David Luiz

[DavidEU 2,023]

The PSG fans must have gone from delight to absolute fear over the past 30 days over this guy.

[Beigl 1,387]

The PSG fans must have gone from delight to absolute fear over the past 30 days over this guy.

To be fair he had quite good games in the group stages.

[BleedsBlue 1,549]

My belief is that PSG paid 50m just to show how serious they are about top class targets. Maybe it was to tempt us to sell Oscar in the future for a large amount as well. Luiz is a great defender and I am sure PSG needed someone like him but surely 35m would have been enough to get him.

[The only place to be 11,313]

. Luiz is a great defender

He's really not.

[DavidEU 2,023]

To be fair he had quite good games in the group stages.

Defensively? Wasn't he at some fault for the Marcelo OG vs Croatia and the Matip goal vs Cameroon?

I don't want to be one of the guys constantly slagging David off but the constant bad moments of defending aren't irregular. He seems to make some sort of mistake in every game.

[Spike 12,049]

@The only place to be, You have something really deep up your arse about people liking Luiz for his personality.

[The only place to be 11,313]

@The only place to be, You have something really deep up your arse about people liking Luiz for his personality.

Yeah probably. I dislike the 'cult of celebrity' where we confuse sticking one's tongue out for 'personality'. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I don't think influence and leadership should solely be measured on Twitter followers or Instagram images. I think he's well-marketed but hugely superficial.

If John Terry is The Beatles, then David Luiz is an X-Factor contestant. Lots of glitz and glamour, bright lights and even a nice little backstory but where's the substance?

He's a defender whose biggest supporters will wilfully ignore the defensive frailties of, looking instead to laud a well (and oft!) taken free-kick.

He's a player built for a particular type of modern day fan and I do resent it somewhat.

[Spike 12,049]

Yeah probably. I dislike the 'cult of celebrity' where we confuse sticking one's tongue out for 'personality'. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I don't think influence and leadership should solely be measured on Twitter followers or Instagram images. I think he's well-marketed but hugely superficial.

If John Terry is The Beatles, then David Luiz is an X-Factor contestant. Lots of glitz and glamour, bright lights and even a nice little backstory but where's the substance?

He's a defender whose biggest supporters will wilfully ignore the defensive frailties of, looking instead to laud a well (and oft!) taken free-kick.

He's a player built for a particular type of modern day fan and I do resent it somewhat.

Well Big Phil knows him personally and you don't. Big Phil was the one to give him the armband. He mightn't be the guy to organise a defence but you don't know that he isn't the type of man to give an inspiriing speach in the lockeroom.

Besides there isn't anything more pointless and needlessly discussed then the captaincy. A leader is gonna lead reggardless of a piece of elastic fabric around his arm.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Well Big Phil knows him personally and you don't. Big Phil was the one to give him the armband. He mightn't be the guy to organise a defence but you don't know that he isn't the type of man to give an inspiriing speach in the lockeroom.

Besides there isn't anything more pointless and needlessly discussed then the captaincy. A leader is gonna lead reggardless of a piece of elastic fabric around his arm.

Do you think Big Phil wondered if that was a good decision after the fourth or fifth goal?

[Special Juan 27,424]

There is a leader and there is him….a martyr.

[lionsden 4,689]

He's a defender that plays with his heart rather than his head. How can a 27 year old have the tactical and mental discipline of a 10 year old and what's baffling is how he never seem to learn from his mistakes and his inability to quickly shake off a mistake and recover.

He will never become a good/great defender imo,it's past that point now. When he's having his usual bad games, he fails at even the most basic of task for a defender such as man marking,tackling etc. Selling him is increasingly looking like the best decision has made in years.

[Spike 12,049]

Do you think Big Phil wondered if that was a good decision after the fourth or fifth goal?

Well if anyone else were leaders they would have been leading; reggardless of the armband. Looks like as a squad David Luiz probably was the second best leader, can't fault a team that only has Thiago Silva to lead them. Besides the whole team was pathetic and lead to the 7 goal, not just David Luiz to say otherwise is ignorant.

