how teams do not detect white talent: FORLAN

[frederic38]

Thanks for this clip!

Yeah, I can't remember the last time Pizarro played for Peru (he has been very unlucky with injuries and had some differences of opinion with the Peruvian Federation).

he made his comeback recently and scored against chile in qualifications for the 2014 world cup, and during a friendly match vs tunisia
whithout pizarro and vargas, guerrero looks very lonely, it was the same when pizarro was the only star player of peru
they expected himm to take the ball in the middlefield and score by himself
now they have great middlefielders but if they are all injuried...
i don't know about you, but guerrero for me is one of the best strikers in the world
there are rumors about him going to espanyol barcelona , which is a smaller club than hamburg where he currently plays
what a shame

like we saw with shevshenko, world class players can play very well even when they are over 32 years old, so i hope that forlan goes to malaga and plays champions league
for lugano, it will be more complicated

forlan and lugano need to play, otherwise very soon they won't even be called in the national team
they both haven't been called for the olympic tournament

Paraguay is another team that has had a slow start in the South American qualifiers (they lost in La Paz and haven't been convincing in their wins), they will face an uphill battle with Ecuador and Colombia for the 4th or 5th spot.

same than peru, nothing to worry about yet, they won at home and made a draw at home with uruguay
they just happen to have a bad calendar

 

[frederic38]

it could be the end of forlan's career in europe:
http://globoesporte.globo.com/futeb...ima-com-chance-de-jogar-perto-do-uruguai.html

internacional want to sign him
thye would sell leandro damiao to an european club to buy forlan

i hope it doesn't happen

 

[frederic38]

forlan is about to sign for internacional
he would wear the number 7 on his jersey

i will write a summary of forlan's career, explaining why for me he's the best player in the world and deserves to be compared with even messi


funny to see how in the media and on the internet they talk about balotelli suffering from racial discrimination while actually he plays because of his skin color and nationality

if you want to see a player who suffered discrimination in 4 different countries, look at forlan
i will tell about this later, when forlan's move out of europe will be officialized

 

[Matra2]

So that's it for Forlan in Europe? Very disappointing, especially given that he was by far the best player at the World Cup a mere two years ago.

 

[frederic38]

So that's it for Forlan in Europe? Very disappointing, especially given that he was by far the best player at the World Cup a mere two years ago.

he was forced to leave europe, nobody was willing to pay his "huge" wage in europe and internazionale prefered to fire him because they knew that nobody was going to buy him
technically internacional didn't buy him since forlan was fired from internazionale, he was free
nobody was willing to pay his "huge" wage which is 10 times less than ronaldo and 3 times less than balotelli

:sad:

 

[frederic38]

diego forlan will be remembered by most as a player who was spectacular (he often scored from long distance shots with both feet, because his father forced him to train to shoot with both feet against a wall) but who failed every time he played for a big club: http://youtu.be/Jd6_J-8qjHQ
so to most people, forlan will be remembered as a not-so-good player, not world class

this is not true, and i'm going to prove it while remembering forlan's career in europe, where he broke records left and right



-unlike popular belief, forlan's first contact with european football didn't happen in manchester united
he tried to turn professional in france, in the second division side nancy back in 1995
he was one of these talented white players that the french clubs didn't care about (in the words of Erick Mombaerts, responsible of the youth development of the french talents: "the skinny white boys that are in the "pole espoir" (the place where players are trained),are not chosen by the professional teams. They don't take them, in every case, even if they are good players" )

after being refused by this second division french club, he came back to south america and turned pro in argentina

-in 2001, forlan was bought by manchester united
he is said to have been a flop because he didn't score much (17 goals: http://youtu.be/CLrALYBDrBc ) and was sold for a ridiculously low price (3.2 million euros)
but as forlan himself said, manchester united never gave him the chance to prove his worth, as althought statistically he played a lot of matches, actually he played only the last 5 minutes of each match, so it was very hard for him to impress or score
(source: interview with eurosport after the 2010 world cup)

during his spell at manchester he played for the first time with uruguay
he scored in his first match, a friendly against saudi arabia
then he played 45 minutes at the 2002 world cup, enough to score the most beautiful goal of the tournament: http://youtu.be/xvvzB7pbJuQ



-he signed with villarreal in 2004, where he made history, and broke records: he established himself as the most important player in villarreal history

