Mario Mandžukić (31 Viewers)

Legend or Rookie?


  • Total voters
    68
  • Poll closed .

s4tch

Senior Member
Mar 23, 2015
27,872
:sigh:

You can not be serious. I mean, I know you don't rate Mandzukic, which is dumb enough in the first place, but at least stick to criticism that makes some sense.

He's not involved enough :howler:
it's still beyond me why some people can't simply accept that just like other modern teams, we also have multipurpose players, like alex sandro or cancelo, who are fullbacks and occasional wingers at the same time, or dybala, who's a cm/seconda punta/winger/striker, or mandzukic who's one of the world's first box to box strikers who makes 3-4 tackles or blocks a cross if needed.

for a stat lover, it should be clear that yesterday mandzu had 2 key passes, won 3 aerial duels, had 1 tackle, 3 interceptions, 1 block and an accurate long ball attempt. he also worked his ass off, which wouldn't show on the stat sheet, but if someone saw the actual match, it was quite obvious. for instance, around the 90 minute mark, at 3-0, mandzu had an interception near our penalty area, and like half a minute later, he was the only one pressing the sassuolo keeper, on the other side of the pitch. saying he was 'not involved enough' seems maybe a tiny bit unfair. :boh:
 

juve103423

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2010
949
it's still beyond me why some people can't simply accept that just like other modern teams, we also have multipurpose players, like alex sandro or cancelo, who are fullbacks and occasional wingers at the same time, or dybala, who's a cm/seconda punta/winger/striker, or mandzukic who's one of the world's first box to box strikers who makes 3-4 tackles or blocks a cross if needed.

for a stat lover, it should be clear that yesterday mandzu had 2 key passes, won 3 aerial duels, had 1 tackle, 3 interceptions, 1 block and an accurate long ball attempt. he also worked his ass off, which wouldn't show on the stat sheet, but if someone saw the actual match, it was quite obvious. for instance, around the 90 minute mark, at 3-0, mandzu had an interception near our penalty area, and like half a minute later, he was the only one pressing the sassuolo keeper, on the other side of the pitch. saying he was 'not involved enough' seems maybe a tiny bit unfair. :boh:
Box to box striker? Isnt that a bit far fetched, inventing a fancy pseudo role, to try to justify that we have a striker, who doesnt really strike or touch the ball? Previous game he also had some involvement in defense as we all saw. Id rather that he stay in the box, where he actually has some skills in the air and an okay conversion. He is often missing in there. Where the hell is he at this point in the game, out for a hotdog?
(1:31)

This is just one example but it happens a lot. He is often completely out of place. Or at least not where I would expect a tall striker to be.
He is not some sort of Vidal in attack. His interceptions and tackles are more than Ronaldo and Dybalas yes, but not really significant at all, to warrant such a luxury pseudo role. Its not like we dont have good enough defenders.

He is basically outside top 11 (often near the bottom with our keepers) on almost every single measurable parameter. Many of them are completely ridiculous for a Juventus striker, in my opinion. His goal tally is okay'ish so far. But his goals depend on a LOT of support or big fuck-ups in defense, so he is an expensive goal scorer, unlike Ronaldo, Costa, Dybala for example.

If I am wrong about this, it is easy to shoot me down, please go ahead, check for yourself. His stats are really mind blowing to me. I have never seen so little 'output' of any player. At least not from a guy who is considered a huge team player, work horse, a Vidal type of player, who sacrifices himself for the team. I see none of it, besides his facial expressions of exhaustion and when he makes his occasional 'fight scenes'. I dont see how his contribution is making life easier for our other players. They basically have to do more stuff because he does less, or no?

I would be interested in serious answers to what it is that his output really is, how to play him effectively (striker, winger, goalkeeper, defender?), and why he is better than other strikers (what can he do that others cant, technically or physically). That I am interested in, besides the cute dislikes from the usual + the mandzukic fanatics.
 

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Gigiventus

Senior Member
Mar 3, 2017
3,130
Mandzukic's role is the opposite of a luxury one. He is the one out there fighting to make everything work for everyone else.

His movement against CBs opens up space between the lines for the rest of the attacking players. His harassment of the fullback opposite to the ball always results in a sure scoring opportunity from crosses. When Pjanic and the backline is pressed, Mandzukic drifting left (where he is sure to win the aerial duel) allows Bonucci to send the ball to him to beat the pressing. His defensive work makes it so that Ronaldo can defend less and play his best game.

