Antonio Rudiger

[manpe 10,861]

14 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Apparently he was awful against Club America yesterday in a back 4. 

Who would've thought?

Don't know if this video is a fair representation of his overall performance, but I don't see anything wrong there.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by manpe

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

Put Haaland in pocket twice. Told Lunin where Kova gonna shot and scored last pen. Leader we need. People like to romanticize our ex players for example no we don't miss Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, Christensen... But Rudi is different kind. 

[robsblubot 3,504]

12 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Put Haaland in pocket twice. Told Lunin where Kova gonna shot and scored last pen. Leader we need. People like to romanticize our ex players for example no we don't miss Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, Christensen... But Rudi is different kind. 

Disagree, we miss them all very much so.

You are thinking Starting XI - would still disagree there as Pulisic and Mount both shit on Mudryk - but considering our bench options, I have a hard time understanding how we'd not be missing good players (regardless of how one rates them). We even miss RLC because he'd be able to come in an offer something different from what we have. 🤷‍♂️

Rudi is a World Class, agreed. That's besides the point though, we have a total of one WC playing in the squad right now (and another one by name only).

[Mário César 975]

kova and havertz are playing shit in city and arsenal respective

Im looling at bluemoon and arsenal mania and there are several critics to both 

[NikkiCFC 7,950]

Kova for example offers nothing in the final third. Gallagher and Enzo are having much superior season. Conor has 5g 8a and Enzo scored 7. Their biggest problem is that they don't have Rodri behind them or in our case Lavia.

Chris is always exposed in back 4.

This version of Mount of last 2 seasons is not even worth mentioning. 

Nkunku out was big blow but Palmer showed Kai and others what was expected from them and they were nowhere near. 

Edited April 19 by NikkiCFC

[robsblubot 3,504]

31 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Kova for example offers nothing in the final third. Gallagher and Enzo are having much superior season. Conor has 5g 8a and Enzo scored 7. Their biggest problem is that they don't have Rodri behind them or in our case Lavia. 

Once again, you are only talking about the Starting XI. Please, count how many times during a season the same players who start a game play for the 90 min these days. I can tell you right now if you don't want to check: zero.

I agree that Kovacic does not offer anything up front, and yet he's still better passer than Caicedo who offers even less in the final third. That was the case before City signed him, wasn't it? So, I suggest that regarding Kova, the fault is in your analysis, not the player. My reading of his game is that he's an excellent short range passer, and master at keeping possession: he can withstand pressure by quick changes of direction and short dribbling having full control of the the football at all times.

You are talking about quality, or perceived quality as each to his own, but I'm referring to characteristics; what can a player do on the pitch versus what a different player can do even in the same position. Is one better than the other in every aspect of the game? I don't see that very often at this level exception to a few WC players. I usually see tradeoffs with most players.
Is Enzo better than RLC? yes, far higher value too. Can RLC do things Enzo can't do? absolutely! He has an aerial presence, size and power to play in tight spaces. Fact is we have very few options in midfield at this time, especially in terms of characteristics.

Lavia is a funny one though: I've been hearing he will help us in the final third, and now you are saying he will help as a DM; dunno where he will be able to help us, but so far he's just a fad.

31 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

This version of Mount of last 2 seasons

And? He's still fairly young. Will you think the same if in a year or two from now he recovers his fitness and form, and delivers good performances for club and country? I tend to give credit to players who once played very well vs others who never did, but that's me. Has Mudryk done any better than Mount's last 2 seasons?

 

Edited April 19 by robsblubot

[Vesper 28,802]

I so fucking miss Rudiger, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Vesper 28,802]

 

Edited July 2 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,802]

Rüdiger’s treatment a damning representation of modern Germany

Defender should be able to count on a nation behind him but far-right nationalism reflects society’s ingrained racism

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jul/04/antonio-rudiger-germany-euro-2024-football

 

Antonio Rüdiger was eight years old the first time he had to ask his father what the N-word meant, because the kids at school were using it. He remembers running over to an old white lady in his neighbourhood, offering to help carry her shopping bags, and seeing the look of pure terror in her eyes. He remembers growing up playing football on the concrete pitches of Berlin, and being told he didn’t belong there, to go back to Africa.