*for his first season (2004-2005) he finished top scorer of the spanish league (25 goals), ahead of etoo who played at barcelona at the time
he also won the golden shoe awarded to the top scorer in europe
one of forlan's big accomplishments from our point of view was belittling etoo because without forlan, etoo would have been 3 times top scorer of the spanish league
thanks to forlan, villarreal qualified for a european tournament for the first time in their history
villarreal was even the best club in the world according to IFFHS in december 2004 http://www.iffhs.de/?3d4d443d0b803e8b447cce02285fdcdc3bfcdc0aec28d6edbc05

*in 2005-2006, forlan had a great champions league campaign thanks to other great south american players and manuel pellegrini, a great coach
they lost only to arsenal in semi-final, because riquelme missed a crucial penalty
this would be forlan's only champions league campaign played as a titular

*in the 2006-2007 season he scored 19 goals in the spanish league, and became the all-time top goal-scorer for villarreal

-he was bought by atletico madrid in 2007: he would became one of the most important players in atletico madrid history
but i was already realising at that point that forlan was overlooked because of his nationality, because when you are the top scorer in europe you deserve to go to a top club
since he scored more than etoo from barcelona while playing with a small club, and taking into account the obvious world class talent forlan displayed, it would have been fair for forlan to take etoo's place in barcelona


*for his first season (2007-2008) he scored 16 goals, allowing atletico madrid to qualify to their first champions league in more than 10 years


*in the 2008-2009 season, he became the top scorer of the spanish league for the second time with 32 goals, once again ahead of etoo
he allowed atletico madrid to qualify for the champions league by scoring the impressive amount of 12 goals in the last 8 games
he won the golden shoe awarded to the top scorer in europe for the second time: so far no player ever won it more than 2 times
ofcourse he's the only atletico madrid player to have ever won the golden shoe award

meanwhile, he had a great champions league campaign, but his team lost in 8th of finals to fc porto
forlan scored in the first leg, and they did a draw 2-2
atletico madrid needed to score in the second leg as a 0-0 draw would have been enough for fc porto to qualify, but for some reason the coach decided that forlan shouldn't play this match
it was the starting point of the problems for forlan
to this day i have no idea why forlan didn't start this match
ofcourse atletico madrid did 0-0 and were kicked out of the champions league

he got no offers after the 32 goals he scored in 33 matches with atletico: http://www.espnstar.com/football/primera-liga/news/detail/item278726/ATLETICO-DENY-FORLAN-INTEREST/

""Footballers play where they want to play," he said. "Diego has two years more on his contract and if he really wants to play with us he will do and if not it will be because he has a better offer.""

and:
http://www.espnstar.com/football/primera-liga/news/detail/item278325/Agent:-No-offers-for-Forlan/


*in the next season (2009-2010), things got worse as forlan suffered unfair criticism from the fans, only 1 year after being the spanish league top-scorer: http://www.elconfidencial.com/depor...n-aficion-atletico-madrid-derbi-20100326.html
he was still the 5th top scorer of the league

forlan answered with an outstanding europa league campaign
he scored 6 goals, all in the most important matches
from the semi-finals, he scored each goal of his team: 2 goals in semi-final and 2 goals in the final
he was named best player of the tournament
thanks to him, atletico madrid won their first continental trophy since 48 years

to this point, forlan had played 6 years in spain and scored a lot of goals
but even more impressive than his incredible goal-scoring record (120 goals in 208 appearances) are the teams against which he scored these goals
forlan is known as a player who always is at his best in the most important matches
his goal-scoring record for uruguay, with only 5 goals out of 33 that were scored in friendlies, shows it
this comes from a very individualistic approach in the preparation leading to the match, which comes from his years when he played tennis
the teams against which forlan scored the most goals to this point were:
1-athletic bilbao
2-barcelona (10 goals in 9 matches)
this means that when one looks at forlans career, he has to see beyond the incredible goal-scoring record because forlan is even better than that
this is why forlan can challenge players like messi or ronaldo or rooney for the "best player in the world" status
this proves that forlan not only is a very good goal-scorer like the media says, he's actually the best in the world

during this season forlan scored this goal for example: http://youtu.be/-wQ-7ZZ6pLE inflicting barcelona their only defeat in their incredible season