Everyone that plays around Mandzukic, plays better.
 

s4tch

Senior Member
Mar 23, 2015
27,872
Box to box striker? Isnt that a bit far fetched, inventing a fancy pseudo role, to try to justify that we have a striker, who doesnt really strike or touch the ball? Previous game he also had some involvement in defense as we all saw. Id rather that he stay in the box, where he actually has some skills in the air and an okay conversion. He is often missing in there. Where the hell is he at this point in the game, out for a hotdog?
(1:31)

This is just one example but it happens a lot. He is often completely out of place. Or at least not where I would expect a tall striker to be.
He is not some sort of Vidal in attack. His interceptions and tackles are more than Ronaldo and Dybalas yes, but not really significant at all, to warrant such a luxury pseudo role. Its not like we dont have good enough defenders.

He is basically outside top 11 (often near the bottom with our keepers) on almost every single measurable parameter. Many of them are completely ridiculous for a Juventus striker, in my opinion. His goal tally is okay'ish so far. But his goals depend on a LOT of support or big fuck-ups in defense, so he is an expensive goal scorer, unlike Ronaldo, Costa, Dybala for example.

If I am wrong about this, it is easy to shoot me down, please go ahead, check for yourself. His stats are really mind blowing to me. I have never seen so little 'output' of any player. At least not from a guy who is considered a huge team player, work horse, a Vidal type of player, who sacrifices himself for the team. I see none of it, besides his facial expressions of exhaustion and when he makes his occasional 'fight scenes'. I dont see how his contribution is making life easier for our other players. They basically have to do more stuff because he does less, or no?

I would be interested in serious answers to what it is that his output really is, how to play him effectively (striker, winger, goalkeeper, defender?), and why he is better than other strikers (what can he do that others cant, technically or physically). That I am interested in, besides the cute dislikes from the usual + the mandzukic fanatics.
okay, i get it, you love whoscored and basically rely on nothing else but stats. how come that a player who contributes next to nothing gets a 7.6 rating, purely based on stats, without even scoring a goal? because that's what you said, and your bible tells it otherwise. mandzu received the 4th highest rating yesterday. you simply overlooked it, and tried to cherry pick some stats based on the whole season just to back your agenda against mandzukic's last performance.

oh, wait: mandzukic is our 3rd best rated player this season, i repeat, based purely on stats. only cr and cancelo have a higher average than him, based on the whole serie a season.

i guess someone's gotta be wrong: either you or whoscored. :boh:

some numbers to digest: mandzukic scored 5 match winning goals this season, against the following teams: napoli, milan, valencia, inda and roma. only cristiano fucking ronaldo, the goat according to some, the guy with the 30m net salary has more match winners than mandzukic. cr scored 8 winners, 3 penalties included against giant like sassuolo, frosinone, empoli, spal, toro, samp, lazio, and he won us the supercoppa, too. he's yet to score a winner against a top5 team or against any cl opponent, while mandzukic already did both.

football is not only about those stats you keep checking and quoting. i do suggest you to get a ticket to any juve match and keep an eye on mandzukic for the full 90 minutes. this guy is not the most technically gifted player we've ever had, but his workrate, dedication and positioning is insane. i saw him in udine, and i'll never forget his somewhat stupid yellow card he got in the 94th minute, at 0-2 scoreline against a toothless team for a late challenge after sprinting and pressing the opponents all around the field. he got a standing ovation for that missed tackle. he's grinta personified, and it's not even a hyperbole. you simply need some insanely driven players in your squad: 20 years ago that was conte, then nedved, then we had plenty of soft pussies for a couple of years, then vidal/licht got on board, and now we have mandzu. how fortunate we are.
 

juve103423

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2010
949
okay, i get it, you love whoscored and basically rely on nothing else but stats. how come that a player who contributes next to nothing gets a 7.6 rating, purely based on stats, without even scoring a goal? because that's what you said, and your bible tells it otherwise. mandzu received the 4th highest rating yesterday. you simply overlooked it, and tried to cherry pick some stats based on the whole season just to back your agenda against mandzukic's last performance.

oh, wait: mandzukic is our 3rd best rated player this season, i repeat, based purely on stats. only cr and cancelo have a higher average than him, based on the whole serie a season.

i guess someone's gotta be wrong: either you or whoscored. :boh:

some numbers to digest: mandzukic scored 5 match winning goals this season, against the following teams: napoli, milan, valencia, inda and roma. only cristiano fucking ronaldo, the goat according to some, the guy with the 30m net salary has more match winners than mandzukic. cr scored 8 winners, 3 penalties included against giant like sassuolo, frosinone, empoli, spal, toro, samp, lazio, and he won us the supercoppa, too. he's yet to score a winner against a top5 team or against any cl opponent, while mandzukic already did both.

