The 200 best players in the world: 176-173

Hey the list is back!

Finally.

The goal is a lot more updates at least until Christmas where things inevitably will be delayed some.

Certainly I can't wait to reach top 100 where the players chosen and their placings have been much more set unlike the 100-200 ranked players where I find myself constantly changing things up.

Anyways here is the update:

Introduction to the list.

The list so far:

200-195
194-193
192-189
188
187-185
184-182
181-177

200: Alberto Zapater - Genoa - Spain
199: Nikola Zigic - Valencia - Serbia
198: Sergio Ramos - Real Madrid - Spain
197: Lucio - Inter - Brazil
196: John Obi Mikel - Chelsea - Nigeria
195: Sergio Busquets - Barcelona - Spain
194: Philippe Mexes - Roma -France
193: Anatolij Tymoshchuk - Bayern München - Ukraine
192: Theo Walcott - Arsenal - England
191: Aaron Ramsey - Arsenal - Wales
190: Pepe - Real Madrid - Portugal
189: Sergei Semak - Rubin Kazan - Russia
188: Alberto Aquilani - Liverpool - Italy
187: Clarence Seedorf - Milan - Holland
186: Diego Capel - Sevilla - Spain
185: Yossi Benayoun - Liverpool - Israel
184: Riccardo Montolivo - Fiorentina - Italy
183: Kolo Toure - Manchester City -Côte d'Ivoire
182: Yuri Zhirkov - Chelsea - Russia
181: Martin Demichelis - Bayern Munich - Argentina
180: Marouane Fellaini - Everton - Belgium
179: Cristian Zapata - Udinese - Colombia
178: Tim Cahill - Everton - Australia
177: Paul Scholes - Manchester United - England

176:

Arda Turan - Galatasaray - Turkey

Midfielder/Forward



A difficult player to rank since I don't see him very often.

He is probably the most talented player coming out of Turkey since Emre Belözoğlu.

Emre who after an up and down time abroad now is back in Turkey, and who a little surprisingly is still only 29.

Emre seems to have been around forever but right now I would say I have even less of an idea of how he is doing than Arda Turan, and therefore perhaps mistakenly didn't even consider him for the list.
At EURO 2008 Emre unfortunately got injured in the opening game and instead it was Arda who shined and also Arda who makes the list!

For years and years heralded as one of Europe's prime talents, Arda Turan is now 22, captain of Galatasaray, has 34 caps for his country and is already quite an experienced player.

He has very good technical ability. Dribbling, shooting and passing and creates goals for himself and for teammates. He is also comfortable on either wing, as well as playing up front working with a striker.
Something like his work-rate I have to admit I'm not really sure of so I can't say whether that's a strength or weakness of his, but if I was to point to something of the latter I would say his athletic ability doesn't seem to be all that great. Neither when it comes to strength or real speed, and that's what keeps him behind the next ranked player and others to yet to come. And the difference in level of competition that he faces.
Hopefully like Emre before him, we'll see Arda in one of the top leagues in not too many years.

175:

Ezequiel Lavezzi - Napoli - Argentina

Winger/Forward



A notoriously inconsistent performer Lavezzi has unique acceleration going for him. In fact I think it's safe to say that with the ball at his feet he must be a candidate for the fastest player around.
That of course also tells you something about his very good control and great balance. His "Tevez like" stockiness and low center of gravity helps too. Though not as strong or hardworking as Tevez he is definitely faster.

The downside is that it just seems like he doesn't get enough out of those qualities and therefore at times isn't all that effective and helpful to his team.

He doesn't consistently make good or even right decisions. In fact he often picks the worst solutions and his passing skills aren't that good either. And rarely good enough to create. That could easily have a lot to do with bad decision making of course but either way at the moment it just isn't good enough.

Then there is his questionable stamina and/or fitness. If Napoli really do fulfill their ambitions of European football, could Lavezzi even make good contributions twice a week?

His skills on the ball are so unique that he still makes the list but he needs to improve in other areas in my view to have any chance of climbing to somewhere much higher on the list, where I'm sure a lot of people, overly impressed by his skills, would feel he should be placed.


