Sunil Chhetri thread ...

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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by jayakris »

I guess we have not posted in this thread in quite a while.

Just read this and found it interesting - Chhetri better than Ronaldo and Messi? Stats definitely say so!
Sunil Chhetri now holds the tag of international football's most prolific goalscorer. After his goal against Puerto Rico, the Indian captain took his tally to 51 goals in 91 games, giving him the best goals to games ratio (0.56) for active players in international football who have scored more than 50 goals.

In fact, there are only five active players who have scored more than 50 goals for their country, the other four being Lionel Messi (56 goals in 114 appearances), Cristiano Ronaldo (61 in 133), Wayne Rooney (53 in 116) and USA forward Clint Dempsey (52 in 130). Esteemed company indeed.
Sunil's stats are indeed quite amazing!
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by sameerph »

Yes, that is great indeed. Unfortunately, it seems we could not benefit much from his undoubted talent ( as with Baichung Bhutia before him). We needed to have at least 3-4 more decent talents in the team to complement one very good one to make some good progress. We may be getting some of such talent now but Chettri is getting old .
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Prashant »

I was disappointed that Chhetri couldn't make it in the MLS after his tryout at KC. That would have been excellent. It also appears to be his only foray outside India in his pro career, which is disappointing. I would really like a lot of our promising players to play in division 2/3 in powerhouse countries if possible...
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Prashant »

By the way, there is a sixth active football player with 50+ goals, at the same goals per game as Chhetri - he is Ali Ashfaq from Maldives.

Big fish in small ponds compared to the other four on teh list.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

Dempsey is also a big fish in a small pond compared to the other 3.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Prashant »

Dempsey is not the player that the other three are. But he stars for a side that is consistently top 20 in the world and consistently plays sides in the top 40-50 in the world.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by jayakris »

And Dempsey is quite underrated. He is damn good. Not in the class of Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney, of course, but among the best below that.

USA has brought up a 17 year old (who had his first start for USA this week), Cristian Pulisic, who seems to be super-talented. He is the youngest to ever score for USA. Already with Dortmund, and I believe he is the youngest ever to score 2 goals in Bundesliga history too. Liverpool wanted him for $14.5 million and Dortmund wouldn't take it.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

Dempsey is very good by US standards but that's not saying much globally. He would have never ranked amongst the top 50 players at any point in his career.

Pulisic is just a kid for now. A lot of them fail to make the step up from 17/18 to the senior levels.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Prashant »

Sin Hombre wrote:Dempsey is very good by US standards but that's not saying much globally.
Dempsey spent years of his career as first choice striker at one of the better clubs in the EPL. He is very good by global standards. He isn't a generational talent like Messi or CR, but that's a harsh bar to set.

Sin Hombre wrote:Pulisic is just a kid for now. A lot of them fail to make the step up from 17/18 to the senior levels.
You're missing Jay's point. He has already made the step up. He's been starting for Borussia Dortmund's senior team, not their U18. He was the player of the match vs Trinidad the other day, without question, and was the only US player to put up a respectable showing vs Argentina in the Copa semi final a couple of months ago (I was there, so this is a first hand opinion sitting a few rows from the field).
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by arjun2761 »

Prashant wrote:
Sin Hombre wrote:Dempsey is very good by US standards but that's not saying much globally.
Dempsey spent years of his career as first choice striker at one of the better clubs in the EPL. He is very good by global standards. He isn't a generational talent like Messi or CR, but that's a harsh bar to set.

