There are several major reasons why a player disappoints:
Looking at contemporary players, I think Kaká offers a pretty clear example of the first category; and I would place this season’s Wesley Sneijder in category 4. (He just seems out of it most of the time, emerging from the haze to do something brilliant once a game or so but otherwise just trotting vaguely back and forth on the pitch.) Even in these cases one could make an argument for multiple causation: maybe Kaká just can’t get his groove on with the other galacticos at Real Madrid, and maybe Leonardo hasn’t yet figured out the best way to use Sniejder. But I tend to think that these are largely monocausal situations.
But Fernando Torres?—now there’s a case. I have heard or seen people answer the “What’s wrong with Torres?” question by invoking all five of the categories. Number 2 seems the least likely to me—he’s just 27—but troublingly, his goals-scored numbers have declined for each of the past five years. He’s got a long enough track record of success to make number 3 pretty dubious as well. But I think all the others apply, in varying degrees, to his recent miseries. His knee surgery in April 2010 clearly led to an extended recovery period, and he has not yet regained his assurance on the pitch. He seems to be working hard but to no discernible purpose, and this was true even when he was still at Liverpool, where everyone else was equally in disarray.
In fact, Liverpool seems for the past few years to have produced a number of puzzlingly disappointing players—that is, players whose performance dips for reasons that aren’t perfectly clear. I’ve heard people place Steven Gerrard in all five of the categories also.
In any event, when I consider these multiple causes of disappointment I find myself thinking that it’s remarkable—given all that has to fall in place—that any players can be consistently excellent. And yet some are, year after year. Which makes me glad for them, but also sad for those whose prime years seem to be slipping away. Torres and Kaká and Sneijder, when they’re at their best, have given me much pleasure, and I hope they’ll give me more. They are, respectively, 27, 28, and 26, which means that they have time. But not as much of it as I would like.
I’m torn about Gerrard: 3, 4, and 5 seem equally at play, and a little of 1. I’d assign 2 and 3 to Frank Lampard and John Terry alike. Ibra is, of course, the Emperor of 4.
Read More: Fernando Torres, Kaká, Wesley Sneijder
by Alan Jacobs · April 13, 2011
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Okay, that’s the best image Brian has ever assigned to one of my posts.
The Torres saga, while frustrating til now, I think will be long forgotten next season. After a full pre-season he will be primed, and with Yossi returning and Sturridge likely to become a starter for Chelsea, confidence will be high and you have to feel he will become unplayable again. Add McEachran to the equation and he’ll be hitting 30 a season.
I hope.
Perhaps Torres would improve if he ceased to be a TRAITOR and a SCOUNDREL…wait…this isn’t Twitter, is it?
#stayonyourfeet
i think it would be really interesting to actually know what transpires in conversation between ancelotti and abramovich concerning the conundrum of balancing a very expensive torres with anelka and drogba. in a way i feel bad for fernando, coming off such a difficult injury/disappointing world cup and then returning to a liverpool team in disarray, only to go to a “big club” that was having its own downward spiral. he admittedly doesn’t look as sharp as two or three years ago, but it must be said that he thrives well as a lone striker, not paired with drogba in a 4-4-2. it would be sad if he were the next shevchenko.
As a United fan, I’d like to see Chelsea sell Drogba and Anelka, and rely on Torres, Kalou and Sturridge. It may weaken them in the short term, but that’s what the pre-season friendlies are for! AS for the midfield, they do need to spend some money, they should look at dortmund, napoli and palermo.
#3 to Lampard seems a bit harsh to me. This is a player who has been as consistent (if not more) scorer over the past handful of years than a number of highly regarded strikers (Anelka, Van Persie, and Tevez to name a few). This is the top scoring midfielder in Permier league history you’re talking about there, that seems like enough to support any claims for Lamps as one of the best in the game. Plus keep in mind that he has missed a large chunk (almost half of it so far) of this season due to injuries as well.
That being said, saying #3 about a player isn’t really a bad thing. A player can be overrated but still really, really good.
