What do you class as a footballer? Someone who knows how to position themselves and has the ability to score lots and lots of goals or someone who is a master of the ball?
Haaland is the best striker in the world. Not the best footballer.
If he were simply the best striker I'd agree.
But there comes a point - where said best striker scores so many goals that this singular ability swamps everything else - and Haaland is a freak goal scorer - and his scoring ability, swamps his technical short-comings, IMO.
I suppose it boils down to what you call "best" - for me, "best" means the player most likely to mean your side wins.
And for me - by that definition - Haaland is best.
If by best - you mean most technical - or best dribbler or whatever - then Haaland isn't close. He's average at best technically. But the guy scores goals at a far greater rate than anyone else in football - so much so that this swamps his technical short comings.
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Here's my take on "best" footballer.
The best footballer most enhances his side of winning the game. Period.
This encompasses goals scored, goals assisted, team chemistry, to a much lesser extent defense and so on. It's all about winning as a team.
For me - Haaland is the best and I'd trade him for no other.
If you think - by this criterion - who most enhances a team's ability to win - then I'm interested in your opinion.
