by worms. Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:53 pm
This a copy and past job but it pretty much sums up why I think Zidane is overrated.
"Honestly Zidane is overrated and gets far too much praise.
How can a guy that reguarly gets called one of the greatest players ever, to some the greatest ever, who is a attacking midfielder/playmaker only have 128 goals in 681 games? Then I looked up his assists and found he only has around 100 in his career.
I admit he is a very skillful player and can be good to watch, but having good trickery doesn't always make you a good player. Go on youtube you'll find many people with good freestyle skills, doesn' that'd be great players. Most of zidane's tricks are just for show, he dances around in the midfield and entertains the crowd. But when it comes to fooball, it has little effect. Whereas somebody like Ronaldinho uses his tricks to have an actual effect on the game and trick his opposition.
I think through his trickery, the 2 goals in the 1998 wc final and the volley in the 2002 final he earned this legendary status. other than that he didnt do too much. the media, fifa and fans have mistakenly given him more praise than he deserves. I dont think he deserves to have 3 world player of the year awards, just one for 1998 for making the cl final and winning the world cup. in 2000 and 2003 it was his repuation than won it. france won euro and madrid won the league and there wasnt too much to choose from. they shouldve given it to raul and henry in those years.
also in the 2006 wc cannavaro shouldve won the golden ball, but zidanes reputation has won it for him again. fifa and the media have given him too much praise. he really didnt do much in 2006 wc, i know he did his usual dancing around in the midfield but it really didnt have much affect on the games. two of his goals were penalties and the other 1 was an easy counter attacking goal in he 90th minute because spain had all their men pushed up because they were a goal down. and he just made one assist from a free kick from a roberto carlos mistake saying that he single handedly carried for the wc final is bs. henry was the key player in for france, and they have many other great players that were more key, like two of the greatest DMs in makelele and viera, and two great wingers and ribery. same goes for 98, that france team was great all around, zidane was pretty absent until the final.
for madrid he didnt win that many trophies for them, how he is a madrid great idk. he didnt do anything in his last 3 years, they didnt win anyhing. i know ozil gets regularly compared to him, ozils goal scoring is similar, but ozil had 25 assists this season, that's amazing. zidane never had a season anywhere near that. real madrid only payed for him because he would be good for business because of this reputation built around him that he shouldnt have, he's good for selling merchandise and stuff. for football he didnt provide much, they started out well, but the first galaticos were pretty much a bit of a fail besides commercially. madrid already won 2 champions leagues in recent years before zidane came, so you cant say zidane made the difference besides in he cl final. juventus the same, their team had many great players in it like davids and del piero.
zidane is not one of the greatest of all time, and not the greatest of our generation. look at the past great attacking midfielders like cryuff, platini, maradona, ronaldinho and their goal scoring ratios. it was like a good strikers ratio. they also provided more assists than him. and the way people put him in the same category as pele, maradona, cryuff, beckenbaur, ronaldo luis is ridiculous. i know these players (apart from ronaldo) played in different eras so its hard to say how good theyd be now because fooball has changed so much, but they were the greatest in their generation. zidane should not be a part of this list. ive been watching fooball since 1998 and ronaldo luis is the greatest of this era, followed closely by henry or ronaldinho. messi and c ronaldo are now the best in a new generation. zidanes as good as deco or riquelme. no disrespect to deco or riquelme, theyre great players and skillful. but if they hadve scored 2 headers in a wc final and a really good volley in a cl final, they would get this god-like following that zidane gets but doesnt deserve. zidane just happened to be in the right place at the right time, then he got this invincible reputation. the media and fifa with their awards have made people believe that he's some sort of god of football, he really isnt.
seriously the guy is overrated, im not say he's not a great player, but he gets too much credit. he's done well in big matches and has good skills, but if you watched him regularly you'd see he doesn make that big of an impact. these days when people talk about football, they're like "if zidane was playing he would do this and that and destroy everybody", no really he wouldnt, he's not that special. zidane's been wrongfully tagged as one of the greats."
Basically I think he was style over substance,his grace and elegance trick people into thinking he was better than he really was,the media hype helps people idolize him etc I mean most kids/youths nowadays wouldn't know about players like Baggio,Platini,Rui Costa, etc but they all think Zidane is top 5 of all time which is ludicrous.
Another thing that I haven't mentioned is his passing which I don't think matches up well compared to some of the other all time greats.Maybe that's why his assist record is average.
Consistency - In Serie A Rui Costa and Del Piero outshone him or at least matched him but you will never learn about that in the media.
Top 15 - 20 player of all time at the most imo.No where near top 10.
I have nothing against him personly I just call it as I see it,for the record I think Pele is overrated as well it doesn't mean I don't think he was a brilliant player.