Soccer legend Thierry Henry explains how very similar soccer and basketball are using Mason Plumlee
It’s crazy how big soccer is. Wemby with 6M IG followers, Ohtani with 10.8M.
Mbappe 133M, sounds impressive until you see that Messi has 500M.
The Cape Verde goalie Vozinha has 27 million followers on IG. He was pretty unknown until this past month so he gained all of those followers based off of his performance in 4 games.
It’s bonkers comparing Vozinha’s follower growth compared to arguably best baseball player of all time.
Baseball is only played in a handful of countries: US, Carribean nations, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea
Basketball has a larger base: US, European nations, China, Philippines, Taiwan, Aussie etc.
Football is played in every corner of the world, it’s not even close
Till you meet Indian cricketers . They are legit demi-gods, won’t be surprised 5th generation from me worshipping them as the avatar of God who already has some 679835 reincarnated avatars.
There’s some young teenager absolutely rocking the cricket world right now too. That kid is definitely on his way to becoming a demi-god.
It is crazy and inevitable, every 15 years another Indian cricketer hits the world stage to absolute insane adulation. Gavaskar to Tendulkar to Kohli the outgoing king with 230M followers. The new kid has appeared on demand, it’s a role that must be filled.
It’s the dalai lama of cricket
started at 50k and went to 14M after like the first game
Using Wemby as a comparison here instead of Lebron makes no sense lmao.
Even with Lebron’s 154M followers, it’s still a massive gap, but at least the comparison is more faithful.
The reason I used Wemby is because our American centric way of thinking had a lot of people thinking Wemby was the most popular athlete in France. And it’s not even close.
French here: basketball has never been popular over here so most of the population doesn’t care about Wemby at all, he’s definitely more popular in the US than in our country.
If he starts winning he might become the default “I can name a basketball player” answer. Believe it or not but 20 years ago if you asked 100 persons in the street to name a basketball player, more people would have answered Tony Parker than LeBron, MJ, Kobe and Shaq combined. I’m sure a lot of french people still think today that TP is like top 3 best basketball player to have ever lived, even if they have never watched a single basketball game in their lives, they probably think he has like 10 rings 10 MVPs haha
Maybe he’s like what Christian Pulisic is in the US then
Not really, Wembanyama is one of the top 5 players in the world
I don’t think anybody with any understanding of the world believes wemby is the most famous athlete in France
Sure, but if we’re honest… the numbers of people without that understanding are quite high. In general, not just in the US…
As someone who grew up in a poor ass family, climbed out of it, and broadened my horizons. I try not to bash on people like that too much. Some people live in small bubbles because that’s all they got.
there’s plenty of american people who came up in situations with access to knowledge and still don’t know shit
I remember back in the 90s I was visiting my cousin here in the US and his friend found out I was living in The Netherlands and he was all about this basketball player that was drafted into the NBA and what we all thought about him. I had no clue who it was and it wasn’t until a few years later I heard his name again, it was Rik Smits of the Pacers. Barely anyone heard of him until the Pacers went on a deep run in 1994.
When has anyone said that ever though? I have never seen that sentiment ever. Tony Parker is still many rings ahead, so it would be pretty fucking stupid just within the realm of basketball for someone to say that, let alone every other sport that exists.
CR7 is pushing 700M lol
I see rape didn’t hurt his social media following, sheesh
Downvotes from rapist defenders
Mamba mentality
Turns out the quote “when you’re famous they’ll let you do anything” is super accurate unfortunately
Suffer.
And don’t forget that Ronaldo has 671M. The most followed athlete ever on social media.
Tbf LeBron has 155m, more than Mbappe
I mean LeBron is arguably the GOAT and has been playing for more than 20 years. Ronaldo and Messi are definitely more comparable to him, and they both have over 500 million.
They also made way more money than him. CR especially
LeBron has 154m. Wemby is like the basketball equivalent of dembele, yamal or olise
Same with Cricket… Virat Kohli over 200 million followers. MS Dhoni 50 million followers. Sachin Tendulkar 50 million followers. A sport I know nothing about. Granted those are some superstars, but still each of them have more than Wemby and Giannis combined lol. Really adds perspective to how small the NBA fanbase is, and euroleague basketball fanbase is compared to Cricket or Soccer
Cricket ain’t the same, 90% of those followers are from 2 countries.
Have a hard time seeing Pakistanis following Virat
even Ashwin has 5 million followers
Nobody gives a shit about cricket except Indians
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, West Indies, and Sri Lanka are all great cricket countries. Definitely more popular than any American sport.
Well Cricket is mainly popular in the Indian Subcontinent with:
India : 1.4 Billion
Pakistan: 240 Million
Bangladesh: 175 Million
That alone will dwarf other sports’ fanbases
But basketball also has:
China: 1.4 Billion
Philippines: 114 Million
Plus the millions of fans in the US and Europe, some in Asia and Africa.
Also, LeGM and Chef Curry stand at 154 M and 57 M followers on IG, so Basketball’s fanbase isn’t really that small. I’d argue basketball’s more popular than cricket, 2nd only to Football (Football being on top obviously, not even close).
It’s just that Cricket’s fanbase is concentrated on the single most immensely populated region in the world. So it’s skewed to have a large number of fans even though it consists of roughly 3-5 nations in the Indian Subcontinent.