Sin Hombre wrote:Pulisic is just a kid for now. A lot of them fail to make the step up from 17/18 to the senior levels.
You're missing Jay's point. He has already made the step up. He's been starting for Borussia Dortmund's senior team, not their U18. He was the player of the match vs Trinidad the other day, without question, and was the only US player to put up a respectable showing vs Argentina in the Copa semi final a couple of months ago (I was there, so this is a first hand opinion sitting a few rows from the field).
Agree with Prashant. Dempsey isn't a generational talent but he is far closer to the top 3 (where the over-hyped Rooney isn't in the class of the other 2) than Chettri is to the top-4. It's like comparing ATP titles to GS titles (between Dempsey and Messi/Ronaldo) while Chettri's achievements are similar to winning 10K futures in India.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by jayakris »

Sin Hombre, the world still thinks that US football is what it was last century, even in the early 90s. Things have changed quite a bit. The best youth league system in the world is in the US and has been so for 2-3 decades now. The father-generation who grew up with youth soccer are now grooming their kids. You have some surprises coming your way. Better start respecting US soccer a little bit. Even MLS standards have come a long way and it is one of the better senior leagues in the world too. Pulisic looks really good so far. I just could not believe it the other day, seeing how easily he beats defenders and just goes around with the ball. The kind of skills you don't expect in US players.

As for Dempsey, well, anybody who scored 50 goals in the EPL (Fulham and Tottenham) is no small fry. He was voted as the #4 best EPL player behind Van Persie, Roonie and Scholes in 2012. That would not count among top-50 in the world? If not, it would not be too far away from top-50.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Prashant »

Arjun's comparison is apt. And to Jay's point - in his last year at Fulham & first 1.5 seasons at Spurs, Dempsey would have made a top 50 in the world list very comfortably.

I don't mean any of this to slate Chhetri. He seems to have tried his very best within the parameters available to him, and I am completely thankful for all the goals for India.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

I think you guys are being too defensive here. Going to do a point by point rebuttal here.

Not sure where Dempsey being the #4 best player in 2012 in the PL is coming from. This was the peer rewarded 2012 PL teams of the season - Premier League: Hart (Man City), Walker (Spurs), Kompany (Man City), Coloccini (Newcastle), Baines (Everton), Silva (Man City), Parker (Spurs), Y Toure (Man City), Bale (Spurs), Van Persie (Arsenal), Rooney (Man Utd). FWA awards tend to be a bit hipster-ish and is not a PL specific award.

Fulham is not one of the better teams in the league. They finished 7,8,9,12,16,17 in Dempsey's 6 seasons. Clear mid-to-bottom half team.

Scoring 50 goals in the PL is great by Indian records but nothing too impressive by European standards. Darren Bent scored almost 100 goals in the PL but most of you probably haven't even heard of him. In fact, Jermaine Defoe has had a much more stellar record than Dempsey and most people would never even consider comparing him to Ronaldo and Messi (or say that he was comfortably a top 50 player for multiple seasons).

Pulisic has not made the step-up to be a starter at BvB. He has started 4 games in his entire career so far for Dortmund. In fact, his coach Tuchel just came out this week and said that he will have to wait for chances. There have been numerous examples of young stars at 17/18 fizzling out. Kiko Macheda (who?) even won United a league title with his goals as a kid. Adnan Januzaj was capped by a top 5 squad in Belgium at 18 and his career has gone nowhere since.

Rooney used to overrated but is now underrated. He is poor now and is an old 30-year old as far as mileage goes (bit like Nadal) but until 2012 or so, he was easily a top 20 player in the world. He was an equal of Ronaldo until 21 but then couldn't make the next step-up which also plays a part in the negative perception.

Jay no offense but I do not think that you have seen many youth systems in the world. Most of the coaching in the US is the worst of English practices with very little emphasis on technique and individual ball skills and a lot more of silly parents pushing for results. As someone who has lived a lot of my life in Western Europe and now live in the US, I can safely say that the US is still decades away from best practices. The father-generation grooming is actually one of the silliest things you can do as far as coaching is concerned.


