you overrate pienaar

his huge problem when at Dortmund was NO END PRODUCT and this is still a problem at everton too(to a lesser extent)

he works very hard but is not direct enough in a lot of spots, he is a one sided player who would struggle in a lot of other teams(Dortmund for example he was a huge fail)

decent player anyway but not a top200 player and not better than cahill

Yeah and of course there are a number of Manchester United midfielders ranked ahead of him, so not wanting to have him start over those makes sense.

Wow seriously Demichelis?

?
he is very very good
looked out of place last season but thats not really his fault(the whole defense looked awful due to klinsmann)

I feel like this thread is going to be very fun as it goes on. Hopefully Bjorn gets to #1 before the WC starts though.

He had a very, very good season I think 2 seasons ago, but he just didn't play on that level since then.

Bjorn, don't leave us hanging. We're all itching for an update.

bamp

bump

so Bjorn, are you done with this or what?

If so, please "settle" the debate between cesc and gourcuff.

Re: ranking of Seedorf. I'm sorry, but that is a complete and utter joke. Seedorf is a legend, being the only player to win the Champions League 4 times (3 different teams). He is on the older side now, but lately he has just been class for Milan and is one of their key players now Kaka has left. Cahill, Fellaini, Zapata and Montolivi can only wish to shine his shoes imo and would kill for a career that is half that of Seedorfs.

Yeah like I said in my writeup for him, Seedorf has maybe the most impressive career resume of any active player and when he was at his best he was in a different league than all of those you mention and of course many excellent players yet to come (yup update today and until christmas all free time MUST be dedicated to more updates).

Like discussed earlier in the thread he was a late entry too which also affected his ranking. I had just seen too many poor games from in recent years to even include him but then had a change of mind after some good form from him this season where he reminded me how good he can still be.
Maybe that should have been a little higher ahead of at least some of the players you mention, but I think a case like that can be made for several players ranked near each other. It's so close.
But much higher I don't think I'd rank him even if when he is playing great that his level is very high. It's when it's not that he can really look his age and imo like an outside top 200 player.

I just saw the EPL thread. Btw I Loved the "Bjørn signal"!

And yes not done (see the last post) and after some final (it has to be!) major tweaking to various placements (it's scary in how short time impressions can change) I'm ready to dedicate a lot of time (at least until Christmas) to further updates.

Soooo I don't want to give too much away and I think generally all the players debated are players that I'll have higher ranked than most people would. That means very near the top.

I will say though I have Fabregas ranked ahead of Gourcuff which I don't think is surprising. Sorry Fyte!

Wait Bjorn you can still edit your post! PM me your stars account asap!

We're def gonna have to settle on a Bjorn signal. I put the Danish flag, Cashy suggested Italian flag, and Derwipok made the Danish flag with the 'B" in the middle, that was a nice touch. Its up to you though. It should be something you dont mind seeing so that when you're wading though an inane argument, at least there's something that will put a smile on your face.

?

Hey the list is officially back!

Finally.

Now the goal will be a lot more updates at least until Christmas where things inevitably will slow down some.

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

Anyways here is the update:

The list so far:

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 Münich - Argentina
180: Marouane Fellaini - Everton - Belgium
179: Cristian Zapata - Udinese - Colombia
178: Tim Cahill - Everton - Australia
177: Paul Scholes - Manchester United - England


And the next entries are as follows:

176: Arda Turan - Galatasaray - Turkey
175: Ezequiel Lavezzi - Napoli - Argentina
174: Klaus Jan Huntelaar - AC Milan - The Netherlands
173: William Gallas- Arsenal - France

The relative short writeups can be found HERE

haha whatever is fine by me!

Even Jared's nice effort.

Looking at the list now there are a few I'd have like to have not included to make room for some others.

Walcott is one I would remove now with Mikel and Zhirkov in the danger zone.

And all in all, yes Ramos probably should be a lot higher. Like I had him originally. From what I can gather his play has actually been fairly disciplined lately. At least by his standards.

So good job there, by I presume Pelligrini, REELING him in.

I hate Gallas.
No way he is better then Pepe (!), Lucio or Mexes.

i was surprised to discover mexes only has 17 caps for france

Pepe and Mexes have good cases. It's really close. Not just between them but between a number of people not on the list at all.

Not long ago I'd never have had Gallas ahead of those.
In a way they have a lot of common. All with tons of natural talent, all mistake prone in the past. I guess what put Gallas ahead here is his track record of being part of excellent defenses. Something Pepe and Mexes really hasn't and just less mistakes from the more experienced Gallas these days than what's coming from the other guys and Gallas in the past.

Then again it's also true, like i talk about in their writeups, that Pepe is perhaps the most natural talented of all the central defenders, definitely among the very top, and Mexes when on form, the most impressive looking one, at least outside some of the few elite central defenders still to come.
So all in all, once again, it's just really close.

Lucio for all the qualities that remain and weaknesses for that matter have just become really really slow. Probably the slowest player on the list.

Have you watched Sevilla much this year?

Just wondering where you would put Perotti. I'm assuming he was out of the top 200 before because he was young and unknown but he's won the starting spot in front of #186 Capel and been impressive.

Yeah he missed out and I remember even mentioning him in that Capel writeup but since that I still haven't seen him much unfortunately.

Likely he is better than Capel though and I would be tempted to rank him ahead of an underachiever like Lavezzi while definitely not ready to put him up with the next group of excellent wings.

An interesting comparison and likely where he would end up (I think) would be with Valencia's Pablo who while looking very talented and contending for Spain honors already, still is a little bit unproven.

I've just done some more writeups too and one is another winger, Shaun Wright Phillips, how would you compare Perotti to him?

Speaking of Sevilla, one player who was in the first draft after watching him some last season and then being impressive the first time I watched them this season against Valencia, was Romaric but since then he hasn't been starting and he ended up being a late cut. Maybe undeserved...

There is another Sevilla player coming up very soon though + one of the bigggest stars in football who did not make the list at first either.

wrong
he is better than lucio imo
watched arsenal(ofc) and Bayern a lot in the last few years so im very confident here.

they are pretty similiar players actually but the main difference is that
gallas is more reliable and less error prone

Lucio is kind of a headless chicken sometimes(gallas was guilty of that a bit as well in his earlier years but improved it a lot)

havent watched enough of Mexes or Pepe to judge them in comparison to gallas(you need A LOT of games to properly judge a defender, probably a reason why Sagna is underrated by a lot of people)