Physicality and pace are quite similar terms in football IMO. That's how I see it, it's not how high you jump that counts in football, but how fast you can move with the ball and without it. And not just sprints, but also reaction speed, balance, how quickly can you change direction and so on. That's what physicality is IMO, except for some positions where you also need stature, like CB mainly, and occasionally 9 (but not always, look at City and Pool in attack, Mahrez, Foden, Jesus, Mane, Jota, Salah don't scare anyone with their muscle and height, they do scare defenders when they move though).
Disagree.
Imo, this is another Barcaforum or Barcaworld myth.
Where physique has 10 parts and we pick only 3 of them.
The same as how Pep's football had 10 traits and we are now picking only 3 of them (mostly technique and possession).
Or how Xavi had 10 traits as a player and Arthur took 3 of them and turned to a Wallmart version of Xavi.
With physique, I often read this idea how you don't need height and muscles, but mostly pace and stamina.
I would rank it this way, you have three levels:
Level1: Barca level: where we have only technique, and we don't have neither pace nor height&muscles. Example = Yusuf Demir
Level2: are regular teams who buy wingers who are both technical (like Demir) but who have some pace.
And of course that this guy is an improvement over Demir.
Level3: but there is also a level3, like with Bayern. Where they have 3 factors:
1) technique
2) pace
3) but also height and muscles on top of that
You guys "see" only pace+stamina combination because Pep's Barca had mostly technique+pace+stamina and we were winning without height and muscles.
Pep is doing the same with City with short and weakish players like Aguero, Jesus, Sterling, Foden etc.
But on the other hand, you have Bayern, who are doing the same as Pep, but it seems as if they won't sign a player unless if he is at least 180cm tall. They will sign shorter players only if they are out of this world technical wise.
195 Sule
186 Upamecano
186 Pavard
185 Muller
185 Lewandowski
183 Musiala
183 Davies
183 Sane
181 Tolisso
180 Coman
Barca:
194 Pique
189 Busquets
188 Araujo
188 Nico
186 Lenglet
184 Mingueza
180 Frenkie
----------------
178 Dembele
176 Depay
175 Dest
173 Gavi
173 Demir
172 Coutinho
170 Alba
169 Puig
Some of you always go into extremes and say: Kante is shorter but stronger than 99% of them.
Fine. He is a freak exception.
But in 99% of other cases, a 173 Demir, Gavi or Riki will lose arieal duels to 183cm tall guys and will often lose majority of duels (except Gavi, but again, that is an exception since he is combative. Look at others of our short guys and you'll get the point).
The same is: people often reply: Busi is tall, it doesn't matter.
So, let's not take extreme examples, the point is: Bayern and other teams are signing players who have all 3 areas:
1) technique
2) pace + stamina
3) height and some muscles to shake off the opponent and win aerial duels
So, Bayern will never sign someone like Demir.
And also, between two similar wingers where one is 172 cm tall and the other one is 182, they will usually pick the 182cm tall guy.
Those top teams are turning into NBA and NFL clubs where it is all about physique and short and weak guys are usually useless except 1-2 guys per team with out of this world technique or skills for a specific position.
So, all of those top teams are turning into teams who have BOTH technique and cyborgs in terms of physique.
And then, you have Fc Barcelona (I will point fingers to Barca DNA about this) where half of our players look like this: (and then you wonder why we look like kids against Bayern and big teams):
** Someone will jump and say: you are stupid, Pedri is awesome. He just won a Golden boy award.
Look, one or two Pedris are fine, if the rest of the team is fast and strong.
But with our team, our whole team looks like a team of 11 Pedris and Puigs.
If Bayern had Pedri, they would surround him with 5 cyborgs.
At Barca, Pedri is surrounded by Busi and similar.