I know there has been desperation for decades now for the US to have a bonafide "soccer" world class player but Dempsey was not one and Pulisic has potential but has a long road ahead for him to get there.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by jayakris »

Sin Hombre wrote:Not sure where Dempsey being the #4 best player in 2012 in the PL is coming from.
Here - from BBC - http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/17822161 ... He was the 4th highest goal scorer in EPL that year.
Fulham is not one of the better teams in the league. They finished 7,8,9,12,16,17 in Dempsey's 6 seasons. Clear mid-to-bottom half team.
Wait, how does that matter? He wasn't scoring against Fulham! I didn't say that Fulham was any good anyway.
Scoring 50 goals in the PL is great by Indian records but nothing too impressive by European standards.
Come on. Doing that in 6 years and about 200+ games is certainly impressive. I would guess that only some 40 or 50 player have scored as many in EPL in 200 odd games, though I assume he would only fall somewhere in the top-100 goal scorers in EPL history. Now, you made the accusation that he was not a top-50 player in the world at any point in his career. None of us said he was, anyway. Dempsey is a world class player, and was among the top-50 or top-100 players in the world for a period in his career, maybe a couple of years. None of us said he was as good as Messi, Ronaldo, or Rooney. To say that he is just a "big fish in a small pond" or whatever, and equate him to Sunil Chhetri or something was just not right, and that's all I complained about.
Pulisic has not made the step-up to be a starter at BvB. He has started 4 games in his entire career so far for Dortmund. In fact, his coach Tuchel just came out this week and said that he will have to wait for chances. There have been numerous examples of young stars at 17/18 fizzling out. Kiko Macheda (who?) even won United a league title with his goals as a kid. Adnan Januzaj was capped by a top 5 squad in Belgium at 18 and his career has gone nowhere since.
I haven't seen those guys. I saw this guy play. He is good. If the BvB coach had to even say that a 17 year old will have to await his chances, you know how good he is! How many 17 year olds would ever get mentioned by a good European club's coach? Again, I didn't say that he is the next Neymar. Not sure why you are taking pains to say that he might not make it! he may or he may not. Who knows. So far he looks as good as advertised.
Jay no offense but I do not think that you have seen many youth systems in the world. Most of the coaching in the US is the worst of English practices with very little emphasis on technique and individual ball skills and a lot more of silly parents pushing for results. As someone who has lived a lot of my life in Western Europe and now live in the US, I can safely say that the US is still decades away from best practices. The father-generation grooming is actually one of the silliest things you can do as far as coaching is concerned. I know there has been desperation for decades now for the US to have a bonafide "soccer" world class player but Dempsey was not one and Pulisic has potential but has a long road ahead for him to get there.
There you go again, saying Dempsey was not a world class player. That is certainly offensive. What do you mean? A player who would have been rated in the top-100 or top-200 in the world for several years (easily) is not a world class payer? Than who is? A guy who had the 4th most highest goals in one year in EPL is not world-class? A guy who was the best player for several years in a national team that has been rather consistently in the world top-25 for some 25 years is not a world-class player?

And I did misstate it when I said US has the BEST youth league. I only meant that it is the largest in the world and probably among the best well-organized too. Coaching and general level of training of players is another thing, and of course US is nowhere near western Europe on that. The reference to the dads was not to imply that they are good coaches to groom kids, but just that unlike 3 decades ago when US dads used to totally discourage kids away from soccer saying it is a sissy game and stuff like that, they are actively encouraging kids to play football. It makes a huge difference.
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Re: Sunil Chhetri thread ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

Not all of it was in reply to claims made by you Jay :p ; see below. As for what constitutes world class, about 200 different players have been in the final list of Ballon d'or over the last 15 years. Dempsey is not one of them. Would you consider Saketh for example world class? I'll get back to the rest of the post when I wake up.
Dempsey spent years of his career as first choice striker at one of the better clubs in the EPL
"Fulham is not one of the better teams in the league. They finished 7,8,9,12,16,17 in Dempsey's 6 seasons. Clear mid-to-bottom half team."

He has already made the step up. He's been starting for Borussia Dortmund's senior team, not their U18
"Pulisic has not made the step-up to be a starter at BvB."

And this was in reference to prashant claiming the above which is also untrue.
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