174:

Klaas Jan Huntelaar - AC Milan - Netherlands

Striker



Currently having something of a nightmare season for his new club AC Milan which has hurt his ranking a lot.

How much of it is his own fault though I'm not really sure. At the moment Milan is playing with three forwards where one of them, Ronaldinho is pretty much immobile and then to have Huntelaar in there too who does almost all his work exclusively in the box is a bit too much of a balance destroyer and would expose the very thinly occupied midfield behind even further than what's going on at the moment.

Marco Borriello who plays instead of Huntelaar and enjoying something of a resurrection this year, after his own struggles settling at Milan last season, isn't as impressive as Huntelaar can be in the box or as dangerous, but he is good at that too and more versatile when it comes to other things. And he is mobile and has some pace which the Milan lineup desperately needs.

So as long as that system is rewarded with results and Borriello as well as Ronaldinho shows reasonable form it's going to be tough for Huntelaar to establish himself in the lineup.

But all those things are far from given and I'm pretty confident that alone up front with more midfielders behind him or in a partnership with basically any of the other Milan forwards that Huntelaar's striker qualities would come through and he would be scoring a decent amount of goals in Serie A too.


173:

William Gallas- Arsenal - France

Defender




In some ways this is the Kolo Toure writeup all over again except there have definitely been times where I haven't thought of Gallas very highly.
Perhaps mistakenly, but to me he often seemed like an erratic defender who while hugely talented was guilty of costly bonehead plays.

At the moment I'm not really seeing that. In fact he does an admirable job of keeping things together in the Arsenal central defense together with his colleague Vermaelen often directly preventing dangerous situations.
Meanwhile at City (albeit arguably with an even harder job for Mark Hughes erratic lineups, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't!) Toure often not at 100 percent isn't really doing the same.

Gallas good track record shouldn't be ignored either.

Previously for Chelsea whether playing as a fullback, something he probably still has the speed to do, or in central defense with John Terry, he was in no way a liability on what was a very good defensive team under Mourinho winning the league two years in a row.

For France also he was part of the near flawless defensive efforts that took apart both Spain and Brazil on the way to the final at the 2006 World Cup.

Gallas despite not having great height impressively rarely misses a beat in the air which speaks volumes about his athleticism.
At 32 now his agility and speed really seems as good as it always was and he is of course very good with the ball as well.
He is also something of a threat to score from set pieces.

With age and experience the errors (bad positioning/bad decisions) have become rare. It lands him at 173!

More (much more) football

Three matches I want to talk about.

The Manchester City-Blackburn game that I watched at the weekend and forgot about in the last entry.

A very entertaining Berlusconi Cup game between Juventus and AC Milan yesterday.

And finally the Champions League qualifier that finished a few hours ago between Celtic and Arsenal.

How much will be about the actual games and how much will be about the individual teams only time will tell...

Blackburn - Manchester City:

As everyone knows Manchester City have become filthy rich and have been more than happy to hand out tons of cash to secure (mainly attacking) talent.
Ignoring what came in last season this season alone in has come players such as Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Gareth Barry and Kolo Toure.
All to certain degrees world class players and they join what on paper was already a strong squad.
The overwhelming question is of course if Mark Hughes with all that talent can create a world class team so strong it can challenge the traditional dominating top four.

Personally I think they already underachieved quite a bit last season and this year with these players dramatic improvement is simply a must and I think there can be no excuse not to finish in the top 5.
Villa, Everton and Tottenham mainly, have good squads too but when it comes to world class talent and depth thanks to their enormous spending Manchester City have pulled away and is now up there with the four strongest teams.
When it comes to players. But what about the manager?

Mark Hughes has recived quite a bit of credit over the years. First as Wales manager with his team often performing gallantly and later what was seen as generally overachieving when in charge of Blackburn.
It was rather limited how much I saw those teams play and even more limited how much I actually remember...
But my general impression was one of a team rarely well organized and sometimes with a rather misguided game plan. For what its worth, limited sample size, bad memory and all, it was just one of those teams that sometimes didn't look all that well coached when looking at them, mainly without the ball.