But these were the bad old days. The dark ages. A more benighted era of Germany society. And of course, Rüdiger is now a star of the German national team in a home European Championship, their best player in the 2-0 win over Denmark last Saturday and the key to Friday’s quarter-final against Spain. Times have changed. Attitudes, surely, have shifted.

“Footballer Rüdiger outs himself as a radical Islamist!” screamed a popular German right-wing YouTuber this week. “This man has no place in our national team,” declared Beatrix von Storch, the MP and deputy leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party. “Islamism in the German starting eleven this evening,” wrote Julian Reichelt, the former editor of Bild and now the editor of Nius, a kind of equivalent to GB News.

Then there was the member of the AfD’s youth wing, interviewed on television at the party’s conference in Essen a few days ago, who stated on camera that Rüdiger should be “expelled”. Not from the team, not from the camp, but from Germany itself. And before what promises to be the match of the tournament, a game that feels – one way or the other – like the crux of Germany 2024, a reminder that among this fiercely united squad, some players are playing for higher stakes than others.

This much, naturally, Rüdiger is already used to. From his earliest days in German football, he was cognisant of the ways in which society’s ingrained racism would be coded and coddled, more creatively framed. “As soon as you have a few bad games, the press starts digging, and now what do they call you?” he wrote in a 2021 Players Tribune article. “Antonio Rüdiger, from Berlin-Neukölln.”

Even now, with Rüdiger enjoying his most productive international tournament, the knives are out for him in a way they so rarely are for others. Every gesture and word is parsed and scrutinised for anything that might inspire some cheap right-wing outrage. After the Denmark game it was a throwaway comment that Germany should have “killed” the game earlier. Days of hand-wringing commentary and social media fury ensued.

Back in March, meanwhile, it was Fingergate. At the start of Ramadan, Rüdiger posted a picture of himself with his index finger raised, wishing “a blessed Ramadan to all Muslims around the world”. For Reichelt, however, it was not a gesture of solidarity but an “Islamist salute, which the whole world has known since the horror of the ISIS terrorists”. Rüdiger and the German football association filed a complaint to the public prosecutor, but in many ways the damage was already done: for a small but increasingly emboldened subset of German society, Rüdiger had been successfully recast as the “other”, a dangerous outsider, even a traitor in the midst.

And of course this is all part of a broader strategy, a concerted effort to position football as a frontline in the struggle for the soul of the nation. On social media, disinformation and flat-out untruths have been propagated by far-right accounts and allowed to flourish largely unchallenged. One viral video shows a prayer room in the fan zone in Berlin, with the (false) suggestion that it has been installed for Muslims alone. Another widely shared post rages at the ban on German flags in fan parks, a ban that does not and has never existed.

While it’s easy to dismiss this kind of stuff as the kind of desperate nonsense barely worth dignifying with comment – and you know, when has fringe far-right German nationalism ever really hurt anyone? – there is a subtext here, and by identifying it now we can all spare ourselves a lot of performative shock later. “This team is not a national team, but a politically correct mercenary troupe,” the MEP Maximilian Krah declared before the start of the Euros.

Because so far the racists and nativists have encountered one major issue: Germany are absolutely smashing it. The national flags are billowing from car aerials and apartment blocks. A proudly diverse and forward-looking team have cruised into the quarter-finals playing smart modern football and turning their diversity into a strength. “With every victory, good Germany wins,” the journalist Hajo Schumacher declared on a television talkshow on Tuesday night. “Every victory counts. This is modern Germany. This is a new Germany.”

And yet even this leans into dangerous tropes, the unspoken compact that people of colour must somehow prove their worth in order to be accepted by a white-majority society. Brandishing a winning German team and a champion centre-half as evidence of the merits of multiculturalism is all very well until – you know – they stop winning. Until Rüdiger misjudges a high ball. Until Jamal Musiala misses a penalty. That will be the point at which we find out if “new Germany” is elementally different from the old one.

