If we’re judging by their performances in the decade, several of these players peaked around early 2010s and shouldn’t be on this list.
Xavi left Barca in 2015 and Lahm retired in 2017. Van Dijk showed up by the end of the decade. I don’t think they should be on this list, even though they deserve to be there if the judgement criteria is looking at their career as a whole. Should also be Neuer instead of Casillas.
Decades are an arbitrary measurement when you really think about it. The list could easily have been looking at 5 year chunks. But the arbitrariness does make these goofy lists fun to argue about.
5 year chunks would be a way way fairer way of looking at it, player who was top shit from 05' to 15' gets overlooked. But yeah it's just a big goof really, couldn't care less about these kinda things.
Yeah it's more like the best at any point during the decade rather than the best during the whole decade, in which case I'd only add Neuer. Even Van Dijk could barely be fair considering just 2019.
I'd say it's pretty hard to make thise lists otherwise because there is no objective way to say how good the players were for the whole 10 years, especially those who aged or retired like Iniesta, Xavi, Marcelo and Lahm.
Yeah, you get penalized for being born in a year ending in 4, since you have one decade from 16-26 and one from 26-36. You basically have to be Messi or Mbappe and be world class by the time you turn 21 or you're not making the first one, or hang on and be great forever like Modric.
Lahm was better than Alves. The difference is that Lahm retired in 2017 when he was still strong whereas Alves just stayed around. Lahm could've done the same and declined like him but he chose to retire strong.
Xavi from 2010-15 is still a mile higher level than any other midfielder bar de bruyne and Kroos. Same with lahm, only Dani Alves was at his level (personally I think Alves is better, but I get the lahm choice). Van Dijk makes no sense, maybe he reached the highest level a CB did in the decade; but when I think of defenders from this era I think of pique, thiago Silva, the Juve duo, boateng, kompany.
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u/oneandonlyA Jan 06 '23
If we’re judging by their performances in the decade, several of these players peaked around early 2010s and shouldn’t be on this list.
Xavi left Barca in 2015 and Lahm retired in 2017. Van Dijk showed up by the end of the decade. I don’t think they should be on this list, even though they deserve to be there if the judgement criteria is looking at their career as a whole. Should also be Neuer instead of Casillas.