no soccer pros in ufc events...

MMA isn't as popular worldwide, it's a second tier sport still, maybe even third tier so people just don't care that much. But a few of soccer stars actually do like MMA, especially in countries like Brazil where soccer stars are basically gods and MMA fighters get some recognition. Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, C. Ronaldo, Pogba, Ibra, Rooney. Ibra even stated that he'd have gone down the martial arts road if he wasn't a soccer player.
 
this is the real Ronaldo....best 9 ever. Ctistiano Ronaldo aint shit.
he had the potential to be the best ever.... but Cristiano has had a far better career
 
Don't trust wikipedia on everything. A football player averages about 10 kilometers of distance covered during the 90 minute game, and "rest" is walking or running slowly, there is no sitting on the bench after every offensive or defensive phase and drinking gatorade, waiting for the coach to send you in. Some players even cover 12-13 kilometers per game on average, and a lot of it at high pace. Also, a lot of time you fight for the ball and having 2 players on your back can drain your energy as well. There is lot of left-right movement, turning, changing direction fast at full speed etc.

Total football is mostly a joke if you don't have a specific type of player. Now, I'm not saying those players have to be the same and have the same style of play, but they have to be absolutely amazing and more importantly, incredibly consistent. Cruyff is one of the top 5 of all time, and any serious journalist and real football expert that has watched thousands and thousands of whole games and not just youtube clips will agree on this. His football intelligence, agility, speed, dribbling skill and masterful technique are something not often seen, and what makes him an all-time top 5 player is the fact that he was able to demonstrate this almost every game and he lasted on a very high level for a long time. In other words, team was built around him. Now, the only reason Spanish national team had such great success was Xavi. Yes, other players were here too, but he was the backbone of the team.

Now, so called journalists call him a playmaker, which is incorrect. He is a retainer. His unique physical attribute, that is the ability to change direction and be so light on his feet while avoiding physical duels with most players was second to none. That combined with his passing accuracy and the fact that he was constantly moving and was 99% of the time free to receive the ball, made him a serious threat. Any player in his team was able to count 99% of the time that Xavi was free and if he passed him the ball, the team won't lose possession. Both in Barcelona and in the national team, there were offensive phases where ball would return to Xavi 20-30 times before the team would even get close to the opposing team's box. Now, that kind of ball possession doesn't really do anything, but it drives even the most disciplined teams crazy and more prone to make a mistake, which often happened after 20-30 passes and Xavi was excellent at knowing when the mistake was about to happen and would execute a deadly pass as soon as the opening was created. More often than not, when you have guys like Messi, Eto'o, Villa or Henry, they will get a chance to score. Physically he wasn't a great specimen at first look, but his endurance, agility, ability to know what to do with the ball and have such great awareness of what's going on and how every single player is moving even before he received the ball made him extremely dangerous. And of course, half of the Spanish national team was from Barcelona and most of other national teams are not that coordinated.

The problem with total football is that it's a utopian idea, because a player around which you can make a team is not born that often, they are very few and far between + if they get injured or lack consistency, you will not be successful. Football is a very physical game, especially in England where even the last team on the table has absolutely zero respect for big names and big teams, they play with no fear and they play to win.

It is absolutely true that the lack of physical fitness can be to a degree compensated by technique, but this is really only the case in short cup format tournaments like national cups, world or European championships. There one team can be very inspired, get a bit lucky and really just have great performances and good days. This can happen when we're talking about 6-7 games, but it doesn't work in a 38 game season, and that's only the national championship, excluding cups, European club competitions and games for the national team. That's why any serious coach favors disciplined players, because in the long run that's the way you win trophies.

