Size matters? African football (soccer) is ill-served by Europe’s obsession with physique

a great article written from the african point of view explaining that blacks are thought to be more phyisical than whites: http://www.worldsoccer.com/blogs/si...ill-served-by-europes-obsession-with-physique

a translation of what happened in france regarding physical blacks: http://www.castefootball.us/forums/threads/13607-French-Soccer?p=230956&viewfull=1#post230956

 

Nice comment by the FA coach on the first link saying they too worried about size. He says most world class players are small and skilled. England gets these fast black guys instead of the smaller,skilled, white players like Spain.

They don't realize that many black players might not have the innate skill and subtlety to be great players. Where are the black Wilsheres, Iniestas, Pirlos? It's not just training. The raw material isn't there.

Frederic38, Name me the most skilled black passer of the last 20-25 years.

 

there's a saying about this: no matter how fast you are, in soccer the ball will always be faster than you

the guy who commented on the pele article by rebajlo mentionned tigana because tigana was small and pretty skilled, but actually tigana was also a defensive middlefielder:

from his wikipedia page

he was part of the "carré magique" in the french national team, which was platini-ghengini-giresse as offensive players and tigana in a more defensive role

in the early 90's there were 2 black players that played in top european clubs as offensive middlefielders: the dutch gullit (less than 50% black) for ac milan and abedi pele for marseille, who was mentionned in the article as an example of a world class black player
abedi pele was not his real name, he was nicknamed pelé because he was good at dribbling like pelé

but abedi pelé's importance at marseille has been exagerated because marseille is the most popular club in africa, and pelé was part of the 1991 marseille team that was the best european team at the time:


(he's the black guy in the first row, funny how he looks exactly like his 2 sons that play for marseille, andre and jordan ayew)

the biggest match in the history of french club football (whithout mentionning reims during di stefano's time) was ac milan vs marseille in quarter-final of the 1990-1991 champions league
it was the real final of the competition, between the 2 best teams of this time
marseille won the match, but in a typical french way (too laid back) they managed to lose the final against belgrade in the penalty shootout
marseille had abedi pele and milan had gullit

during the first leg in milan marseille played well (they prepared this match for 2 months and a half)
they did 1-1
the key players were carlos mozer the monster brazilian defender, chris waddle the english magician, and papin the player of the century for marseille
here is marseille's goal: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3a3v8_extraordinaire-papin-1-4-de-finale_news
abedi pele dribbles in the center of the fiel, then look at the pass by waddle and goal by papin

in the second leg at marseille with a fantastic public marseille humiliated gullit's ac milan
here is the only goal of the match and the fantastic atmosphere:

[video=youtube_share;LjYg5Fv0u1Q]http://youtu.be/LjYg5Fv0u1Q[/video]

cross by abedi pelé, incredible headed pass by papin and goal by waddle

ac milan were so humiliated that after this run by the magician waddle: http://youtu.be/hPE0WYt0UYg they refused to play the rest of the match, and they lost 3-0 because they withdrew

so abedi pelé was way over rated and the rest of his career shows it
in marseille there were so many great payers during his time like enzo francescoli (who inspired zidane, that's why zidane's son is named enzo) waddle (the 3rd most expansive transfert of the time behind maradona and gulllit), dragan stojkovic, who had been the star player of the latest world cup at the time, cantona, the monster brazilian defender mozer, papin the player of the century for marseille, Karl-Heinz Förster, Klaus Allofs, alen boksic, rudi voller, not to mention the french players like deschamps or barthez, and frank sauzée

after these 2, the only one i can remember is Jay-Jay Okocha, also mentionned in the article
but Jay-Jay Okocha was the biggest flop in the history of french club football: http://www.castefootball.us/forums/threads/14268-Black-flops?p=257181&viewfull=1#post257181
in this link i posted the amount of assists he had at paris saint germain, which you won't find anywhere
he was the most expansive player at the time, and if you take into consideration the economic context, he's i believe the biggest transfert in the history of the french league
he is the latest black/african star (high profile play-maker), but he was a huge flop

currently i'd say that the most talented black middlefielder might be pienaar, but he's not fully black (his name is the afrikaner way to write the french name pinard) and he's not good enough to play as offensive middlefielder in a top club
also he comes from south africa, a place where the development of the black players is not the same as described in the article

black passers virtually don't exist, even in the french league there are none