As for Torres I would attribute his “slump” to a combination of all of them but #2. I don’t think he’s been quite the same since his surgery. He went on to a fairly muted performance in the WC, which I think shook his confidence, which bled into this season a just a little bit. Then the record setting transfer to Chelsea happens where there was a sort of unreasonable expectation for him to score immediately (if only it were so easy) upon arrival to a new team that he (or the coaches for that matter) hasn’t really figured out where he fits in, thus exacerbating his confidence issues when the goals don’t come.
the argument for Torres as a #2 is that he’s been playing first team football since he was 17…
You could assign all five of the major reasons listed above to such gifted players. It appears that the players that you’ve highlighted have gone through this cycle if not once, then a few times, depending on how many clubs they’ve played for.
Torres is 1, 2, 4 and 5. For Steven Gerrard, I might need to invent new numbers.
you forget #6, our expectations are much too high and the superhuman is expected of him, while still a great player. Think of all the “he’s the next (insert legendary icon here).” The player can still be great but the media destroys
case in point: Karim Benzema
@Clemantona In my mind, I lump that in with #3. Thinking a player is better than he is, isn’t really the player’s fault. It’s ours. We build them up in our mind, based on certain circumstances, and expect them to then perform to those standards whether they are warranted or not.
This is how I think #3 primarily applies to Torres at this moment in time. After only like two games with Chelsea, people were ragging on him already for not having scored yet, however Drogba’s scoring drought at the time was largely ignored. Because of the money involved with acquiring Torres we expected more than maybe we should have initially. If strikers could score at will we’d see a lot more goals in this game.
@James T Square root of -1?
@Jon Yeah, that’s what I think too. There are several varieties of excessive expectation.
I feel bad for Sneijder because he had a place last year and this year it’s not the same. Kaka is a player who was injured for a long time and I’m glad he’s returning to some sort of form. Torres, I don’t feel bad for and definitely not Chelsea. I’m very biased to this fact, I was a fan for him for a very long time and to watch him leave my club for a sum that he wasn’t worthy of, it was hard. Now that’s out of the way, Chelsea had a good striker who could have used Drogba’s & Ancelotti’s tutelage and now, I hope that Sturridge gets all the playing time he can at another club. If it’s anyone I feel bad for in all of this, it’s him.
@Jon
People didn’t say much about Drogba’s scoring drought because he doesn’t necessarily need to score to help his team — he holds up the ball, defends on set pieces, creates space for his teammates. Torres doesn’t do any of that; even at his peak he was strictly a goalscorer. Granted, quite possibly the best goalscorer in the world at his peak, but he’s always been the guy who does nothing for 99% of a match while creating sheer brilliance in the other 1%. Without that 1%, he’s pretty much worthless.
I would say that Lampard is suffering from a combination of 1 and 2. His ability to maintain such a high level of club form was mainly because he never got injured. Over 4/5 years he was able to build and then maintain his abilities without ever really having to take a step backwards. The injury has had the effect of stopping him dead in his tracks and now he has to rebuild from scratch which will be almost impossible given his age and preferred playing style. If he spends the twilight of his career playing like he did against Man Utd then it will be a waste. Lampard should come to terms with his situation and look at ways to adjust his playing style (similar to how Scholes adapted).
Regarding Torres, if Chelsea were smart they would let him (and maybe some others) go on holiday now and then bring him back early for pre-season. This would give them a chance to play some of the youngsters now in preparation fro next season. However, if Chelsea continue to play 2 up-front it is difficult to see how Torres will ever be a success. His best performances on the pitch has always occurred when he plays as a lone striker (Atletico, Liverpool, Spain ((Euro 2008 after Villa got injured).
@TTaylor
Atlético played a 4-4-2 when Torres was there — with Agüero alongside Torres most of the time.
Chelsea has a pantry full of nice ingredient but somehow can’t make a jam sandwich. Did anybody expect Anelka, Drogba and Torres to work well together? Who passes the ball for that squad? Torres was about as productive with Liverpool as Rooney was with Manchester United before he was sold while carrying an injury. Torres will make Spain for Euro ’12 and be part of a team that wins Euro/WC/Euro. I go with #6, expectations are too high and there’s actually not much wrong with the player other than team dysfunction at Chelsea and your stock injury woes.