On another note the way you phrased that sentence pretty much states that only the captain is at fault for the poor performance.

Anyway he could be a very inspiring leader of men and just shit at organising the defence. I don't know.

Don't really care either way and this isn't exactly my opinion, just trying to offer perspective.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Luiz made team of the tournament. Lol.

[NiclasCFC 2,582]

Luiz made team of the tournament. Lol.

got a link to the full team?

[The Skipper 20,593]

got a link to the full team?

Just saw this photo floating around on twitter, not too sure how true it is though.

https://twitter.com/samueljayc/status/488454866315280384

[lionsden 4,689]

Luiz made team of the tournament. Lol.

Messi winning the golden boot wasn't the only farce of the night then.

[Dion 2,476]

Luiz can be the best defender in the world in one game just to become the worst in the following. Sometimes he can even transition between the two extremes in the same game. And defense is all about consistency. Every defender has ups and downs, problem with Luiz is his down is too low. His bad games are really bad and sometimes atrocious - the type of game that will make you think, how is this guy even a pro? You can never know which Luiz will show up. And when you think he got his shit together he screws up badly again. He was arguably one of the best, if not the sole best centre-back, up until the last two games when he decided he was done with being a centre-back and was his time to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time for those entire matches and do the silliest mistakes possible.

And I don't know why am I even surprised. If you think about it, Luiz is always attempting the high risk, high reward choice. When he's on his day and can pull it off, it looks amazing, when he can't he fucks up the whole defensive system. When he tries to anticipate a pass or long ball and he succeeds, it looks wonderful and is indeed wonderful, he killed the opposing attack right there and can start a quick counter, whereas if he tried only to mark the player, that player could possibly be able to pass to another player or dribble past him, which keeps Luiz's team on the defensive. But when he tries to anticipate and fails, the attacking player may now be 1v1 against the gk or 2v1 against the other cb. The same applies to Luiz bombing forward, he may be another player to be dealt with by the opposition, but if he fails and allows a counter, now his team has one less defender. He does this sort of decision a lot. Most of these problems can be solved somewhat with a proper tactical plan for covering his craziness, but is it even worth it to take theses risks and to always have the doubt of when is his high risk play going to fail? That's just the essence of Luiz as a player, the way he plays he's fated to whether have wonderful plays or terrible ones, which isn't ideal for a consistent defender, it is suited for highly skilled attacking players like Hazard, Messi, Neymar, Robben.

Also, regarding his personality, I disagree with @TOPTB here, I know he's skeptical from his experience with other footballers but I honestly don't think Luiz does it for the fame or to get his value up. It may not be as common in Europe or England but there are lots of people in Brazil with that kind of personality. I've had a few friend a bit like David Luiz myself. He's just that way, there are people who are shy, that are people who are outgoing, there are funny people, serious people, in this world you can find it all. It just happens that his fun personality makes him more likable and sort of a unique character - Neymar and some other players are a bit like that too. It's not really that uncommon in Brazil. There are a bunch of videos showing how Neymar used to be the cheerful fun prankster guy when playing for Santos, not very different from David. However, Neymar has adopted a more low-profile personality after going to Barcelona, probably due to advices from his media consultants that he's got after a few problems he's had in Brazil.

With that I'm leaving this thread. David Luiz is not our problem anymore. If anything, I hope he can sort out his flaws someday and have the best of luck in PSG.

[bababoom 4,478]

If Luiz was in his early twenties than you can say he's still young and will get better with experience, but he's 27 and played in some of the biggest games ever, i think he'll always be that inconsistent, error prone defender.

I'm not bashing him, i was at his very first game for Chelsea, Fulham away i think, and he was amazing, he was skillful, exciting and at the time i thought he was just brilliant.

He even managed to do a bicycle kick cross , everyone was saying he's the real deal, but then he gave away a penalty... at the time i thought nothing of it (especially since Cech saved it), It was only his first game in the PL, he'll learn.... how wrong was i, it's been three years since that game and he's still as inconsistent as ever.