football is not only about those stats you keep checking and quoting. i do suggest you to get a ticket to any juve match and keep an eye on mandzukic for the full 90 minutes. this guy is not the most technically gifted player we've ever had, but his workrate, dedication and positioning is insane. i saw him in udine, and i'll never forget his somewhat stupid yellow card he got in the 94th minute, at 0-2 scoreline against a toothless team for a late challenge after sprinting and pressing the opponents all around the field. he got a standing ovation for that missed tackle. he's grinta personified, and it's not even a hyperbole. you simply need some insanely driven players in your squad: 20 years ago that was conte, then nedved, then we had plenty of soft pussies for a couple of years, then vidal/licht got on board, and now we have mandzu. how fortunate we are.
What makes you think that I base something purely on stats, thats a very poor argument to use. I have been watching almost every game since 2003. But RIGHT HERE, I make a case using the stats. I am asking for any explanation of those stats. And so far, no Mandzukic supporters has come up with ANY convincing explanations other that religious theories that in no way can be discussed objectively "he makes the other players play better" - wow. What kind of intelligent response is that really. I am not asking for your personal opinion about him, I am asking for an objective explanation, WHY this godly footballer is ranking SO low on almost every parameter that we have, and if that is not a bad thing for a team?

Regarding the rating on whoscored, then I have no idea how they calculate those, thats why I dont include them into the discussion. We all know how you count a pass, a tackle, a dribble, a shot etc. And I know from observation that a player who plays the full 90min, for the winning side, will as default have a high rating on whoscored, especially if you manage an assist, a key pass or a goal, compared to getting subbed on for 40 minutes, which leaves you with a 6-point-something rating in there. Thats why I dont regard it as super objective, as we dont know exactly how it is aggregated.

I still miss an explanation of how he can produce nothing besides those close-range goals he had so far, and occasional tackles (while still being low on that count). But as you can see, he is significantly our worst performing player based on almost all these measurable tangible parameters. That was what I asked for an explanation on.

And if you wanna talk about grinta and so on, then why is that not something that results in numbers we can measure. What is it worth then? That also doesnt make sense. Anyone can shut me up regarding his work-rate and grinta (and I believe many want to), if they show me numbers on how much he runs during a game. Last time I checked, he was running almost as little as the central defenders, much lower than anyone else. So I also dont buy this 'running everywhere' theory as well. He runs occasionally, but is generally walking a lot. Thats what I see in the telly, thats what the numbers show.

@DAiDEViL , dont waste your time asking others not to waste their time. They can think and act independently, unlike what you command.
 

s4tch

Senior Member
Mar 23, 2015
27,872
...Mandzukic supporters...

Regarding the rating on whoscored, then I have no idea how they calculate those...

...Anyone can shut me up regarding his work-rate and grinta (and I believe many want to), if they show me numbers on how much he runs during a game...
they are juve supporters, and the team is more effective with him on the pitch.

whoscored ratings explained: https://www.whoscored.com/Explanations of course they won't disclose their full algorithm, but they are saying that more than 200 stats are included in the rating - of those only a handful are available for the public eye. i guess an optapro account is needed to see every individual stat.

you should know that if you base a discussion on stats, you should make sure to include every information. how many aerial duels did mandzukic win? how many other duels he won? how many match winners he scored and/or assisted? how many sprints he made during matches? how many times did he track back to help out a defender who's been dribbled by? how many tackles he has, compared to other forwards? how come that you won't even mention his 4 assists, the same number our best passer (dybala) has produced during the same playtime in the league? how effective his tackles are?

actually, the last one got me interested. you can't find it on whoscored, but there you go:

2.png

that is based on whoscored data, per 90 min metrics. it means that mandzukic is more effective in tackles than matuidi, ds, benatia or bentancur, some players whose actual job is to win the ball. if you remove woj (who basically attempted 2 tackles) it leaves you with a dm and some defenders with a better success rate. now go and find me an other similar striker who attempted so many defensive moves (1,9 tackles per every 90 minutes), and scored at least 8 goals, provided 4 assists. he's simply a 2-in-1 player, and it's not even hard to see during actual matches.
 

