Now that Dishmar has established himself as the 2nd best player in the world, who is the 3rd best player?

Suarez

Bankz wrote:The hamonica levels hate hans got for neymar.. Every thread or poll bout neymar drives him nuts. LMAO!!! Just give up already, if u don't like the thread don't comment.
Anyway, stay safe hans, for the rest of neymars career...  

So saying "Neymar shouldn't be considered better than Müller" is 'hate' in your book?
Your fanboyism is embarrassing, and very annoying.

I don't hate Neymar, but I hate your fanboyism. Really, really hate it. It's what makes forums like this insufferable at times.

Yeah, its easier to pick on fanboysm, as if moal and jibers didn't call u out too. LMAO, and yes, its blind hatred because what's u said lacks clear basis, objectivity and truth..

I mean, how can one in his right mind say "no way in hell should neymar be considered better than muller" and not expect to come off as a hater and rightfully so?
Saying u prefar one player is levels different from your statement..

This is also coming from someone who also said that he'll still pick Dinho as better even if Neymar ended up having a more successful and longer career for a flimsy reason
of dinho being a 'magician'. Good lord!!!

I hate your player hatred. Really, really hate
it. It's what makes forums like this insufferable at times.

Stop using fanboyism as a smoke screen to hide your agenda, just stop it!!!
Hate neymar if u wanna hate, or anybody else for that matter, nobody cares but pls, just stop denying it.

Didn't Neymar play better when Messi was injured before as well? Neymar should move to Liverpool so he can really come out from under that guy...

But really after Messi there are a good number of players on a similar level IMO. Ronaldo seems to have fallen off a cliff this year though so maybe he really is out of that discussion or maybe he's just in poor form. Have his knees finally caught up? Is he braindead? Who knows. Hazard not helping himself either as I'm sure a year ago many people would have had him in the discussion up there with Neymar.

Ronaldo, James, Lewandowski, Robben, Ibrahimovic, Muller maybe even outsiders Di Maria and Ozil can be considered up there.

Right now though the argument is definitely there for Neymar to be #2...and if he continues as he is even with Messi back maybe even #1.

Where are the midfielders and defenders ? Imo Neuer and Alaba are in the conversation. Otherwise you are talking about attacking players only.

@Hans just went back and reread my post. I keep mixing Alaba with Coman

inb4 I'm a racist

Alaba is included. The guy is like a LB, a LCB, a LCM, an AM and a LW rolled into one atm.

TBH second best player is just an arbitary term. Neymar might get the plaudits but there have been players who have been spectacular for their teams. I think the search for individualism is at an all time high.

LeBéninois wrote:Where are the midfielders and defenders ? Imo Neuer and Alaba are in the conversation. Otherwise you are talking about attacking players only.

AFTER MESSI AND DISHMAR, WHO IS THE 3RD BEST (ATTACKING) PLAYER IN THE WORLD?

thats what the poll says

rwo power wrote:

Ganso wrote:Who the hell would rather have Muller on their team over Neymar?

I would, because if you have Thomas Müller on your team, you are most likely to win, as everybody in Germany knows.

Cause he plays for Bayern in the most one-sided league in the world? That might have something to do with it. Muller isn't even the best player on his team atm.

linetty wrote:

LeBéninois wrote:Where are the midfielders and defenders ? Imo Neuer and Alaba are in the conversation. Otherwise you are talking about attacking players only.

AFTER MESSI AND DISHMAR, WHO IS THE 3RD BEST (ATTACKING) PLAYER IN THE WORLD?

thats what the poll says

I didn't read the tittle . imo Right now it's Lewandoski imo. So Clutch for Poland .

Muller has never been the best player on his team, tbf.

Curtinho wrote:Muller has never been the best player on his team, tbf.

That's because there is no such thing as 'the best player' at Bayern.

Cookie Monster wrote:Cause he plays for Bayern in the most one-sided league in the world? That might have something to do with it. Muller isn't even the best player on his team atm.

It's interesting that GoalImpact-wise, Thomas Müller tops everything.

GoalImpact is a purely statistical tool that measures how the goal difference of a team improves when a certain player is actually playing: http://www.goalimpact.com/2015/10/top-50-football-players-october-2015.html

That's what GoalImpact is about: "Goalimpact measures the extent that a player contributes to the goal difference per minute of a team. If a player has a high GI value, then his team has a good goal difference when he plays compared to matches where he doesn’t play. An average player in my database has a value of 100." http://www.goalimpact.com/p/blog-page.html

So it is actually possible to objectively measure that having Thomas Müller on your team is very beneficial as your team scores way more when he is around that when he isn't. So I would certainly prefer to have him in my team. ^^

GoalImpact

You can't say that Thomas Müller isn't beneficial to the goals scored of his team, can you?

