Billy Harris: a thread of mediocrity

The point I was making that his claim to fame was that he represented his country. It doesn't mean much if you aren't actually any good. Its the Milli Vanilli clause. Just cause you won a Grammy, doesn't mean you can actually sing and are good. Cause Chad Coombes represented NZ does that makes him one of the better footballers in the game and we should laud his every word and action on a football field?

Take it in context Frankie.

You did pretty much just repeat what FM mockingly said you were 'basically saying' though brilliantTegal2012-02-07 00:09:21

I wasn't saying playing for your country is worthless though. I was saying that not everyone that pulls on the jersey necessarily deserves to. Doesn't make it worthless to the player involved....

A good football player does not necessarily make a good football analyst though. Pele anyone?

Lol, good luck getting that argument to fly

Surely you mean 99.5% of all other footballers in their country, not 99.5% of all other footballers everywhere?

I thought Billy Harris was one actually of our more exciting All Whites. And i enjoyed the manner in which he was prepared to question authority when he thought they were wrong in their approach.

Given the sheer number of people who play football, I would say that to play international football for any country you would have to be better than at least 99.5% of all footballers ever. That is saying that if there's 1000 random footballers picked then an international player would be amongst the 5 best. Even in countries where football is huge, like Brazil, I'd say that 995 out of 1000 players still wouldn't be good enough to play for NZ.

Huge call - NZ has, what, maybe 30 professional footballers in total? And that's as of right now, we had even fewer going back a few years? And you think that all these 30 guys belong in the top 0.5% of footballers in the world? The sheer volume of Brazilians/Argentinians who don't even get anywhere near international football because of the competitiveness in their own countries yet would walk into most other international sides? Not to mention the top professional players from all other sides around the world?

But Jeff's initial post said " better than 99.5% of all other footballers who ever laced up a boot." I took that to include people who played as kids and dropped out, or played casual football but never trained etc. From the few Brazilians I've played with over the years (haha that sounds dirty) I'd say that they are better than the average kiwi but not hugely so. Given the fact that Brazil has a population of 192 million, there must be a lot of people there who kick a ball around when they get the chance and are thus footballers but are still not good enough to play even Central league or the equivalent in NZ. I'm not denying that there are heaps of guys in South America and Europe who would play for the AWs if they qualified but there are so many people below that that I don't think the 99.5% call was off the mark. To put it another way, I'd say the percentage of footballers who make it professional around the globe would be well  less than 0.5%
BarryZuckerkorn2012-02-07 11:46:33

Think he meant they've achieved something that 99.5% of footballers haven't achieved? That would be more accurate.

Saying 99.5% of footballers in history only further weakens your point. As it takes what el said,and gives it the weighting of more numbers.

Any all white is in the top 0.5% of players in history? Nah.

There are also examples of countries where players are amateurs yet play for their country. Tegal2012-02-07 11:49:47

like I said 0.5% isn't actually that small a percentage if you consider how many people play football. 5 in a thousand, or 1 in 200, isn't that big a deal. 200 people would be the equivalent of one division of club football in New Zealnad or thereabouts. I still feel completely comfortable saying that anyone who plays for an international side (except maybe American Samoa or Wallis and Futuna or something)would be good enough to be the best player out of a random sample of 200.

wikipedia says that an estimated 250,000,000 people play football globally. 0.5% of that is still over a million people. Would Billy Harris have been in the top million players when he was playing? I'd say yes

"Billy Harris"  the millionth best player in the world !!

new thread title perhaps?

Well, that's hardly a meaningful comparison, is it? Anyone who's played the game semi-seriously should objectively be better that a kid who kicked a ball couple of times when he was 10, or players who just kickarounds in the park. I took the original comment as to mean 'footballers' in general, as that is the only way to create some sort of meaningful context.

But anyway.

Or is the question, taking the original post into account, among the top 0.5 footballers to have played the game?

FFS playing with figures, it was not meant to be a "scientific" figure, just to make a point that he would be better than the vast majority of players who have played the game

Which is kinda the point. Regardless of how crap NZ football is percieved to be, as an international player Harris still qualifies as being much better than most players and thus is deserving of some respect for that.

Crap football journo though

Billy Harris`s New Zealand record

am i allowed to say i kinda liked his article this week?

Billy would have played a lot more for New Zealand had he not been prepared to speak out about things - which subsequenlty led to him being axed.

+1

I agree.

What you agree that Feverish is allowed to say he liked the article ?

A positive article from Billy... What is going on at the SST?

It wasn't positive about Ricki Herbert, that's the important thing.

My fave part



some very specific and colloquial resounding choruses there.

I disagree with him. Funny that. I would call the win against GCU was the turning point. Up until then we had not an away game and were sitting mid table, ready for a scrap to make the playoffs, just like last year. It gave us the confidence to win games away from home, and we have no picked up 12 points out of the last 15 away points, pushing us up into a run towards a home playoff.

Why can't he,just once, talk about the Phoenix the way he talked about last placed GCU in that article? Just once...that's all I ask.

I thought he got that one right myself, particularly the reference to the Sydney game as turning point.
Funny old world.

A bit dated now re the results last night.

It's funny old game isn't it?