How Good or Bad is the Midfield?

Ok let`s face it.

If you would make a top ten list of midfielders in this seasons CL, Stankovic would surely fit in.

Sasa Ilic currently leads Galatasaray to turkisch championchip by scoring a lot of goals.

P. Djordevic won his 23th greek championchip with olympiakos these days and is topscorer in the league, afaik.

I don`t want to start talking about rambo petkovic and what brazilians think about him.

But then, there is a rapid break.
Vukic, Duljaj, Nadj, Mladenovic or Koroman lack of creativity and form. Some of them are no regular starters in their teams.

So, if the important players are up and running, it is a good midfield, a well underestimated even.

agreed with Gibraldo.

All we need is Koroman to hit top form, and were top classs

Posted from  Australia

i figured as much. but they obviously tone down the offense and focus on total defense, so maybe an out-of-form, non-creative fourth midfielder isn’t really required.

regardless… this team looks good. i pity the dutch, argentinians, and africans. the least respected of the bunch might actually do the best.

Posted from  United States

excuse me gilbrado, but why do you mention Igor Duljaj? He is a terriffic defensive midfielder, any team would like to have in a squad. He is a worker, very disciplined and irreplacable in the defensive midfield. This player is not mediocre at all….so i dont understand what your talking about here…

Posted from  Germany

Igor Duljaj is a solid defensive midfielder of course, but if every team would like to have him in his squad, he woudn`t been benched from time to time at Dynamo Kiev but would play at a top club in Italy, England or France.

He is certainly above, the other mentioned “mediocre” players, but nothing more.

Posted from  Germany

First of all: Duljaj plays for Shakhtar Donetsk and not for Dynamo Kiev. Are you mixing him up with Gavrancic (he was injured and is a defensive player and not a midfielder).
Second: Duljaj is a regular standard player at Shakthtar. He was not benched since ages.
Sorry, but your simply wrong informed here !
Third: Shakhtar is a very good team, which they have proven a couple of times already in the European competitions. they can win against italian, german or english teams, who qualify for the UEFA Cup, which they also did!

Posted from  Germany

Keep bringing the knowledge guys.

Posted from  United States

Lyle…I didnt know how to contact you. But please make a post about the following player.

His name is Nikon Jevtic and he is 13 years old. He plays for Valencias youth teams and is one of the brightest prospects for our nation. Here is a video of the little genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLxXjSvk5Ls

Posted from  Australia

You are right, he plays for Shaktjor. I know that, I just mixed it up.

Duljaj is not a bad player, but Shaktjor is no big teams. he is solid, but he needs to prove on international level and i have some doubts, that he can do that against riquelme, van der vaart and those elephants within 10 days.

crno,

thanks for the heads up.

Posted from  United States

Gibraldo, ok we have a different opinion here. Shaktar are currently leading the Ukrainian league and were 2 times Ukrainian title and Cup winner since Duljaj plays for them. They beat teams like Schalke, VfB Stuttgart, Rennes, Brügge, Celtic, Barcelona in the last 2 years. They also lost to teams like Inter, but as i said, this team can compete on a high European club level, and Duljaj is one of the cornerstone on the midfield there since more than 2 years. So your view on this isssue is - sorry to say - completely wrong, as you dont seem to have a clue about Ukrainian football.

Posted from  Germany

Why don’t the midfielders play for bigger clubs if they are so good? Its great that they can beat middle of the road European teams and occasionally beat a good one (Barca) but leagues like the ones you’re talking about tend to have their best players bought by big clubs. How do you account for that?

Posted from  United States

Mike, in the case of Duljaj I just dont accept arguments calling him “avarage” or “mediocre”. Above that…I appreciate teams like Shakthar who might play in a weak league, but still have a good team, which, as I already said, they have already proven in the last 2 years. they might not compete with Real or Chelsea, but they can beat any european club who qiualifies for UEFA - English, German, French, Italian, Spanish. thta makes them indeed a strong team. So i dont know what your talking about either. I suspect rather that you have the usual West European “blind eye” towards successful East European teams, like Steaua for example. A terrific team with technically superb players! They are UEAFA Cup semi-finalists!

Posted from  Germany

Dear Mike,

I suppose you are unfamiliar with the following fact…

Most of the big european leagues are located in the European Union which SerbiaMontenegro isn’t part of. The EU has created rules for non-EU players, for example Spanish teams can only have 4 players without EU-citizenship.

Most southamerican players get EU passports by proving some family ties to EU countries (mostly Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and France).

Posted from  Denmark