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Dennis Bergkamp; footballing genius
Topic Started: Jun 18 2009, 07:38 PM (4,878 Views)
elcule
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Kolo
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It really is pathetic that someone can play with Zidane, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta and still plump for fucking Bergkamp.
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Winner.

"If I go to Anfield and someone puts the ball into the box and Carragher hammers it out of play the fans applaud. At Camp Nou you would never be applauded for that." - Xavi
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I BOW TO RAIDZ
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DaG
Jun 19 2009, 12:34 AM
ManYou
Jun 18 2009, 11:07 PM
Personally I think he was better than Henry
That's just fucking crazy, no offense. I mean, Bergy was great and all, but we are talking about Henry here. The ultimate. Best player ever. Fvck Zidane.
:cheek:
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Homer
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After the press conference we get back to the hotel. The deal's done, and we're in our room relaxing. As normal, I look up the sports headlines on teletext. We get the BBC in Holland so I know about Ceefax. I call up Page 301 and I'm shocked. The first two lines are in huge letters: "BERGKAMP JOINS ARSENAL." For the first time it hits me: "Woah! What's going on here?" I'm in this big country. I'm in London. I'm in this huge strange city where they drive on the left and … I'm on teletext. Me! They must rate me here, they still expect me to be like Van Basten or Gullit. I don't think of myself like that. Quickly, I go to Page 302, the football page, and there it is in more detail: "DUTCH STRIKER GOES FOR £7.5 MILLION." It was the first time it really hit what people expected of me. I looked at Henrita: "This is amazing! I have to step up."

After Italy I had so many doubts. So many. Even when I played well, I always had to defend myself. And now you are in a hotel room and you see that. Physically it does something to you.

Through your spine you get a feeling and you get a little bit emotional as well. And you look at your wife and your wife looks at you and you feel: "Wow, this is unbelievable!"




:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
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Phil
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You want him to be Arsenals next manager mate?
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Alfie
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That would be awesome.
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Alfie
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In his new autobiography, the former Arsenal striker Dennis Bergkamp recalls his last years at the club, when Arsène Wenger left him out of the side and tensions grew between the two.

"The club were searching to find the next step. They thought: 'We've had this great team but Dennis is coming to a certain age and Thierry [Henry] is becoming the main man because when everything goes through one player, you're vulnerable'. So they had a problem. And at that time a lot of the old English players had left and I wasn't young enough to guide the new players so they thought I'd have a big influence, of course, in the dressing room. But they were worried how I would react to playing less!"

Didn't they discuss it with you?

"That's funny in football. I mean, nobody does that! And of course I'm too proud to just say: 'Well, let me just play 20 games, I'll be happy with that.' I can't do that! So that was the clash. I wanted to play every game, of course. And if I didn't play I was angry with [Wenger] until I played and then it was OK. Sometimes we really fell out with each other. He used statistics on me and one time I said to him: 'Where in your statistics does it say that I changed the game with a killer pass?' And he'd say: 'You run less in the last 30 minutes and you're more at risk of getting injured, and your pace is dropping.' That was his thing. 'You're dropping pace.' Which I was. No problem. 'But then again I'm the one who can make a difference for you, so...' and sometimes we fell out about that and he [Wenger] would say: 'You think only of yourself.' So I was the bad one!"

Would voices be raised?

"Not many times but it did happen. But with respect: no swearing or name-calling. It would happen on the field when he told me I wasn't playing. Even late on, when I was 35 or 36, he would say: 'Do you still want to come to the game? Do you want to be on the bench?' And he'd leave the decision to me. I don't know what he was thinking. Was it like 'I'd rather not have you there' or 'I've got so much respect for you?' Of course I knew when I was 35 or 36 that I couldn't play every game. But within yourself you think you can."


And you didn't want to come on for just 20 minutes?

"The arguments we had were only about those sorts of football-related things. Me playing or not playing. It was very childish, but it came from the heart – from both of us."

What about the 2006 Champions League final defeat to Barcelona [in which Bergkamp was an unused substitute]?

"Arsène was disappointed as well; I think he had a different scenario in his head."

Like you're 3-0 up, with 10 minutes to go, and you come on for a last bit of glory?

"Something like that. Or even 2-0 down. You know, just to give me those minutes in the final. We had that sort of relationship in the end. It was somehow you're building up and up and getting all the trophies and getting personal success and in the end you get to the Champions League final at last. Jeez! If only I'd been five years younger! But that was probably the most we could have hoped for. The team wasn't what it had been two years earlier. We weren't the favourites. We could have won, though. I wish there was something more in it, but we were happy with that. And I was happy with that moment."

