1. People didn’t dislike Pepe for beeing bad, but for beeing unsporting.
2. I truly belive that GK vs. fieldplayers are so different that GK shouldn’t be in the same balloon price.
3. Obv. Xavi was more complete. The most utilized 3-man midfield in modern football is (besides them all beeing more fluid and complete than "old days) one more defensive then the others, one more attacking/free role/creative than the others and one all-round. Xavi was the all-round and Iniesta the (more)creative. So obv. Xavi was more complete. Kroos is also more complete than Modric, exactly with the same setup/reason. Often those that favor Xavi or Iniesta is simply their preference for that type. I know that I favor Xavi>Inista and Kroos>Modric simply for that reason. That doesn’t mean the others aren’t fantastic.
4. Yes? No one would say otherwise?
5. Yes? Like most creative/AMs of the era?
6. I think few non-Liverpool fans remember their whole campaign, but most neutral fans remember the final. So it makes sense…
7. So far the points have mainly been true, but not unpopular as stated. This I guess is unpopular and I for one also totally disagree. Besides the skills (where I also feel Puyol have a slight advantage) Puyol was a great leader and personality while Pique on and off the pitch acts like spoiled brat. In terms of “better defender” the skill Puyol had in making his teammates better was unparalled and as much worth as the pure defending skill, which in total makes him at least one class above Pique.
8. Also stats-wise pretty obv. imo. Another reason Eto’o was more impactfull is that Messi + Neymar + [insert anybody above average] would work, while the barca Eto’o joined did not have that level of attack around him (yet).
9. Might be thin. But dive? I don’t think VAR would overrule it today, so lets just call it thin.
10. You might be on to something here. He for certain isn’t among my first 10 or 20 defenders I think of when thinking great defender, but maybe he should be acknowledeged more?
11. Amongst which three???

I have a long time friend with which I too often (after a bottle or two of red) have debated Xavi vs. Iniesta. It’s actually a bit like the Messi/C.Ronaldo debate for me: they are both so stupidly good, but also different enough that settling one over the other is hard, so we should just cherish that we get to enjoy both.

Norway often have 1-2 really good players and then below average on the other places, even worse when their regulars are injured. They also historically play like the english mid-clubs did in the 80s/90s: Defensive with long kicks to a large targetman and then hope to get a 1-0 on counterattacks. The longest spell the Danish national team ever had without loosing was with a Norwegian coach and people stopped watching it. It was so boring that even though we never lost, we would rather watch paint dry. Ståle Solbakken, the current norwegian coach, got some of the best European results any danish club have ever had, with the danish club FC Copenhagen, but besides the defensive/destructive style in europe, where they after all were underdogs, even in the national league, where they had a budget as large as half the league combined, he would rather win 1-0 than 3-1.

Even though we sometimes feel we “miss” great players that doesn’t qualify (like Haaland here), trust me we will not miss Norway at the finals. Some places in Denmark we don’t even call it “parking the bus” but instead “playing Norwegian”…

(This is said with the uttermost love for Norway in general: Norway and Norwegians are my favourite nation/people in almost any other aspects tan football 😁)

Call me old fashioned but I prefered a smaller Euros finals, and without all the countries that’s not from Europe. Israel and Armenia is niether geographically, historically or culturally european, and I cannot fathom why they participate in UEFA competitions.

I like your mathematical approach :)

And for the underdogs in Euros: the lowest rated teams in the Euros are normally on a much higher level than the lowest tier in the WC. That makes the group stages more random, always eleminating some of the favourites and it also ensures the favourites more seldom can rotate / rest their key players, so in the later stages the odds are more even oppening for more surprise wins.

By enlarging the Euros they have now somewhat negated that fact, so it is (imo) quite even which finals have the highest chance/risk of having underdogs win. Hence your mathematical “Euros is first” is probarbly the most correct answer 🤣

The reason I agree with u/LordXavier77 is that in all the Messi/Ronaldo years, there have been better players than Modric. Xavi+Iniesta just mention the most obvious, both had better years throughout that period, than Modric did in 2018. Both in terms of individual perfomances and team-trophies. So it was political that they decided that year to exlcude Messi/Ronaldo - it would have been more deserving at many other years to give to others, for instance Iniesta in 2010, just to name the for me most obvious. They gave it to Modric because he was the best for Croatia which were the biggest overachievers at that WC. Nothing else.

In regards to the CL 2018 win, which is the main other merit mentioned besides the good Croation WC; in the whole campaign he scored once and assisted once. 0 of them where in 2018 (all the later stages). He had Casemiro and Kroos to handle the defensive/box-box duties and his main role were creating chances. He was good. But not french baloon good. In that campaign Kroos, Ramos and even Ronaldo were better. And in the league Kroos was a monster. It just seems silly that they almost solely give the trophy to the best player at the WC in WC years - there’s another throphy for that!

He was a monster. But doesn’t 100% fit OP’s criteria.

The pros:
He played several seasons in offensive positions, before establishing himself as a world class left back. Started as striker in Brazil, but allready there got used on left back some times and it went well enough that he got on the national team. Moved to Inter Milan where Roy Hodgson used him (somewhat succesfully despite the team having a bad season) as winger. But since his position on the national team where left back, and he didn’t have any (immideate) chance to get minutes on the offensive positions he asked the club owner to force the manager to use him as left back. Instead they sold him to Real Madrid with them promising him to use him on left back position. He was as good offensive (if not better) as he was defensive, and he could quite easily be put on any position on the field, but one, which brings os to…

The cons:
He would be a bad center back alone for the fact that he is only 1.68m tall, so he would loose all the headers. He physique was also more centered around speed and agility (and stamina) so opposite of what you want in a centerback. The same cons would limit him as striker, in which he would have to be in a formation with more strenght/height/header types to succed/compliment.