The interesting point about him is that he doesn't only score important goals (he very often scores the 1:0), he also assists about as much as he scores goals - and he does so consistently since 2009 (plus he does so for club and NT).

Come on Germans, be real here.

Muller cannot create for himself and certainly not for anyone else with the ball. The biggest reason you (Bayern) lost to Barca was exactly that, you didnt have guys who could individually destabilise the defence and cause displacement of defenders, with the ball. You had the guys who could do that WITHOUT the ball, but you need and needed someone who can do it with the ball too.

Muller is a devastating player when you have other players who can do that destabilisation and alot of Mullers biggest assets (off ball movement to, never using more touches than he needs) are underrated, but he is no Neymar.

Muller is not a special player, he like the ultimate "role player".

lmao @ Hazard and Muller getting votes

Not gonna comment on the validity of this 'goalimpact'. Muller is certainly a very effective player. In fact, he'd probably walk into any team in the world that isn't barca. However, anyone who's ever watched football in their life should realize that when it comes to talent and overall play, he's definitely below the likes of neymar, Suarez, robben, di Maria, etc.. He's a useful player who's VERY good at being in the right place at the right time, but top 3 in the world? Get real.

rwo power wrote:
So it is actually possible to objectively measure that having Thomas Müller on your team is very beneficial as your team scores way more when he is around that when he isn't. So I would certainly prefer to have him in my team. ^^

pls change "your team" to Bayern Munich.

rwo power wrote:

Cookie Monster wrote:Cause he plays for Bayern in the most one-sided league in the world? That might have something to do with it. Muller isn't even the best player on his team atm.

It's interesting that GoalImpact-wise, Thomas Müller tops everything.

GoalImpact is a purely statistical tool that measures how the goal difference of a team improves when a certain player is actually playing: http://www.goalimpact.com/2015/10/top-50-football-players-october-2015.html

That's what GoalImpact is about: "Goalimpact measures the extent that a player contributes to the goal difference per minute of a team. If a player has a high GI value, then his team has a good goal difference when he plays compared to matches where he doesn’t play. An average player in my database has a value of 100." http://www.goalimpact.com/p/blog-page.html

As long as the algorithm isn't revealed, it's hard to use GoalImpact as a legitimate proxy for player quality.

I do think that the concept is interesting, however I don't think it's prudent to take the numbers and infer something deeper than what they suggest. Muller being top of that chart simply means that Bayern play better with him than without him, and his impact on Bayern in this way seems greater than, say, Messi's impact on Barcelona. Even then, Messi plays almost every game for Barca, so how do they even compare Barca's performance with Messi to without Messi? Muller plays a lot fewer games due to Bayern's rotation policy while Messi is undroppable. The few games Messi does not play are guaranteed to be whitewashes because they happen against scrubs. This would raise the GoalImpact of his team, thereby reducing Messi's own GoalImpact. However, that doesn't mean Messi has become a worse player, it just means Barca were able to trash Huesca without him.

Did you read up the stuff about the Shapley Value, too? IMO that sounded like a not so far off way to go about things. Here's the Wikipedia entry about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_value

As for comparing teams where one player is virtually undroppable to teams with a higher player fluctuation - I guess that might be a cool question to ask in the GI blog. Why don't you do that as it was your idea?

BTW, the GoalImpact people don't consider themselves infallible - as a matter of fact they are still working on their algorithm, so additional input probably would be welcome there.

I completely respect Muller as a player and think he is usually underrated but I dont see him as the main guy to get the ball to in crunch time. He's benefited by being on amazing teams and he doesn't particularly lead those teams either. For instance, do you see Brazil making it to the semis last world cup if you switched Neymar and Muller?

@Clutch: I think it is hard to determine, but if you look at the goals/assists of the two, I think it is very well possible:

Brazil 3:1 Croatia – Neymar scored goals 1 and 2
Germany 4:0 Portugal – Müller scored goals 1, 3 and 4

Brazil 0:0 Mexico - neither assist nor goal by Neymar
Germany 2:2 Ghana – Müller assisted goal 1

Cameroon 1:4 Brazil – Neymar scored goal 1 and 2
USA 0:1 Germany – Müller scored the only goal

Brazil 3:2 Chile (PSO) – Neymar scored the final penalty for Brazil
Germany 2:1 Algeria (AET) – Müller assisted goal 1

Brazil 2:1 Colombia – Neymar assisted goal 1, got injured in minute 88
France 0:1 Germany – neither assist nor goal by Müller

Yeah, its a bit hypothetical but just for the sake of the argument, how many of Neymars and mullers were solo goals?

I'm going by the info from kicker.de here.