Post Ironic

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2013
41,819
they are juve supporters, and the team is more effective with him on the pitch.

whoscored ratings explained: https://www.whoscored.com/Explanations of course they won't disclose their full algorithm, but they are saying that more than 200 stats are included in the rating - of those only a handful are available for the public eye. i guess an optapro account is needed to see every individual stat.

you should know that if you base a discussion on stats, you should make sure to include every information. how many aerial duels did mandzukic win? how many other duels he won? how many match winners he scored and/or assisted? how many sprints he made during matches? how many times did he track back to help out a defender who's been dribbled by? how many tackles he has, compared to other forwards? how come that you won't even mention his 4 assists, the same number our best passer (dybala) has produced during the same playtime in the league? how effective his tackles are?

actually, the last one got me interested. you can't find it on whoscored, but there you go:

2.png

that is based on whoscored data, per 90 min metrics. it means that mandzukic is more effective in tackles than matuidi, ds, benatia or bentancur, some players whose actual job is to win the ball. if you remove woj (who basically attempted 2 tackles) it leaves you with a dm and some defenders with a better success rate. now go and find me an other similar striker who attempted so many defensive moves (1,9 tackles per every 90 minutes), and scored at least 8 goals, provided 4 assists. he's simply a 2-in-1 player, and it's not even hard to see during actual matches.
:tup:

Thanks.

Others have tried to do this with Promoggi but this petulant child ignores every bit of statistical data supporting Mandzu and cherrypicks only what suits his ridiculous agenda. Then he summarily dismisses any points brought by others, says pure rubbish about all of Mario’s goals being either tap-ins he had nothing to do with or colossal defensive errors (never mind that even if this is all he did -it isn’t- Mario had to lose his markers and get in position to be wide open for tap-ins which isn’t easy or everyone would do it, or that he also causes those so-called errors with his fantastic movement and pressure on the defense). Dude ignores the fact Mandzu is the only forward we have who contributes meaningfully with tackles. Ignores the fact he is tied for second on the team in assists with Dybala, ignores that he’s 2nd on the team in winning headers, ignores that he is tied with his precious Douglas Costa in key passes per 90 (1.2), and then says dumb unquantifiable shit like Mandzu only gives effort when he has been standing around for 30 minutes to trick Juve’s so-called simple fans into believing he is a hard-working warrior.

It would be nice if a mod would thread ban him for the ridiculous nonsense he spams this thread with. He’s far more pernicious and obnoxious than guys like Khungke-whatever were in the Marchisio thread, or those who bashed Higgy and got thread-banned. But, whatever. It’s funny, in a way, that he’s so absurdly persistent in trying to fling mud on the name of one of our best players, a guy who scores clutch goals for us constantly, and performs at the very top level all across the pitch in our biggest matches. Funny, but also sad and pathetic.
 

juve103423

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2010
949
lol, crazy reactions and insults from super triggered post_ironic once again.

If you read carefully what I write, then you will see that nowhere do I claim that I am bringing the full account of all publicly available stats on Mandzukic. You are being ridiculous to believe I tried to run a peer review of a Mandzukic study here. So claiming that I am cherry picking or that I could have checked this site and that site and this very particular stat, is a bit absurd. You can bring them if they are relevant and significant compared to the rest of them, that we already have availbable. I added some examples, including tackles and interceptions which were some of the things mentioned as his strengths, so how is that cherry picking. I asked you guys to check his stats, one by one on whoscored (or whatever site that provides them) and notice how he is in the far bottom, on 9 out of 10 (90% of them). I didnt try to hide that he has scored an okay amount of goals and assists, or what it is you try to claim. You are not being objective enough or reading carefully enough, you just get ahead of yourself, in childish manner, nothing new about post_ironic.

To do the hard work, and make sure I am not accused of falsifying data, cherry picking or other great tuz scams, here, summing the basic stats up:
- okay amount of goals per min (2nd in team in Serie A, but Dybala winning it in CL)
- okay amount of assists per min (top 2-6, shared position in Serie A, nothing in CL)
- lower shots per game than most of our starters (#7 in the team)
- highest amount of arials
- number 9 in successfull tackles in the team (despite being our defending striker)
- number 16 best in interceptions
- 12 in passes blocked
- 7 in crosses blocked
- 12 in shots blocked
- 16th most dribbles (less than Szczesny in CL lol)
- 22th most passes, right above Perin and Szczesny
- 11th most keypasses

What else did I miss?
Did you find distance covered per 90min? would love to see it.
 

Boksic

Senior Member
May 11, 2005
13,333
Box to box striker? Isnt that a bit far fetched, inventing a fancy pseudo role, to try to justify that we have a striker, who doesnt really strike or touch the ball? Previous game he also had some involvement in defense as we all saw. Id rather that he stay in the box, where he actually has some skills in the air and an okay conversion. He is often missing in there. Where the hell is he at this point in the game, out for a hotdog?
(1:31)
I'm pretty sure Mandzukic played a key role in opening up the defence to start this move by drawing an opposition defender on the right touchline and flicking the ball inside for a runner whilst getting fouled from behind/taking the opposition defender out of the game in the process.

There is a lot more to football than statistics and highlights of the end of moves. If you want to understand where a player is positioned in a move you need to view the phases before.

Mandzukic adds so much to this team that won't be seen on a statistic.
 

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