Rüdiger, of course, has always understood this. That in most European societies his basic humanity will always be regarded, in part, as a transaction. In his Players’ Tribune article he reflected on the Chelsea fans who showered him with vitriol for his supposed part in the sacking of Frank Lampard, only to change their tune months later when he led them to the Champions League title. “Do you think they took a long look in the mirror?” he writes. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I know that we’re winning. So now I’m useful to them. Maybe I’m even a human being in their eyes.”

The real shame here is that Rüdiger is easily good enough and compelling enough and entertaining enough on the pitch to be appreciated on his own terms. From Stuttgart to Roma to Chelsea to Madrid, this is a player whose commitment and personality and taste for the dramatic have long made him one of the most watchable players in the game, a riposte to the idea that attackers are football’s expressionists and defenders its silent yeomen. Take his wild celebration after making a crucial tackle late in the Denmark game, fists pumping, eyes wide, letting out a roar of pure alpha energy.

This is a player at the peak of his powers, chasing the pinnacle of his career, who should at the very least be able to count on a blank canvas, a nation united behind him. For reasons only tangentially connected to him, that has rarely been the case. Often it is said, with a trite liberal blitheness, that Rüdiger represents modern Germany. In a way, so does his treatment.

[ZAPHOD2319 4,477]

I miss him 😂

 

 

[Vesper 28,802]

2 hours ago, ZAPHOD2319 said:

I miss him 😂

 

 

lol, Mbappe looking at him like he is crazy

Diego Costa and Rudi were world class wind-up artists

Edited September 21 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,802]

'I Was Called Greedy For Leaving Chelsea - Now I'm Nominated for Ballon d'Or'

https://www.givemesport.com/antonio-rudiger-leave-Chelsea-real-madrid-greedy-nominated-ballon-dor/

Like every great footballer on the cusp of something new, Antonio Rudiger had a difficult decision to make in the 2021-22 season. His time at Chelsea had been one of the most synonymous and successful of his career, yet with form and personality attracting a number of big clubs, a different challenge reared its head with the expiration of his contract.

The 6 foot 3 defensive powerhouse decided to end his west London home with five trophies in as many years, with these including a Europa League and a famous Champions League. However, Rudiger's decision to move to Real Madrid saw him face a sour exit at the Bridge.

Antonio Rudiger got his start at Stuttgart after youth football saw him play for his teams in his home city of Berlin before opportunity came and went with Borussia Dortmund's academy. At Stuttgart, time in the German third-tier with the second team saw him develop swiftly, and the gangly defender debuted in 2012 to make 80 appearances in four years.

A move to Roma in Serie A followed in 2016 after an initial loan period, and here, the gifted defender kicked on to see his initial €9million price tag rise to £29million when Chelsea signed him in the summer of 2017. At Stamford Bridge, Rudiger instantly endeared himself to the home faithful, as in his first season he helped the Blues win the FA Cup. In the next term, under Maurizio Sarri, the side beat Arsenal 4-1 to capture the Europa League honour in Baku.

With the now-regular German international being a key cog in 2020-21's Champions League crown as Chelsea pipped Manchester City to the post in Porto, Rudiger was firmly in the shop window by the time his contract looked to reach its final stages.

With the gradual expiration of Rudiger's contract imminent back in 2021, Chelsea made multiple offers to keep the 29-year-old in the English capital. Such was their value, the final offer of an alleged £230k-per-week being rejected just encroached the conversation topics of greed and what impact the player's agent had.

One of the many outspoken individuals was Simon Jordan. Speaking on his talkSPORT show at the time, Jordan didn't pull any punches on Rudiger's decision to move:

While Jordan may have said his piece, and whether Rudiger's move was completely focussed on money, the German joined Real Madrid for free in June 2022. Plus, so effective has Rudiger been at the European giants, that his continued growth and performances in Madrid have seen continued success.

At the time of writing, the hard-running and tough-tackling fiend has 110 appearances for Los Blancos, and in that time he has comfortably added to his trophy cabinet with a La Liga title, a Copa del Rey, Supercopa de Espana and Champions League trophy with all the post-season Super Cup and Club World Cup trimmings. This impressive recent stint in the defender's career has reaped great plaudits, with special inclusion in La Liga's 2023-24 Team of the Season as well as The Athletic's European Men's Team of the Season. Rudiger has been nominated for the 2024 Ballon d'Or.