Brazil 3:1 Croatia
0:1 - Marcelo (11., own goal, right foot)
1:1 - Neymar (29., left foot, assist by Oscar)
2:1 - Neymar (71., foul penalty, right foot)
3:1 - Oscar (90. + 1, right foot, assist by Ramires)

Germany 4:0 Portugal
1:0 - T. Müller (12., foul penalty, right foot)
2:0 - Hummels (32., header, assist by Kroos)
3:0 - T. Müller (45. + 1, left foot, assist by Kroos)
4:0 - T. Müller (78., right foot, assist by Schürrle)

Brazil 0:0 Mexico

Germany 2:2 Ghana
1:0 - M. Götze (51., left foot, assist by T. Müller)
1:1 - A. Ayew (54., header, assist by Afful)
1:2 - Gyan (63., right foot, assist by Muntari)
2:2 - Klose (71., right foot, assist by Höwedes)

Cameroon 1:4 Brazil
0:1 - Neymar (17., right foot, assist by Luiz Gustavo)
1:1 - J. Matip (26., right foot, assist by Nyom)
1:2 - Neymar (35., right foot, assist by Marcelo)
1:3 - Fred (49., header, assist by David Luiz)
1:4 - Fernandinho (84., right foot, assist by Oscar)

USA 0:1 Germany
0:1 - T. Müller (55., right foot, assist by Mertesacker)

Brazil 3:2 Chile (PSO)
1:0 - Jara (18., own goal, right foot)
1:1 - A. Sanchez (32., right foot, assist by E. Vargas)
PSO:
1:0 - David Luiz (scored)
1:0 - Pinilla (missed)
1:0 - Willian (missed)
1:0 - A. Sanchez (missed)
2:0 - Marcelo (scored)
2:1 - Aranguiz (scored)
2:1 - Hulk (missed)
2:2 - Diaz (scored)
3:2 - Neymar (scored)
3:2 - Jara (missed)

Germany 2:1 Algeria (AET)
1:0 - Schürrle (92., left foot, assist by T. Müller)
2:0 - Özil (119., left foot, assist by Schürrle)
2:1 - Djabou (120. + 1, left foot, assist by Feghouli)

Brazil 2:1 Colombia
1:0 - Thiago Silva (7., left foot, assist by Neymar)
2:0 - David Luiz (69., direct free kick, right foot)
2:1 - James (80., foul penalty, left foot)

France 0:1 Germany
0:1 - Hummels (12., header, assist by T. Kroos)

If you look at this, all goals by both Neymar and Müller were assisted and thus no solos. I didn't look up any videos of the goals, though, so if you feel like it, you may do so.

LOL, talking about Thomas Müller, kicker.de just posted an article about him today, stating that he just got a historical Bundesliga record: This weekend he could celebrate the 150th win in a Bundesliga match, while having played only 209 matches so far.  

Gerd Müller needed 250 matches to celebrate 150 wins, Manuel Neuer 249 games. The runner-up to Thomas Müller is Rafinha, by the way: He needed 245 matches to obtain 150 wins.

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/638892/2/slideshow_150-bundesliga-siege-in-rekordzeit-mueller-haengt-alle-ab.html

Actually this shows again that it is somehow beneficial to have Müller in the team to gather wins - after all, there were several other players at Bayern while he was there, but they weren't involved that fast in as many wins...

rwo power wrote:

Cookie Monster wrote:Cause he plays for Bayern in the most one-sided league in the world? That might have something to do with it. Muller isn't even the best player on his team atm.

It's interesting that GoalImpact-wise, Thomas Müller tops everything.

GoalImpact is a purely statistical tool that measures how the goal difference of a team improves when a certain player is actually playing: http://www.goalimpact.com/2015/10/top-50-football-players-october-2015.html

That's what GoalImpact is about: "Goalimpact measures the extent that a player contributes to the goal difference per minute of a team. If a player has a high GI value, then his team has a good goal difference when he plays compared to matches where he doesn’t play. An average player in my database has a value of 100." http://www.goalimpact.com/p/blog-page.html

So it is actually possible to objectively measure that having Thomas Müller on your team is very beneficial as your team scores way more when he is around that when he isn't. So I would certainly prefer to have him in my team. ^^

So, you would also prefer to have Theo Walcott in your team rather than Leo Messi?

free_cat wrote:So, you would also prefer to have Theo Walcott in your team rather than Leo Messi?

Nope, but that would actually be a lot  due to the fact that I consider him a liability as he is too injury prone. Plus English players usually have a very bad price/performance ratio.

As for Messi - IMO he is to expensive anyway - for most teams it doesn't make sense to consider adding a Messi as that would mean there would be no resources left to build a sensible team. After all it is no use to have one superstar and the rest are scrubs because you can afford no others.