Technically the best defender ive seen. On the ball he was better than most midfielders you will see. At his peak his passing was incredible and he wasnt afraid of going past players. His defending was sublime, nothing gung ho about it, he just outsmarted, outpaced and outclassed the attacker. When we lost him for 8 months it showee just how good he really was. A massive loss. Bigger than losing ronaldo. Let the idiots rewrite history, rio is regarded as the best of his generation alongside nesta. We had the pleasure of watching him do his thing for many years. They had the misfortune of watching him stop their team.
This thread is funny. Rio was great in his prime. He WAS one of the best defenders in the world though, but he is a ****ing bell end of the tallest order, and always will be. By far the biggest twat to have played for United in my lifetime, more so than Keane, Neville or any of those, I actually quite liked those guys. Ferdinand is a ****ing cock, and is nowadays everytime he opens his mouth seems to be pushing some sort of affirmative action for black people agenda.
To be fair you're prejudiced against him as his brother was racially abused by your captain and neither of the Ferdinand brothers were prepared to let Terry get away with it. It's a bizarre reason to hate someone but tribalism makes people behave in a funny way.
This. Vidic worked so well because of Rio, and vice versa. People tend to forget that, in 90% of cases, centre backs play as a pair. That was what marked Rio out imo. Not only was he good enough to be compared with Nesta, Terry, Cannavaro et al, but he and Vidic formed a partnership of equally high quality. Most decent CB partnerships tend to be one quality defender (Stam, Hyypia, Terry) and one decent workmanlike defender who complements the other but is obviously inferior (Johnsen, Carragher, Cahill). Very rarely do you get two top class defenders who are both at the top of their game and can play so well together. Aside from Rio and Vidic, the only PL era ones I can think of are Pallister and Bruce, Terry and Carvalho (who I personally always thought was the better of that pair), and Keown and Campbell. Of those, neither managed to reach the heights of Vidic and Rio, whilst also maintaining those heights for the same amount of time.
Tbh I think Rio is a bit of a gobshite as well. Wouldn't call him a bell end any more than Terry, Cole, Keane, Bellamy, Barton or any other generally accepted footballing dicks - he's definitely a way below Terry, Bellamy and Barton imo. But he is always shooting his mouth off, usually in his typical uninformed means-well-but-fails-to-think-before-he-speaks way. So I can see why some, even those without an axe to grind, would see him as a knob.
I can understand why people don't like him or think he's a gobshite but to despise him or think he's detestable is way over the top. They may not agree with his opinions but I don't think that's actually the major issue, it's that he has opinions and expresses them. People prefer footballers to be cliche riddled, half open mouthed simpletons like Gerrard and Terry.
He appears to have already retired going by his recent performances. I would love to see him comment on his own failings as the goals sail in with his MOTD pundit hat on. He was England's best defender at one time but that doesn't make him world class.
How so? Sure he talks like a gimp and a lot of what he says is bollocks but detestable? In what way. Pretty sure he does a hell of a lot for young kids who have been led astray. Has a foundation doesnt he?
Not in anyway related to my hatred for Rio. Hated him before, hated him after. Albeit probably a tad more
Its clear as day his later years are clouding peoples jidgements of him along with their personal disliking of him for whatever reasons they have. If rio wasnt world class, its hard to call any defender world class tbh. I mean people claim there are world class defendera today. Rio was twice the player of todaye best defenders.
Imo there are no world class defenders around today. Some very good ones but none of the level seen before. So yes, twice as good. Could have been even better but for a chronic back problem. Even so he still performed to the highest level.
