Thursday, April 15, 2010

Is Messi the Best Player of The World?

Well, I hope he is...he has been scoring incredibly beautiful and decisive goals in very important games. Everything suggests that he will do very well in the 2010 World Cup. We'll see! However, one thing that interests me is the fact that, in soccer, we are always looking into those players that are decisive for a team because they score, or because they do "magic" things with the ball like Zidane. But we often do not look into the importance of defenders. In fact, when a defender is chosen as the best player of a game, people say "that says a lot about the quality of the game" in a negative way. Moreover, teams with good defenses are called "defensive," in a despective way. In contrast, when I watch the NBA games, I hear the crowd shouting "defense, defense!"...Why is that so? I mean, why is it that football fans do not value their defenders that easily? I cannot imagine an Argentine or Brazilian crowd shouting "defense, defense" during a football match.

1 comment:

  1. Amusing post, and point, Martin! When I think about it, at a basketball game the crowd is screaming "defense, defense", but not because they necessarily praising their defenders, they're just cheering the team.

    A basketball team has the advantage that ALL of the players on the court regularly contribute to scoring, rather than in football, where it is pretty rare for the backfield to score a key goal.

    So it's not so much the fans are different, i think in both cases fans appreciate goals being scored. It just so happens defenders in basketball (or even sports like hockey) contribute to scoring a lot more often.

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