Most effective defensmen in Europe

[Theon]

I only posted that since it happened just this weekend. I'm sure there's more of that in the weeks prior.

I'm pretty sure other than Hart, Otamendi and Fernandinho, no one else from that team will play in the Madrid game. On MOTD, Pellegrini pretty much confirmed he played his backup squad.

 

[Deficient Mode]

All I know is if I have a lead I know who I want defending that lead. Which is the bottom line for defenders. If the lists is looking at stats/passing where the heck is Pique? This list has as much credit as Button does with his mock drafts.

Ok, but some defenders are a lot better at getting you the lead.

Stats don't lie, but they don't tell the entire story. There's probably a good reason why Pique isn't there. Distribution responsibilities are more evenly divided between Pique and Mascherano than on other teams, or Barca's system doesn't call for as many long balls that directly result in a final action or penetrating through balls from defenders as other teams. Those would be my guesses.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Ok, but some defenders are a lot better at getting you the lead.

Stats don't lie, but they don't tell the entire story. There's probably a good reason why Pique isn't there. Distribution responsibilities are more evenly divided between Pique and Mascherano than on other teams, or Barca's system doesn't call for as many long balls that directly result in a final action or penetrating through balls from defenders as other teams. Those would be my guesses.

Which is the same thing as lying.

 

[hatterson]

There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

 

[les Habs]

Awful list were it an actual ranking of the best in the World at the moment.

Whoscored ratings are a lot more flawed than this list. The values that they assign to each individual statistical contribution are dubious (dribbles for one thing are overvalued), and they deduct from every player's rating when the team gives up a goal, and adds when the team scores, whether the player had anything to do with it or not. Good place to find stats and heat maps but their ratings are crap. He has made a ton of really bad mistakes. A lot of that is the team not being very compact or organized, but some is on him.

Whoscored's ratings can inflate performances based on specific stats as you noted, however they're definitely not more flawed than this list and looking at their GK criteria they basically do what you're accusing Whoscored of doing. Either way there are some many things neither take into account that they both have some rankings/ratings that are out of whack.