Who's the best passer in the world?

Andrea Bertolacci

sportsczy wrote:What kind of passing? There's not just one kind. I don't think you can crown one player as the best overall passer.

Offensive passer? Messi.
Midfield passer? Kroos and a healthy Marchisio.
Defensive passer? Hummels for me.
Crosses? Bale. Doesn't do it enough either.
Set pieces? Payet.

Agreed on all

There is Messi and Fabregas then the rest
At defense Alves by a long distance

tbh alves wasn't that great of a passer, he's great under pressure but in his several years with us i can only think of two passes that were very out of the ordinary (such as the suarez assist against real madrid)

his crosses / long range passes usually missed, was good for quick one twos though

Kroos is an amazing passer to a stationary target. Alonso and Gerrard were also fantastic passers in that regard. But there is more to passing than that.

Topspin, backspin, curve, one-touch etc.

Vision and timing also comes into passing.

Pogba is an unreal passer if we are talking about CMs. His passes even put under pressure are most of the time accurate. Ozil as well if we are talking about through balls and key passes.

Deulofeu deserve a shoutout for best crosser I think.

Blind is an excellent passer from defense and among defenders. But the facts that he is a CM converted CB, pretty much rules him out of the list of pure CBs I guess.

Among GKs ya Ter Stegen. And among forwards its clear winner anyway, doesnt even have to mension it actually.

GK: Ter Stegen easily
Def : Ramos
Mid : Benzema
Off: Messi
Crossing : James
Set pieces : Kroos

Pepe Reina > Ter Stegen

Also, going from Zidane and Guti to Kroos as your best passer, poor Real Madrid x)

Poor Real Madrid with 2 CLs in the past three years?

Also, I don't know how people neglect Neuer all of a sudden. Kicking, throwing, punching... he can distribute in pretty much any way possible for a GK.

Art Morte wrote:Pepe Reina > Ter Stegen

Also, going from Zidane and Guti to Kroos as your best passer, poor Real Madrid x)

Kroos is better than any midfielder in the EPL and I am not even that big a fan of him. Probably better passer than anyone too.

When talking about passing GKs, you really should take a look at Yann Sommer, too. Poor boy always gets so overlooked

Puzzling that Pjanic isn't in this conversation.

Has always had great delivery from set pieces and his technique with key passes is exquisite.

Mr Nick09 wrote:nextlevel passer, only top1% footballers can play the lofted through ball with this much consistency, it's pretty scary

Spoiler:

What I'm talking about ffs

i find that some goalies are just bored. i mean is a passing goalie really necessary? contrary to what many may think, a lot of goalies can use their foot to make a decent pass to their nearest defender or in an extreme scenario to their wing backs. a lot just don't do it because its either not their style or they don't care for that.

plus it makes little difference in the grand scheme of things either way- meaning, the significance on the game as a whole is barely affected by whether a goalie chooses to blast out a goal-kick, or pass the ball to his nearest defender...i'd expect utd to still beat wolves regardless of what approach the goalie takes. and i'd expect such would hardly be a major turning point in a game between closer matched sides.

as far as crosses are concerned, i thought dani alves was a pretty good crosser of the ball. not many match up to him. it goes back to degree of difficulty; the ball isn't stationary when the cross is being made, he is also on the move, people in the box and all of that. it may not be Beckham-esque, but for a team that hardly looked to crosses and in a period where people over-emphasize the ball on the ground, he was pretty good

its a cross, its not like a defender or defensive midfielder passing the ball sideways and backwards to someone barely far away from him just recycling possession. the degree of difficulty on the cross is more than that. obviously passes with regards chance creation, messi has that. ozil might be a second....never followed roma to know how good pjanic is, might start catching juve games to watch his football

as far as long passers/ball distributors, xabi alonso's still playing in europe right? i always felt when he was at madrid he was the one who made things tick

Verratti has very few assists though.  Those through balls are a rarity for him.  In 4+ seasons at PSG, he has a total of 25 assists...  only 6 last season.  I think that vid showed them all tbh His big strength is close ball control and ball protection and then releasing it to the attacking playmakers in Ibra, Di Maria and Pastore. A lot more of a CM.

Here's Pogba's pass vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdsqB4iZRrQ

titosantill wrote:i find that some goalies are just bored. i mean is a passing goalie really necessary

Well, considering that some defenders love to play harakiri back passes, you should be very thankful if you have a goalie who is good with his feet and can both receive the ball properly and then pass it to a fellow player to initiate an attack.

i reckon that when goalies fumble backpasses its in large part due to absent mindedness or lack of awareness, than lack of being able to use one's feet. worst case scenario, clear the damn ball out; absolutely nothing wrong in doing that. i maintain that a clearance and passing the ball back to the center back isn't a significant move enough to change the course of the game in most cases.

btw what of a goalkick? how far into the opponent's half a goalkeeper can hit it? doesn't that count as being able to use the feet as well? or is it just flashy passes to the nearest cb. i just feel its focusing on the wrong things...

Busquets for me. At least once a game I ask myself "how did he get away from that situation". He's insane.

I really like kroos, but ever since he joined Madrid i feel like he became way less direct, he always seems to pick easy passes compared to his Bayern days.

Verrati is a great passer but he just isnt incisive enough

I dont see a lot of people mentioning Modric. Dude is so complete and makes a really low amount of mistakes

@titosantill

If a goalie can aim a goalkick well towards his wingers or strikers and thus launches an attack, it can be a weapon in itself, so accurate goalkicks definitely belong to the ability of a goalie with his feet, too.

Best example for this by Manuel Neuer:

Spoiler:

(Pity that I haven't found any of Yann Sommer's kick-offs to the wings that initiated an attack at Gladbach, but the available youtube goalie footage usually concentrates on saves)

Gk: don't care tbh
Def: hummels
Mid: kroos
Off: messi

And of course benzema is an insanely good passer, how many players any position could pull this off that easy and accurate?

a good pass, and to answer your question, a lot of players have been able to pull it off that easy and accurately too. torres' assist against everton if i'm not mistaken, guti's assist to zidane against sevilla which totally confused the sevilla defense, totti used to pull stunts like that a lot; probably as much as he used to chip the goalie in his better days at roma, raul's assist to morientes at one of these national competitions, i think at euro 04, henry, mata to name a few....which were assists

I obviously meant no ballon dor winner changed their clubs to EPL

titosantill wrote: i maintain that a clearance and passing the ball back to the center back isn't a significant move enough to change the course of the game in most cases.
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I agree with this. Keepers' ability with their feet has become overrated. How many more points is a team going to accumulate over the course of a season thanks to their keeper being good with his feet? Mostly it's just aesthetically pleasing, but hardly more than that.

30minute porn

This footage should be age restricted tbh!!