actual anomalies. at the same time for more than 15 years. must be a glitch!

Great take

I think that’s what friendly rivalry does . Messi and Ronaldo are only as good as they are bc of the competition between the two as much as they’ll never admit it .

Not to diminish their merit, but they were also lucky to play in some of the greatest squads in history. Just take CR7's stats while playing for Manchester United and then in Real Madrid; even in his first Ballon D'Or winning season, when he was still in England, his goal average was lower than in most of his Madrid seasons. Messi, by his turn, has never been as mythical with the Argentinean jersey as he was with the blaugrana. Of course, CR7 has always been fantastic even for Portugal (which has never had spectacular squads), and Messi's stats for Argentina are amazing - because both are fantastic players. But if they managed to achieve so many record-breaking seasons, it's owed almost as much to their exceptional teams as to their own skill.

@@RevanSurik Not to forget Messi who played alongside Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, etc. because they were all exceptional players too. Basically, we are living in special era with those two.

Like

He is more of a spoiled brat offered big rewards for mediocrity (his salary in friggin ligue 1)

@@NomaHirudo Being a troll on the internet won't get you anywhere my guy.

One of the most accurate and underrated comment I’ve ever seen about Neymar

Perfect analogy man!

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but as an American (0 world cups to your 5) do you think the influence of Pele, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Sócrates, and Garincha has influenced the feeling about Neymar? He is a sublime footballer but is playing in an era of European international football dominance. I genuinely want to hear an outside perspective! I hope you have a good day friend.

@@idkjustchangingmyname7343 Not disrespectful at all :) Like it's mentioned in the video, Neymar came right after an era of star-studded teams; until 2006 Brazil's teams had legends like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo, etc all playing together; more than that, it was common for most top clubs in the world to have at least one Brazilian among their main players (Ronaldo & Roberto Carlos in Real Madrid, Kaká, Cafu & Dida in Milan, Adriano in Internazionale, Ronaldinho in Barcelona, Lúcio & Zé Roberto in Bayern, Juninho Pernambucano in Lyon, Júlio César & Lúcio in Mourinho's Internazionale, etc). But ever since 2010, we haven't seen stars like that - Neymar is easily the only player, in the last ten years, to have a status similar to what the likes of Ronaldinho and Kaká had at their peak (Dani Alves and Marcelo could be seen as our generation's Cafu and Roberto Carlos, but Dani Alves & Marcelo never won WCs like Cafu and R. Carlos did). I don't think the legacy of teams from the 60s, 70s or even 80s weighs down on Neymar or anyone of the current generation, though those who grew up watching that 2002-2009 Brazil teams (like myself) certainly look down on the current generation. We've always had a tendency of negatively comparing the current generation to the previous one (even the 2002 WC-winning team was shit compared to the 1998 team, at least until they won against Germany); likewise, the 2013 team was trash compared to the 2010 one, but now we think fondly of that squad that destroyed Spain in the Confederations Cup lol Personally I don't think we lack in talented players; but football today seems to rely too heavily in tactics and physicality whereas we still idolise flair and individual decision-making - two things that, nowadays, only Neymar out of all Brazilian players seem to embody.

@@RevanSurik Wow! What an incredibly insightful and informative response. I really appreciate you responding!

Russia was a chance for Neymar to set the stage on fire. Instead he cried and rolled around a lot. Brazil's striking options seem to have dwindled a lot in the last decade.

@@vamsiampolu8438 Diego Costa in his prime could have been the answer

Won have won 2 tbh 2015 and 2017 came third in both could’ve won both of messi and Ronaldo weren’t there

Another difference, Brazil's golden generation had R9, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Kakà and many other great players so they were able to share the pressure with each other, this Brazil has only Neymar and that's it

@@jamaa7259 what did Ney do to be worthy of 2017 b'dor?

@@Lbleize he was 3rd place in the ballondor nominations and had a amazing yr that yr

Never realised it until you said it and now I can’t unsee it

Shouldve stayed at Barça tbh

@@doggerlander why? To get a huge pay cut at a financial dumpster fire?

@@doggerlander did passion help you overcome the games against bayern and benfica? If neymar stayed the only thing he would win is a salary reduction

@@doggerlander exactly, so there was no passion. Its just an empty skeleton of a club. You dont even need to go back that far, this UCL season barca have yet to get more than a single shot on target

he still a footballing great imo, it just that ridiculous standard of efficiency set by those 2 monsters (CR7 and Messi) that make neymar games not appreciated

Bruh neymar does not seem to be a hard worker outside the pitch.

