This is how it has to look like:



What Kick says is correct. There has to be some error analysis. The same way a ruler and the angle you measure from isn't 100 % correct and will vary with every new measurement (even if only 0.5 millimeters) the same way Benzema missing an open net which Higuain would have burried has to be accounted for somehow. Obviously that's not easy to do because in football you can't recreat the exact same circumstances and measure 5 times with maybe Benzema missing 4 times and hitting the net 1 time unlike taking a ruler and measuring again and again. But what is certain is that 3 goal difference at 70+ goals will certainly be within the error boundaries so drawing conclusions from that is nonsensical. That's about 4 %. If I tried to argue that I've measured one turbo-charger running at 200,000 rpm and another one at 208,000 rpm thus the conclusion is that the 2nd one is better I'd lose all 3 PhD degrees I have given to myself.

[Harmonica]

Again, random error has nothing to do with this ranking, players win top scorer title, whether it's a 1 goal difference, or a 10 goal difference.

Now if we are to judge who is the better player sure, although the sample size is too small, given the correctness of statistics to do so. But then again we can't just stop there as pointed above, and so in reality what is pointless, is the margin of error.

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