For Manchester City the picture has been similar. Very up and down and Hughes record of 26 wins, 8 draws and 24 defeats so far, is far from impressive.

To be honest I'm not totally sure what system Hughes was playing against Blackburn and its pointless to get caught up in the numbers too much anyway since they change around so much.
The backline was obviously four people and they played very well I thought.
Then Barry and Ireland (out of need in a more defensive role) as central midfielders, and depending on where Wright Phillips, Robinho and Bellamy were located the system was either 4-4-2 or 4-3-3ish.
I actually think Bellamy and Wright Phillips did an admirable job working extremely hard both ways but they aren't exactly great defensive players and Robinho's usual lack of workrate prevented what was probably meant to be a 4-4-2 when defending sticking together and being effective, basically giving Blackburn very favorable conditions to almost at will move the ball to the final third of the pitch, where thankfully for City, both the defense and Shay Given played very well preventing goals.
Hughes putting Wright Phillips and especially Robinho on the wings of a 4-4-2 just will not work longterm and better attacking, more ball secure teams than Blackburn will likely pick it apart.

What should give City hope is the signing of Tevez who outside of Wayne Rooney could be the best two-way forward in the world. He is the kind of player who with his work-rate can complement the likes of Robinho and Adebayor so they can concentrate on what they're actually very good at. Attacking!
Meanwhile someone like Tevez will get it done both ways.

But in a 4-4-2?
A three forward line of Tevez - Adebayor - Robinho would seem more logical and get the best of out those players. Robinho is almost wasted as a wing in a 4-4-2. All Robinho should be asked to do in a game is to attack, to create, and further behind someone like Ireland is also much better with two more defensive midfielders. Gareth Barry being one. Nigel De Jong probably the other.
As well as they actually played yesterday, Bellamy and Wright Phillips with this competition are very good depth players getting games here and there. Starting either over someone like Tevez is a disaster.

Forward of course City looked very good. They can give any team problems with their pace and excellent skill up front and Adebayor, if Santa Cruz at some point doesn't come back and seriously challenge his starting spot, should have a monster season.

But this was a flattering score line I thought. Blackburn had the more chances. Way more shots and a midfield actually consisting of more than two players!
Individually though with everyone playing relatively well the quality gap was large enough in City's favour in order for them to secure a win.
As a team they and Hughes still has some way to go though I think, but put Tevez in a 4-3-3 with Adebayor and Robinho and I think we have a serious top 4 challenger!


AC Milan vs Juventus

For the glorious Berlusconi Cup:
Glorified friendly anyone?

But this was actually a really good game I thought with both teams competing hard seemingly with something to prove.

One very positive thing was seeing Alessandro Nesta finally back and looking pretty solid too.
It's very likely he won't remain consistently healthy but all the credit in the world to him for coming back after one injury nightmare after another.
Back when he was healthy he was the best defender that I ever saw. Simply an immense player.
Even as a Juventus fan I felt my heart stop a little every time he, and he didn't seem to hold back at all, went into hard tackles. Stay healthy Alessandro!

Another player who also did this was of course Gattuso who looked much better than in the Confederations Cup and almost got into a fight with new Juventus signing Felipe Melo.
Melo himself saw the red card plenty last season and I definitely expect fireworks from these two when they cross swords later this season in Serie A.
Melo I hope will be a monster. He is a great physical talent with very smooth passing skills.
For Gattuso everything will be about his health. If not 100 percent fit he really isn't good enough at the highest level anymore. Flamini for an example is definitely better at this point. Lets see if the Milan hierachy will finally be broken under new coach Leonardo or if Flamini is still behind veterans Ambrosini and Gattuso in the pecking order.

Other than the new coach the biggest questionmark for Milan this season is of course Ronaldinho. In this game it was basically the usual from the last couple of years with perhaps a better workrate though. At least in this game. I'm not totally sure. But in spurts he did look good.

