Xherdan Shaqiri

[Delicate]

Well, nowadays nobody can win CL unless your club is called Real Madrid or Barcelona, he played for the latter club. And which team he should've chosen in 2014 after Suarez arrived and he had no place in the squad?

 

[brehme1989]

Well, nowadays nobody can win CL unless your club is called Real Madrid or Barcelona, he played for the latter club. And which team he should've chosen in 2014 after Suarez arrived and he had no place in the squad?

Competing for the CL doesn't mean that you magically have to find yourself slotted into a contender's lineup. It's a process. He chose to go to Arsenal which is a club with no ambition whatsoever other than a top 4 finish and an FA Cup final. It'd be far better for him to force a move to any sleeping giant he wanted (eg Inter or Milan, Valencia, Liverpool), or even a team like Juventus who was trying to compete for the CL at the time, or Atletico Madrid who needed something more to dethrone the Clasico giants.

If a player like Sanchez in his prime goes to an ambitious or recovering club, he can bring positive side effects to that team. Players will want to play with him no matter what the club's situation is. Surely mismanagement of big clubs has played a part in their decline, but if players will only go after the money and the status quo, things will never change and football will die as there will be more demand for 'Superleagues' and less demand for variety in European football.

The problem is that players don't see this because the agents run the show. And agents will follow the money, they won't follow ambition or career progression. Look at how Wolves has harbored so many young talents now. An agent is running the show. 3/4 of those players would laugh at the possibility of joining Wolves, let alone in the 2nd tier, but an agent orchestrated those moves and has created an environment where he can sell these players for more now. Several years ago a player would play for a shirt he loved or was attached to. A modern day Batistuta would not stick to Fiorentina in Serie B or not participate in Europe for years. But the actual one stuck for ages until they had a team that participated in the Champions League.

We got possibly the best player of all time at his prime from Barcelona whilst participating in the Uefa Cup after barely finishing 3rd in Italy 20 years ago. Do you think it was possible for Milan to sign Mbappe last season? That's pretty much what Inter did back then x1000 in terms of difficulty. And it's not just that "football is changed" and "players/people are different now". It's simple. If players wanted to run the show, they would. But they love the fact that they have these agents running it and are maximizing their revenue. There's not many players to feel sorry for. They will be the ones regretting their choices for an entire lifetime when they realize that the marginal difference in income that they enjoyed was not worth throwing away their potential.

You're Alexis Sanchez, probably a top 5 player in your generation, definitely top 10, and you waste your career at Arsenal and then when you have the chance to escape that, you move to Man Utd and all that because Barcelona deemed you surplus. I mean how the fuck do you explain yourself to your grandkids? Depression doesn't really cut it.

 

[ADRossi]

While I'm sure we all enjoy sitting here and reading you wax poetic about how great things were when you were a young boy, the vast majority of these players will never regret maximizing their earning potential at the expense of winning. It's called capitalism. And a large majority of these players are perfectly content making as much money as humanly possible over the course of their careers, regardless of how "marginal" you deem it.

I don't think Alexis Sanchez's grandkids are going to give a damn about Sanchez's career trajectory when they don't have to work a day in their lives.

Your mistake is thinking everyone cares about this sport, and winning, as much as you.

 

[brehme1989]

Sure, I know that every additional penny matters. That's part of my job, too. But saying that you're "sorry" for a player who ended up in a shit football situation is going to get that kind of responses. You cannot be 'sorry' that someone chose more money over a better career path, because it was a choice he willingly and knowingly made.

 

[andrei]

Sure, I know that every additional penny matters. That's part of my job, too. But saying that you're "sorry" for a player who ended up in a shit football situation is going to get that kind of responses. You cannot be 'sorry' that someone chose more money over a better career path, because it was a choice he willingly and knowingly made.

I read that Alexis Sanchez has a salary of 26millions pounds per year. Do you really think these "sleeping giants" like Inter, Milan, Valencia i their deep shit could afford such salary?

 

[Delicate]

I was in the middle of a long post but cause of magical Google Chrome keyboard shortcut I somehow closed the tab. Not in a mood to rewrite that post.

Re your last comment about how "sorry" is inappropriate word. Actually after Sanchez's Barca-Arsenal slump in the imaginary club's ambitions vs player's ambitions plot he tried to bounce back and went to Man United. That club was 2nd in the table, had arguably one of the best coaches of modern football (though some would claim that he is going downhill) with lots of ambitions (you could despise Sanchez for joining Arsenal but ManU is always aiming at the top and they are perfect epitome of "sleeping giants" concept). Subsequent events (rows with Mourinho, struggling with fitness) don't have anything to do with his ambitions. He probably spent 3 prime years in Arsenal, that's true, but his next club doesn't fall into Arsenal category.

 

[brehme1989]

I read that Alexis Sanchez has a salary of 26millions pounds per year. Do you really think these "sleeping giants" like Inter, Milan, Valencia i their deep shit could afford such salary?

It's 26m gross, so that's like 13m net. Still a shitload, but that's the 2018 figure. Back in 2014 it was around 7.5m euros gross and they gave him a raise to 9m after 1 year or something. We were paying fucking Vidic slightly less than his initial income at Arsenal... Milan had 3 players with a similar salary (Kaka, Mexes, Balotelli) and then they loaned Torres who also had a similar salary but not sure how much of it they were paying. Possibly the Milan players were getting more due to the FX rates, but let's assume that Sanchez was slightly better paid than those for the sake of the argument.

And that's exactly my point. He's money driven and there's no point in feeling sad about his career path. He made this choice and he has to live with the consequences. After wasting his career at Arsenal I guess it was a given that he'd look to simply maximize his income with a 'cannot refuse' kind of deal, but can you tell me that he couldn't find a team to pay him at least 8m net that he'd be more attached to and would suit his playing style more? Surely it's easy for me to just assume that 5m difference is just a number on a piece of paper in this discussion, but when you're "sorry" for someone, you have to take into account the opportunity cost. He can still have the lifestyle he dreamed of with the money he'd leave.

Now consider that Dario Benedetto left 1m of his contract to join Boca Juniors. And Dario Benedetto probably does not have 1m on his bank accounts at the moment.

 

[firmino]

Seriously let’s sell Liverpool Rano, Dalbert and Joao MARIO those 3 would become godlike for them. Our failed players do real we there

meh, coutinho's potential was clear even back then, we were just retarded in selling him for cheap. klopp is a very good coach but walking on water wouldn't be any more difficult than turning those 3 in top class players.

 

[Sassuolu]

Shaq was never a failure we just had to sell to have more liquidity on the market, FFP is a bitch.

 

[firmino]

oh, i forgot about shaqiri. jeez, the list of stupid things we have done is endless. we bought him, then sold a year later for around the same price. typical mancini stuff, ask for a player only to change idea a few months later. if i had been in shaqiri's place, never in this world i would have moved from Inter to stoke city, no matter what.

 

[Ed.]

oh, i forgot about shaqiri. jeez, the list of stupid things we have done is endless. we bought him, then sold a year later for around the same price. typical mancini stuff, ask for a player only to change idea a few months later. if i had been in shaqiri's place, never in this world i would have moved from Inter to stoke city, no matter what.

He was herr for 6 months

 

[phonk]

The guy that got Mourinho sacked...

 

[Bergpavian]

Congrats. After his win with Bayern (2013) he's now two times Champions League winner. blivious:

 

[Aurel]

He didn't play for a minute in either final though if I'm not mistaken.

 

[MusicalMafia]

He didn't but in fairness, I think he really contributed to Liverpool this season. Congrats.

 

[Sassuolu]

Yeah but he's no world beater that we should lose sleep over.