-the 2010 world cup:
forlan became the most important player for uruguay since at least 50 years, by allowing his team to qualify to the 2010 world cup with crucial goals like his penalty against ecuador
it was the most important moment in uruguayan football for atleast 50 years because had forlan missed his penalty, uruguay would have been criticised a lot for not having participated to 2 world cups in a row and disappearing from the international scene (by the way forlan wasn't part of the team that failed to qualify to the 2006 world cup)
but forlan scored his penalty and uruguay came back to its glory days
this penalty was the turning point in modern history for uruguayan football
overall, during this qualification campaign forlan was the top scorer of his team with 7 goals

then he was named best player of the 2010 world cup and was tied for the most goals scored, while playing in a play-maker role
http://youtu.be/eWs74IX4VpI
uruguay lost only to holland in semi final, when forlan was forced to leave the field injuried because of the unpunished violence of the ghanaians and the dutch
referees who watched the match later counted 13 significant refereeing mistakes favouring holland and 1 favouring uruguay

Had he not been uruguayan, he would have won the golden ball this year

once again, even after his incredible world cup, he got no offer (source: interview with eurosport after the 2010 world cup and http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1013957/atletico:-no-offer-for-forlan )

so for the next season (2010-2011) he stayed at atletico madrid but wasn't even titular, obviously for non-football related reasons


-2011 copa america:
during this copa america, he helped uruguay to become the team with most titles on earth, with 15 continental titles and 4 world cups (if you count the 1924 and 1928 titltes for what they were)
by scoring 2 goals in the final, he became the all-time top scorer for uruguay with 31 goals, beating the record of the legendary Hector Scarone, who won the world cup 3 times in a row (as of today forlan has 33 goals)
this record was standing since 1930
he's also the player with most appearances for uruguay in history
so althought not very popular with the fans, forlan is definitively one of the most important players in uruguayan history

[video=youtube_share;8WzjQ4DVFSs]http://youtu.be/8WzjQ4DVFSs[/video]



-in 2011, he was bought by internazionale
i was guillable enough to believe that he would finally get his chance to shine in a big club, at more than 30 years old
but internazionale paid only 5 million euros to have him in the team, which showed that he wasn't important to them (they paid 11 million euros for ricky alvarez, who wasn't titular either)

this post explains pretty well forlan's problems at internazionale: http://www.castefootball.us/forums/...-talent-FORLAN?p=243458&viewfull=1#post243458

eventually internazionale fired him and forlan went back to south america

i wish him the best, and hopefully he will make history there too
and finally he will play as a titular which means that he could keep playing for uruguay


needless to say, internazionale is now one of the clubs i hate the most for wasting 1 year of forlan's career


these are the reasons why i believe that forlan proved to be one of the best players in the world, not only a fairly good goal-scorer that can only play well in small teams
his career was just plagued with double standards, racism and discrimination
an example of double standard: ronaldo won the golden ball in 2002 for his world cup, and forlan didn't win it in 2010

and in addition to all this, forlan is also a nice guy, educated, honest (he said that he would only kiss the emblem of penarol or of the uruguayn national team), fair play, he's the only one who never argues with the referee, he showed his support to suarez when he was criticised in england for insulting evra...he's perfect

 

[Europe]

It's interesting that he was leading Spain in scoring but Real or Barca didn't go for him, but they went for Benzema.
Although, Athletico Madrid is a pretty big club, aren't they?

I remember I got a video of Man United when he played there. It was a highlight video for the year and during one game he scored and the announcer said Forlan can't stop scoring.

 

[frederic38]

Although, Athletico Madrid is a pretty big club, aren't they?

i think that they were a big club, but since i started watching soccer they weren't that big
they had torres though
when forlan came to the club, they had not competed in champions league for more than 10 years
at the time i was very surprised because i thought that real madrid or barcelona would sign him, but then i saw that he signed for madrid.....but atletico madrid
with friends we joked about this during years

I remember I got a video of Man United when he played there. It was a highlight video for the year and during one game he scored and the announcer said Forlan can't stop scoring.

it should be in this video:

[video=youtube_share;CLrALYBDrBc]http://youtu.be/CLrALYBDrBc[/video]

i think that he says it at 2.27
he also says "3 games in a row, 3 goals in a row" at 2.13

back then there was no internet, or less than now (i didn't have it) and the only time i saw him playing for manchester united was in a champions league match when he came in for the last minutes

he could have been very successful in premier league i think

 

[frederic38]

i turned my summary of forlan's career into an article, in french: http://www.sportvox.fr/article.php3?id_article=30963
some nice replies so far
i named the article "why is forlan the best player in the world" to create controversy :biggrin1:

 

[frederic38]

forlan confirmed what i thought and what i posted here about why he was disapointing in internazionale:

Despite only scoring two times in 18 Serie A appearances for Inter Milan, Forlan insists he was not entirely to blame for his disappointing twelve-month stint at the San Siro.
''I was playing in a position where I had never played before. I accepted it because I had no other choice. I'm here now, though, and I hope to play in my natural position as striker again,'' the 33-year-old told reporters.

http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/33...ut_of_my_natural_position_at_inter_milan.html


it appears that, as i thought, forlan accepted to play in internazionale as an unimportant player, a substitute, because he had no other oportunity, no big club wanted to have him as main striker
barcelona and real madrid were said to be interested in him, but i knew that he would never go there because they wanted him to be a substitute
they asked about other old players like klose to do the same
eventually, he accepted to go to internazionale but he knew that he was not an important player for the club

what an INCREDIBLE lack of respect for this player, it makes me mad
he's the most underrated player in the 20 last years, maybe in history

 

[frederic38]

after a very dificult start (is he focused on footbal now that he left europe?) forlan scored 2 goals in 1 match and he got the best rating, he's part of the best 11 players of the week in the brazilian league

 

[Zeus]

I don't know if this thread is dedicated exclusively to Forlan or how in general white players are not detected.

I wonder if you are familiar with Vassilis Hatzipanagis? He's like the most wasted talent in the history of football maybe? (or this is what we like to believe here in Greece)
He was voted from Uefa Jubilee awards as one of the 50 greatest Europeans of all time and greatest Greek ever, while Puskas who witnessed him playing (he was coach of Panathinaikos and lived in Greece for a few years) said that he was a better player than George Best, Johan Cryuff and Di Stefano............Also Spanish and Portuguese journalists discovered his videos only recently (post 2004) and now refer to him as the Greek Maradona!
His story and how he could not even fully compete in a big European club or National team of Greece, is beyond sad...........a true waste of maybe one of the greatest players ever? Who knows? Maybe you wanna judge for yourself?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U6QPu1Is_A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasilis_Hatzipanagis

 

[frederic38]

it became more about forlan but yes it's important to mention the players who were overlooked very often because they were not physical enough
in france we have a lot of examples, from french players that finally made it to french first division: for example koscielny, ribery, giroud, valbuena, all these guys are in the national team now but they played in 3rd division for way too long and things weren't easy for them
they all come from the french 3rd division
there is also sebastien puygrenier

then there are the south americans, a lot of them are refused in france and they succeed in other leagues: forlan in AS nancy, pastore in saint etienne, estigarribia (the paraguayan) at le mans, luis fabiano (the brazilian international) at rennes, even guarin (colombian international) in saint etienne

not all these players are whites (the paraguayan is of basque origin but obviously he's also amerindian, guarin is partly black, luis fabiano too) but it shows that in france they don't see the talent, espacially when the player is white
(then there was this quote from a discussion between laurent blanc and erick mombaerts: "the skinny white boys that are in the "pole espoir" (the place where players are trained),are not chosen by the professional teams. They don't take them, in every case, even if they are good players!")was the greek player refused by a european club?

 

[frederic38]

forlan: always appearing when his team needs him the most:

he scored 2 goals with internacional against vasco da gama, internacional won 2-1 away
it was the most crucial match of the season, internacional had to win against this very strong rival to keep hopes of qualifying to the south american champions league

look at the intelligence in his movements:

[video=youtube_share;OBDJdAHGuys]http://youtu.be/OBDJdAHGuys[/video]

http://youtu.be/DPc7ift6y1Y

 

[ThePhilosopher]

Great work by Frederic on this thread!KUDOS!

Yes the wasted talents of players like Giroud,Koscielny,FORLAN is indeed a tragedy.
It is the price we pay for having "diverse" teams.

 

[frederic38]

it seems that forlan is back to his best shape now, for his second season with the brazilian club internacional

he's the top scorer of the regional league (so he's facing weak teams right now, but still impressive)

since he came to brazil he has especially scored against the rival club gremio, in the grenal (gremio vs internacional)

http://youtu.be/Rh4c4As7N3U

http://youtu.be/PFRcJHZiOiw

for this match he was named man of the match because he scored and assisted on the second one, and played well:

he has the confidence of his coach, white brazilian (gaucho) dunga

here is his latest match:

[video=youtube_share;UZt8afBTY4k]http://youtu.be/UZt8afBTY4k[/video]

he scored 2 amazing goals