Torres, Zlatan, Messi and Villa: Are Player to Player Comparison Arguments Ultimately Pointless?

By: Daryl | September 27th, 2009

Yesterday, I posted video of Fernando Torres’ hat-trick vs Hull. Mostly because I just wanted to celebrate and share video of an impressive achievement by a quality footballer, especially the calm and technique the Liverpool striker displayed in the penalty area. (No, I’m not a Liverpool fan, before anyone asks). In doing so I claimed that Torres is “arguably the most graceful goalscorer around.”

That seemed to spark a debate in the comments about other graceful strikers. Was Torres more or less graceful than Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Leo Messi? Than David Villa? Etcetera. All are top class attackers in my opinion, and as such, it’s pretty much impossible to compare the three (and others, like Sergio Aguero) and decide who’s superior.

You can definitely say that Zlatan Ibrahimovic is taller, that Leo Messi is shorter, that Fernando Torres is frecklier and that David Villa has the best soul patch. Because those things are easy to prove. But once we start comparing who’s more graceful, or who’s the better forward or footballer, then we enter the realm of things that cannot be proven.

Or can they? Maybe there are stats that show one player’s strike rate is better than another. Or that his percentage of shots to goals is superior. And certainly we can compare other professional footballers. I can say unequivocally that Fernando Torres is a more graceful striker than Marlon Harewood, for example, and I can’t think of many people who would argue. So clearly there are differences between footballers.

I wrote a post about Fernando Torres yesterday because he’d scored an exquisite hat-trick that provided an excellent demonstration of his graceful goalscoring talents. And because it was available on TVGolo and I wanted to share that with Offside readers. I claimed he was “arguably the most graceful goalscorer around” because he arguably is. Arguably.

But when we get to the top tier of top quality strikers, are there too many other variable to accurately compare and make a decision? Things like which league they play in, what style of football their team plays, who their teammates are, which defences they face, and so on?

Even more importantly, personal, team and league biases almost always come into play when comparing different players. When the players are so close in quality it’s ultimately just an opinion that can not be backed up sufficiently to persuade someone who holds the opposite opinion. But maybe that’s where the fun lies?