I think part of why players decline includes factors such as their in-game work-rate, fan response, attitude for improvement and adaptability.
Work rate: in basketball, players who jump and dunk more (read: play hard) tend to develop more knee injuries; i suspect this translates to soccer in different, although no less meaningful, ways. E.g.: players who shy from tackles.
Fan response: goes without saying. Few players like to be booed.
Attitude for improvement: includes desire to train and stay fit. i suspect this is very important for longevity. although clearly most football players are excellent athletes, i’m sure managers recognise that hardworking players in training tend to develop better and be more consistent over a season, or in their careers.
Adaptability: Joe Cole and Ryan Giggs.
Admittedly, some of the factors listed here overlap with yours, sir. However, with respect, this is due in part to your factors 2, 3 and 4 being vague, hence also being quite unlikely to be meaningfully used as standards to attribute to players.
Lampard at 3 isn’t harsh, it’s downright false, 20+ goals from a midfielder for almost half a decade, along with numerous assists, I think the claim that Lampard has been disappointing at all is completely baseless. For England, and England alone, Lampard could be considered a 5, but for Chelsea, he’s been a phenomenal player (and no, I’m not a Chelsea fan).
By the way, a “long run of good luck” seems to be a bit of a contradictory statement, a period of great form might be better. Luck, no matter how much, is simply not enough to propel a player to the level of players that are being mentioned. In addition, poachers don’t have as much luck as it appears, it requires a great deal of instinct, intelligence, and timing to be in the right place at the right time.
Specifically about Torres, he played as a lone striker at Liverpool, and for the past two years, Liverpool’s creativity has been limited to hoof and hope, so a lone striker doesn’t have much to work with, yet he sticks out, because he’s the one expected to get the goals. The injury recovery period explains his World Cup (and Rooney’s, except Rooney had that as well as shit service). His time at Chelsea, to be honest, is a little weird, Chelsea isn’t playing too awesome, but well enough that the service can’t be blamed (along with the fact that apart from the 2nd leg at Old Trafford, he’s almost always shouldered the goal-scoring burden with a partner and not alone). Just a horribly timed dip in form could explain it, but that’s a pretty cheap cop-out.
IMHO, I would not consider reason 3, as Torres is a great player. I think that his situation is a mixture of reasons 1 and 4 – well, I would say that reason 1 has reason 4 as a direct consequence. For a pro player, physical condition is of paramount importance: you just need to feel 101% in every part of your body in order to perform well. When you lack this confidence, the “Torres condition” comes out: you lose that split second that makes the difference between a great play and a “normal” play.
Take A.Del Piero’s career: in 1998, he broke his knee. He took more than two years to come back to his (excellent) level: throughout that period he could play, but he was not the player he used to be, because you could feel that confidence was missing (he hardly tried to dribble opponents). Now he is 36 years old and, even though he is in the twilight of his career, he still plays an important role in his team, as he can mix confidence and talent again.
PS: Well, I would not forget the fact that he may feel the pressure of his 40M £-move to Chelsea…
My final thought: The image of the post says it all! (great article, great website!)
With the example of Kaka, I think its a combination of his injury and rule 2.a 28 is the Brazilian 32
Interesting approach to look at some of these stars and tried to understand their individual declines. I for one am glad to see Torres falling apart. As a Liverpool fan I didn’t appreciate the way and manner in which he left the club. Not only did he turn his back on the club, but the last year and a half he was either injured or sulking. And he made the fans look stupid for always believing in him and supporting him even when he was sidelined or low on confidence. I’d love to see Chelsea fans do that at the first sign of another injury or fallow period.
That aside, I don’t think he is still the player he once was. He absolutely fits into the 1, 2, 4, and 5 slots very easily. Benitez did a brilliant job of building a team around Torres to get the best out of him. Ancelotti doesn’t know how to do that, and why should he? His squad was already built and quite capable of winning without Torres. He now throws a spanner in the works rather than facilitating a better team.
Even though 27 is relatively young, he is an extremely pacey striker who has played at the top for 10 years. Just look at Michael Owen to see how this will pan out. I think he will have little success at Chelsea, and he will probably be sold next summer after a year of injuries and low goals scored.