On joining Arsenal, Bergkamp made one stipulation: he would no longer travel on aeroplanes. His phobia dated back to the exhaustion he suffered after the 1994 World Cup finals when Internazionale, his club at the time, demanded he return to training within 10 days. Bergkamp hated the small planes they used for all away games.

"They were those nasty little planes that stay in the clouds and shake all the time. When you looked out all you could see was white or grey. And there was hardly any space. It was so cramped it made me claustrophobic. You had absolutely no room to move and you just sat there shaking the entire trip. It made me feel so awful and I began to develop such an aversion to it that it suddenly dawned on me: 'I don't want to do this any more.' It got so bad I would look up at the sky during away games to see what the weather was like. Were there any clouds coming? Sometimes I was preoccupied by the flight home while I was playing football. It was hell. The last straw was when we had an away game against Fiorentina. I saw that boneshaker with its propellers standing on the runway ( :laughcry: ) and I broke out in a cold sweat. And sure enough it was another disastrous flight.

"I know what flying is! I've flown countless times in large planes, small ones, tiny ones. At Ajax, I once flew in a minuscule plane over Mount Etna near Naples when we got into a terrible air pocket – in terms of flying, I've seen and done it all and I'm simply not flying again. Ever. In talks with Arsenal, if I said 'a million' they automatically deducted a hundred grand 'because you don't fly'. And I accepted that."


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AntMcfc
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Lmfao Wenger is so shit. Basic manager.
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ThierryHenry
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AntMcfc
Jun 19 2009, 01:00 AM
Homer
Jun 19 2009, 12:51 AM
Because you know about the history of football and you know after watching him that he was something special and only he could score that goal v England.
Didn't Messi score a replica a few seasons back... :hysterics:

Bergkamp, as KOL has said was a true genius and part of a dying breed of really creative and inventive footballers. It was a pleasure to have watched him and I'm pretty sure I'll never see another player like him.

Nowhere near Henry tbh though. Henry was a different planet, top 3 players of all time. I think Bergkamp may get into the top 10 of all time, because he really was that good, but Henry will always be better than him...
Henry top 3 of all time, you said this in 2009. Where is he now in your opinion lad?
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FA cup flow, might be on the same pitch but we ain't in the same league

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He's still is alive unfortunately ~ Goonie

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ThierryHenry
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ManYou
Jun 19 2009, 02:19 AM
Wrighty
Jun 19 2009, 12:34 AM
ManYou
Jun 18 2009, 11:07 PM
Personally I think he was better than Henry
That's just fucking crazy, no offense. I mean, Bergy was great and all, but we are talking about Henry here. The ultimate. Best player ever. Fvck Zidane.
It could seem crazy to some, but at the end of he day, it's my opinion and to be fair, when you're talking about the greatest players ever, there's relatively little between them. Henry scored more goals but then he was more of a striker. Henry was more dynamic and that's down to him being so unbelievably fast. He was more of an athlete all round for sure but I don't think that has so much of a bearing. Is one player a better footballer than the other because he was a natural athlete? I don't think that's fair. Is a great goalscoring striker a better player than a genius second striker because he scored goals? I think that would be ridiculous.

Judging a player on what physical tools he had and what he done with what he had. What position he played and how well he played it comes into it a lot. Then you have pure ability with a football, control over a football. Both Henry and Bergkamp could score brilliant goals, right in the very corner of the net from 20+ yards, but I think Bergkamp with the ball at his feet was better than Henry, he could do things that Henry couldn't do, he could do things that Ronaldinho couldn't do, he was amazing.

I think Heny was a fantastic player, definitely in the top 5 I've seen, in fact he'd be top 3, but in my personal opinion I would go with: 1. Zidane; 2. Bergkamp; 3. Henry.

Placing Henry behind Zidane and Bergkamp is not saying anything bad about him but I value longevity in a big way. Bergkamp was pure class in all his days at Arsenal, he was a young genius at Ajax and Inter, fair enough he didn't hit it off comletely in Italy but then Henry didn't either, Dennis did however score some genius goals with the Italians.

Henry was a sensation since say his second season at Arsenal so counting full years he was at his super high level doing what he did best from 2001-2006, took a break from being amazing partly due to injury and then was class in 2008/09. In the 90's Henry was not the player he turned out to be, he was a winger and he wasn't like the best winger in the world. At Monaco and then Juventus, he was a good player nothing more. I know you will refer to his WC '98 exploits but let's get real here, Henry was not even close to his outstanding form back then, not even a key player for France. I know this for an absolute fact, I watched that WC and the memories of that World Cup are probably fresher than any other.