One interesting thing though is that he wasn't playing his old role or the role previously occupied by Kaka at Milan.
Pato actually did this and was much more of a forward in this game bordering on attacking midfielder involved in buildup, than being a pure striker. He still made some great speedy runs though. Really he was kind of an everywhere man.
To a lesser extent the same was the case with new signing Huntelaar. He was seen a lot of other places than in the box, working really hard.
Personally I think Pato can be great in that role. His talent has no limit almost but to put Huntelaar out of his element like this just to accommodate a Ronaldinho not at his best anymore and not good enough to play the role he used to, having other people to do that, just so he maybe can be effective around the penalty area, WHERE probably the likes of Huntelaar and Pato would be more effective anyway.
It seems when Ronaldiho plays this is what they will do. The question then of course is how much he will play? We shall see.

Finally on Milan and their players, I also thought new Brazilian defender Thiago Silva looked good and a definite upgrade over the likes of the unreliable Kaladze and the ancient Giuseppe Favalli.

Juventus I could probably go on and on about but will try to restrain myself and just concentrate on what I saw in this game.

First of all David Trezeguet sadly looks just about done to me. The last many many times I've seen him play there has been very little productivity and close to zero value for his team and yesterday was no exception.
I can't rule out him finding form again here and there but in this new Ciro Ferrara three-forward line I absolutely hate him playing a vital part. The unrealistic exception being if the other two parts were to be Giovinco and Del Piero.

When it's with Amauri or Iaquinta I just hate what he does to their game and forces them away from where they are best, just so Trezeguet with his non existant workrate can be where he frankly isn't that great anymore and definitely not as good as the alternatives.
Even, if possible, moreso than before he has become strictly a penalty area player and when he isn't even effective there I'm not sure there is room for that in what is supposed to be a flexible 4-3-1-2, or similar, system.
Another challenge for this system looks to be width where Milan for good parts of the game had the edge. When neither Del Piero or Giovinco plays where is attack from the left side gonna come from?
Molinaro is ordinary personified and De Ceglie still has some way to go in my eyes. Then there is the matter of defending the flanks where the midfield really has to find the right constellation in order to not become too stretched out. At least against good teams.
Against a lot of teams however I think most of the likely midfield formations will control games well enough for any width weakpoints not to be a deciding factor. Not least thanks to additions Melo and the excellent Diego.
A Sissoko, Melo and Marchisio/Camoranesi midfield with Diego in front of them looks very elite and I also think, despite some people's opinion, that Christian Poulsen can go in and contribute positively there over a long season.

The game itself was very back and forth with chances for both sides finishing 1-1 with Milan winning THE BERLUSCONI TROPHY on penalties.

Celtic - Arsenal

This was game two (competitively at least) of Arsenal's new 4-3-3 and while things didn't work out perfectly like at the weekend there were still some positives.

Mainly the midfield play where especially Song looked strong and fully capable of fulfilling his role there satisfactory.
Denilson was less eye catching but defensively this was one of the best games I've seen him in. His positioning was really good compared to in the past where it's been way below par.

One positive in a negative was that it was never really from any established Celtic attack that Arsenal found trouble defensively but only from poor decision making resulting in ball losses when in possession. And that's something that actually was below par from Arsenal today. Arsharvin was even more of a shadow of himself than in the weekend and just looked lost at times, while both Van Persie and Bendtner were quite a bit below the level they showed at the weekend.
In the other end Vermaelen looked extremely impressive and already looks like a great signing.
Celtic as expected fought hard but as local analyst here, Martin Laursen brought up, passing it around too much in their own half at times, especially after halftime, didn't do anyone any favours except Arsenal who could quite easily anticipate and at times even intercept.
Celtic should probably have tried skipping that ball movement, played much more direct and made the match even more into a physical battle.
Easier said than done of course and now with a 2-0 to overcome it's extremely difficult to see them having any chance of going through.

My goal is to have the next entry be some kind of Serie A preview before the weekend.

I will also be watching the Athletics World Championship on and off, as well as of course the Tennis from Cincinnati.