Man, the dribblers back in the day were appreciated because they were efficient and valuable in the way they played. Maradona or Garrincha, to use a couple of the more widely known, used to dominate and win the games for their teams. Nobody hates, or dislikes, or poorly rates Neymar because of his flair, they do it precisely BECAUSE all that flair doesn´t translate to actually winning for the most part. Also, you seem to suggest he is underrated, but heck, for a player who has LITERALLY missed half of his club games in the past 4 seasons, also missing a Copa America in that span (the one Brazil won, btw), he is quite generously rated by many, including you seemingly, as one of the best of his generation mostly based on "potential".

Should be Brazilian attacker.

Because they have poor discipline, always partying

@@dinisfonseca6305 Fernandinho too

@@olafharoldsonnii4713 very true lmao

@@dinisfonseca6305 Why? Most Brazilian defenders and defensive players in general, last longer.

the guy is a multi millioner, he is not going through anything.

@@trndrd And you missed the whole point of what he said. Thank you for proving that

@@trndrd He's getting bashed everywhere and it's worsening his mental health. No matter how rich you are, you're still human.

indeed

the messiah failed its project

yup, used to be a neymar hater because he was so good and getting all the love. if messi and ronaldo didnt exist, he would be heavily worshipped. neymar stats are no joke.

@@caiusthue9606 exactly people get so blinded his stats are crazy has over 400 goals and over 200 assists and yet ppl hate him 3rd best player in the world for a reason could’ve won a couple of ballondors if messi and Ronaldo weren’t there he clearly deserves to get one

That's the same for everyone. I think Brazilian players are a bit lacking on the mental department in general, watching the Libertadores I lost count how many time I've seen a Brazilian team completly break down mentally and loose some games they really shouldn't.

@@jonnyso1 yeah I mean its probably true vor every human being no matter the occupation, just have the feeling that in football we talk about it a lot regarding brasilian players.. also thinking about the germany game where they basically just stopped playing

He is happy when he delivers

Adriano also gave up his career because he wasnt happy, its not a coincidence, its a symptom, Brazil has a population severely affected with mental health(look up some of the stats its actually crazy) and it is still a stigma in society

@@wendelhaha1 Adriano situation is different he fell into depression because his father was killed due to gang violence. His father was the closest person to him and was the one that got him into football and pushed him to join inter Milan so it's understandable what he went through Neymar doesn't have that excuse.

Agreed, if you're good enough and confident enough to play with flair, why not?

Thats the issue he’s done with the pressure of being one of the best footballers itw he just doesnt have the ambition or desire anymore to go back to his best levels again

U mean the British Press & Pundits... They not always have good to say

Yeah. A new challenge wouldn't be a bad idea. Probably sick of the french press to death when underperfroming and the nearly there attitude in the champions league. He may be appreciated more somewhere else.

@@croninalan My feeling is that he wants to go back to Brazil or wants to go and live that gucci life in the US after the WC

@@JRD876 Hurts more when it’s from your own country and people.

Name of the song?

@@kshitiz6376 Numb - Linkin Park

mahrez most definitely did not out shine neymar lol neymar was clearly the better player .. regardless your earlier comment about the stats changing due to positional change.. i agree with

We spoke in the video of how his finishing and passing has fallen off a bit (a lot, when it comes to finishing), and some of the stats presented speak to that and corroborate a downward trend overall in his performances. Misplaced passes could be due to a slight positional change as you said, but his change to a more central position happened back in 2018-19, and he still was much, much better in all categories at that time (and scored/assisted a ton). If you're arguing that I should have used different metrics? You're probably right as I'm new to this and learning still. But the fall-off in both finishing and passing is noticeable to the eye _and_ in the numbers, which was the point of that section. As for the injuries, I made sure to mention them a ton throughout the video so I thought that was implied as a major issue (I even specifically said he has only broken 30 appearances once for PSG). But if I lacked clarity there, then that's my bad! Thanks for the feedback.

@@RabonaTV Thanks for the measured response. My main point was that the data used for analysis here didn't demonstrate net footballing decline in either a storytelling or statistical power way. Some other attributes which could have been added to paint a fuller picture include changes in distance run, take on volume & completion accuracy, dispossessions. If you want to get fancy, we could also consider things like change in team npxg between the PSG managers to factor in effect of changes in tactics & manager, or add in agnostic team importance scores like GoalImpact/Shapley values to understand whether Neymar is becoming more important to his teams despite his overt dropoff in output. One part of the analysis which was incorrect was the overuse of success percentages instead of looking at changes in raw # of attempts. This is called the law of large numbers, and means that the percentage only stabilizes and represents the true normal level for players when they are making that kind of play at high volume. For example, Cesc Fabregas's pass completion % and xG from passing is more indicative of his true level as a passer compared to Obi Mikel's. Same is true looking at take ons, shots taken, etc. There's also some soccer analytics arguments that raising volume for these has more positive impact than raising the success % (The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson covers this a lot, and there's some indirect discussion of it in another book called Soccermatics by David Sumpter), so it's possible that Neymar is becoming more dangerous despite the dropoff in success %. I enjoy your videos and look forward to more in the future. If interested in incorporating more analytics in future videos, aside from those books I recommend Dan Altman, and the blog section of statsbomb. Conversations with people from Statsbomb, Opta, or analytics based writers in the Athletic like John Muller and Mark Carey might also bridge these sort of discussions further. I've loved some of your other collabs like the one with Manuel Veth of transfermarkt. If interested in bridging club finance analysis (totally unrelated to this thread), I'd recommend talking with @SwissRamble or this site called 'Off the Pitch'.