Bergkamp however was outstanding at what he did from 1995-2005 a full 10 years and before that in his Ajax and Inter days he was better than Henry was at Monaco and Juventus, no doubt about it, at least for any sane person! The class Bergkamp has showed almost every weekend of his career just can't be dismissed, the amount of amazing things he did with the ball, teasing the opposition but making it look so easy, doing things that have you scratching your head in bemusement like v Newcastle or producing moment of sheer class like v Argentina in the quarter-finals of France '98 or that takedown to finish his hattrick against Leicester City all those years ago. No exaggeration but if you made compilation of amazing and classy things done with a football excluding goals (but parts of goals) Bergkamp's would be longer than Henry's AND Zidane's. He dazzled the fans for so long and didn't seem to age. Henry has lost some of his 'Va Va Voom' since he lost that yard of pace, he' not quite what he was. Bergkamp never really used what pace he had anyways, he played the game to his tune and was as fast in 2004 as he was in 1993.

I adore players like Dennis Bergkamp, I think Henry was world class but I'm more of a Bergkamp man myself. The only thing that bothers me is why he doesn't get the respect he deserves, maybe it was because he was a quiet man and wasn't interested in being a star, just an incredible football player. In the time I've been watching football he is no lower than the 2nd best footballer I've seen and he done it like that for at least 10 years! It's outstanding, why he isn't one of the first names on people's lips when mentioning best players ever is beyond me, it truly is.

I'd better stop typing now but believe me I could go on for chapters about how good Bergkamp was and how he has entertained me during his career.
You tend to describe Henry like some sort of physical machine who is technically behind Bergkamp, he is technically near his level, he is not C.Ronaldo, a stiff fucker who turns like he is stuck in cement, this is the aesthetically pleasing Artisan Henry we're talking about. Better than Bergkamp, always has been always will. Bergkamp is a top player though, he is twice the player of the 10s we have these days, Silva? Mata? Coutinho? FUCKING OSCAR? OSCAR? is considered a 10 in these times, ffs how the EPL has fallen.
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FA cup flow, might be on the same pitch but we ain't in the same league

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He's still is alive unfortunately ~ Goonie

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ThierryHenry
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elcule
Feb 7 2013, 11:17 AM
It really is pathetic that someone can play with Zidane, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta and still plump for fucking Bergkamp.
Bergkamp is better than Iniesta for a start, do you even watch Barca? bloke has been inconsistent his all career bar his 2012 season. Bergkamp comfortably the better technician and overall better player. The dutch were wrongly cheated in many international tournaments he played in, if he won a world cup he'd be on the same level as Zidane, no question about it.
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FA cup flow, might be on the same pitch but we ain't in the same league

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He's still is alive unfortunately ~ Goonie

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ThierryHenry
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DaG
Jun 22 2009, 02:27 PM
Yes he did. Scored more goals and also created more chances. Pires 01/02 was a better season than anything Bergkamp did at Arsenal.
It all makes sense now, was wondering you're obsessed with this line 'X season is better than anything X did' Papiss Cissé half season was just as good as any striker I've ever seen in the league, it means fuck all.
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FA cup flow, might be on the same pitch but we ain't in the same league

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He's still is alive unfortunately ~ Goonie

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Raidz
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Bergkamp 97/98> Pires01/02
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AntMcfc
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ThierryHenry
Jan 17 2015, 05:54 AM
AntMcfc
Jun 19 2009, 01:00 AM
Homer
Jun 19 2009, 12:51 AM
Because you know about the history of football and you know after watching him that he was something special and only he could score that goal v England.
Didn't Messi score a replica a few seasons back... :hysterics:

Bergkamp, as KOL has said was a true genius and part of a dying breed of really creative and inventive footballers. It was a pleasure to have watched him and I'm pretty sure I'll never see another player like him.

Nowhere near Henry tbh though. Henry was a different planet, top 3 players of all time. I think Bergkamp may get into the top 10 of all time, because he really was that good, but Henry will always be better than him...
Henry top 3 of all time, you said this in 2009. Where is he now in your opinion lad?
Messi and Ronaldo have certainly dumped him out of the top five.
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Goonie
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Messi, Ronaldo and ?

If he was top 3 and those 2 have overtaken him he's still in the top 5.
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AntMcfc
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Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo x2, Zidane, Ronaldinho>Henry.

I massively overrated Bergkamp. Henry made him look better than he was. Plenty of 10s around that were better than him.
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