Perhaps the best example of a player lacking discipline is Roberto Baggio. An incredibly talented player, "one man against the world" type of guy. A player like that is amazing to have in a world cup, because he has balls to try anything and the skills that go with that. In a maximum 7 game tournament, this can be great, but in a 38 games league this is not the way you want to play. That's why Baggio had his best games in relatively small clubs, although he played for all the great Italian teams at the time when Italian league was by far the best in the world. On the other hand, a player like Alessandro Del Piero was only getting better with age. He could never do on the national team level what Baggio could, but he was way more disciplined and suited for rigorous requirements of a highly structured plan of any coach to win the league. That's why Del Piero had some of his best seasons when he was already approaching his mid thirties. His free kicks were getting better, he needed less and less chances to score and he was able to elevate the whole team to a different level. That's a good comparison when it comes to overall discipline.

Nowadays football players are very fit and no serious team tolerates players who are out of shape, so I can't really find a recent example of this. I can find a bit older one. Robert Prosinecki was one of the best young players in the world back in the late 1980s. He won the youth world championship, I believe in the 1990. he was voted the best young player in the world cup and shortly after that won the European cup(now called the Champions league) with Crvena Zvezda Belgrade, which is something almost impossible nowadays. Anyway, his technique and dribbling abilities were absolutely masterful and his ability to shoot from long distances with both feet was also amazing. However, he smoked 3-4 packs of cigarettes a day and except in his early 20s, he was never again in a shape he was supposed to be in. He was a spectacular player and produced some all-time moments and goals with his technique, but although he played for both Barcelona and Real Madrid, he was never able to become a standard starting 11 player in those teams due to his lack of discipline and his best games post Crvena Zvezda were in Oviedo, Sevilla(which then wasn't as good of a team that it's been for the last 10 years or so) and Portsmouth. On the other hand, you had players like Didier Deschamps and Gennaro Gattuso that could not reach Prosinecki's skill level if they lived 3-4 lifetimes, but both have way more decorated careers and were in starting 11 of some glorious teams and played vital roles. It was because of their conditioning, discipline and consistency.
In the beginning God created The Heavens and The Earth ...
 
They're a bunch of pussies prancing around on a field together chasing a fucking ball.
you just described most field sports

if you replace "field" with "court" you also just described basketball
 
ive seen nfl, nba, mlb and many celebs from different places in ufc events but i've never seen any soccer player attending. Not even in latin america or europe where soccer is 10 times bigger than nfl, nba and mlb combined....

maybe i missed it, if not i wonder why...

I thought one of the Ronaldos came to cheer on Silva at one point.
 
Well, since soccer players are the worst fakers, they rather watch WWE.
 
ive seen nfl, nba, mlb and many celebs from different places in ufc events but i've never seen any soccer player attending. Not even in latin america or europe where soccer is 10 times bigger than nfl, nba and mlb combined....

maybe i missed it, if not i wonder why...
Soccer is for EU trash
 
12599470_1721229614791095_495194830_n.jpg
This guy is athletic as fuck.

He can run for ages lol. Easily 8-10 km per game.
 
Wrong, many are there in most events (Fat Ronaldo used to be at events in las vegas quite often). especially in Brazilian events, just tha Americans are not aware of Soccer Pros that don't play in Europe or won the World Cup.
 
MMA most popular??
Even more than baseball, NBA, NFL or hockey?
Quite a rise in popularity indeed<mma4>


I didn't say it was the most popular sport in the US, I said it's most popular in the US.

There's a difference.
 
Are you familiar with the dutch approach of training soccer players?
It's famous around the world. It's very skill based, mostly technique (dribbling and passing). There is almost no running without the ball.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiel_Coerver

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Football

So the dutch have taken over world football huh? Funny that I always see teams doing laps during training. Someone should notify the orange brigade that their methods aren't being followed.
 
Long distance runners are way more athletic then soccer players. Those runners spend a lot of time on core stability. I think a good core is the base of an athletic body.
Lol at thinking fútbol players have weak cores
carles-puyol-52.jpg
 
they're too busy earning obscene amounts of money and banging 10s on the regular.
 
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