How do you know that he doesn't ? The difference between him and the big two is that he exposes his personal life more, he's also one of the first social media age big stars.

@@jonnyso1 what do you mean how do I know? It's well know that he likes parties, clubs and carnivals. Nothing wrong with that, but looks at Ronaldo's lifestyle and compare

No one has Cristiano Ronaldo's work ethic. Not a single footballer in the entire world. It's not normal. I don't think it's fair to compare his and Neymar's choices of lifestyle, because Neymar's are probably much closer to the norm.

@@jonnyso1 Sadly social media is his downfall.

@@santiagobauza4257 yes. That's why I said half the work ethic. But Neymar doesn't ever have 30% of Ronaldo's determination and work ethic

Yes, this is the first time that he has a good team around him since he started as a National team player

go through hell? bruh, hes privileged as fuck, look how he lives.

@@Jan-hu1hk his lifestyle is serving him well is it on the pitch hey?! Mxm😬😪 Very easy to tell someone to get over their psychological problems because they have money. One of the many reasons why people will screw you over something important: their mental wellbeing.

@@Jan-hu1hk the guy wants to play his football with zero expectations. Is that too much to ask for?!

@@creative_soul-recolo in the end he gets to play a fucking game for a living whilst earning more than he can dream of. and he gets to retire from that in his 30's and get to do what ever he wants. i wouldnt call that going through hell.

@@Jan-hu1hk Why would he want to retire at his peak so to say?! The man still has more to offer and lead his club and country to continental glory. Depression is no joke and when you're as distraugt as Neymar, money don't mean siht when you can't play 90 minutes without any tabloids. Yes his antics have been called into question on a number of occasions but he's an elite footballer who just wants to play the game he loves.

Fully agree. Its getting harder and harder to do the old Greece tactic - play great in defense and take your chance. From Spain all the way to teams like Belgium, France, Italy are all are playing more and more attacking football and with the talent Portugal have, they could do some amazing things.

@@filipstojanovski5244 why not call Jesus up for Portugal coach, he's Portuguese, plus coaches Benfica

Portugal doesn’t play to win, Portugal plays to help Ronaldo break records…

@@rhianor yeah Portugal will also win world cup and help Ronaldo break another record 😉

@@zaeidanis I'm a benfica fan a think this is a terrible idea mourinho would be much better i think

"best player in the world" Doesnt even reach the top 5

@@doggerlander Nah, he's the 4th best player in the world.

@@niklassule-unofficial4200 false

@@doggerlander Who do you think is 4th?

He is not carrying RM but carrying RM attack now.

"opposing teams were always told to cut and take Neymar down" That's not limited to Neymar. Diving however with VAR tech is getting players a bad rep with fans, refs and players. Players like Neymar and Sterling do not need to dive.

@@gwenwalravens8030 yes agreed it happens to alot of players. But if you noticed they do it to Neymar more often than other players. Probably because of the way Neymar is portrayed by the mass media as a cheat and a showboater. And yes with VAR now, we can see it clearly now. I guess its a blow for Neymar, i dont support his divingbat times but i wanna see him at his mecurial best again.

@@super8league "Probably because of the way Neymar is portrayed by the mass media as a cheat and a showboater." The reason they do it is because it works on Neymar. They commit a foul and the game is interrupted bc Neymar acts as if his life just ended and the ref needs to check up on him. It is a terrible tactic if your team is playing counter football.

Welcome to the real world

Brazil did good at copa America but Neymar acc does good for Brazil took them to the semis 2014 worldcup and I feel like he would take them even further to the final Brazil are legit lacking a goal scorer striker and if they get sorted neymar will be having plenty of assists

He's just not great anymore. I'm not fat shaming bc I myself am a bit chubby, but if you want to be one of the best at your game how are you going to allow yourself to gain weight and have the same physic you had when you were 20? He lacks any discipline and he resorts to dirty tactics like diving. He was never going to be the best in the world

He was never shadow of Mbappe. He is better more influential player and delivers in big games.