On the other hand, I’d say Basketball’s fanbase is much more widely spread out, having a more global reach with fans from countries in every continent. Basketball’s stars are global icons; people are familiar with Michael Jordan, Kobe, LeBron or Curry even if they don’t know a single thing about the sport. Like for example, Pep Guardiola (one of the greatest football managers of all time and a bald fraud) idolizes MJ
I mean it’s also IG numbers as well, where it’s pretty much banned in China.
Lebron and Steph have huge followings here.
Ronaldo has over 1 Billion social media followers
You should see Indian cricket players
What about F1 and cricket?
Virat Kohli is the most followed cricketer at 271M. Lewis Hamilton has around 43M, which is roughly one third of a LeGram (153M).
Wemby is a really silly guy to use for this lol
Mbappe? Like the Hansen song?
It’s crazy how big soccer is. Wemby with 6M IG followers, Ohtani with 10.8M. Mbappe 133M, sounds impressive until you see that Messi has 500M.
Messi gets 20M likes on IG on random posts. It’s bananas.
Lmao I saw this clip and thought “ they definitely assumed that was jokic”
of all the NBA clips they could’ve used, that was certainly one of them
Olise is nuts, makes everything look so easy
Chelsea fumbling the Olise transfer was catastrophic smh..they’ve never recovered
Considering the Chelsea academy has never ever missed I’m surprised it’s not a bigger club.
This season was a “Management is going to choose the worst outcome in every decision they make”.
What do you mean? Chelsea have missed with loads from their academy.
it wasn’t a fumble, he wasn’t interested in going there
This is cool. This WC is the first time I’ve ever really gotten into soccer and it’s been fun to notice the similarities between both games.
true, like Erling Haaland is a center. When he head buts the ball in it’s basically a slam dunk. Almost impossible to stop
header from 6yards out from a tall, big player like Haaland, is pretty much like a dunk from Shaq.
If Haaland is unmarked or has a tiny defender on him, I’d agree
you didnt see what he did to 6’3 big Gabby
And he’s so physically imposing. He’s like giannis
That’s a great comp actually.
Such a Giannis out there
What’s funny is a few years ago he was seen as poor in the air
Haaland looks like that chick from secret lives of Mormon lives that danced by her baby in the hospital with RSV. Whitney?
I coached varsity soccer, the two are so similar in the sense of running sets, isos/beating your man, the extra pass. And the conditioning and the amount of stamina needed. And when played right are both a thing of beauty and art.
Yes, we do practice drills. But I hardly see the typical 10 or coach yelling on the side signaling for specific plays. “Football” is more spontaneous, less time outs, less robotic.
The coaches in soccer are constantly yelling instructions from the sidelines, just watch Pep for example. But you’re right that it’s more free flowing as a sport, but the teams will have concepts and strategies they stick to and “plays” that come out of that improvisation that they practice. They do run what we would consider actual plays on set pieces and corners though.
I think I remember Steve Kerr saying he adapted the Warriors’ style of play from Barcelona’s Tiki Taka.
Yeah he did, and it makes sense when you compare it. Constant movement on and off ball, create space, include everyone, break down defenses with ball movement, etc. Pretty cool way of meshing both sports tactics together, even if it’s just the ideas of it.
tiki taka with a shot clock
same here. appreciate a video like this
Imo most main stream sports media don’t go play by play breakdown. They just call out player names, explain stats, hardly any analysis. There are good independent YouTube creators that share their match analysis. I’m not sure if modern football have play calling as obvious as basketball.
It’s like basketball except they can only score on poster dunks and free throws and there’s a little person standing on the rim so you only score a few times a game
Watching my kids play sports, what soccer and basketball have in common (and is illustrated in this video) is learning to know where to be when you don’t have the ball. It’s extremely difficult. Baseball you just get up there and swing, play your position on defense.
Agree, very cool
Once you watch soccer through balls you’ll see exactly how Jokic Luka have their vision.
Grew up in Scotland, moved to AZ in 2005, got in to the 7SOL Suns right away because of the similiarities.
Bruh, have you acclimatized to the bananas heat of Arizona compared to Scotland?
Seeing the tactical view of Spains goals todayyou can see Portugals rotations which ultimately collapsed
Imagine if in basketball hitting a beautiful back door cut like the one in the video was a penalty on the *offense*
That’s soccer
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I enjoy his coverage of the champions league along Jamie, Micah, and Kate. They have their own version of inside the NBA basically. It’s very clear how much he loves the game along with other sports just by his enthusiasm in the way he speaks.
Whatever chemistry Inside the NBA has is as strong as the one they have. It is unreal how well it works when so many stations are struggling to get players to be commentators (e.g. current Fox Sports coverage)
I got some of David Beckham sticky stuff
I kept seeing their shows clips pop up on my YouTube feed because of all the World Cup stuff. Immediately was reminded of Inside the NBA, which is the highest of compliments. Thats probably the GOAT sports talk show, so they’re clearly doing something right.
Henry is top to bottom a class man. Not a class act. He doesn’t put on a show for the cameras. He is an asbolute gentleman and killer.
I don’t know who this guy is but this is terrible. No matter where 3 people stand they will always form a triangle unless they are in a straight line. Comparing soccer to basketball because the players don’t stand in a straight line the entire time is just silly. I’m sure he’s good other times but this is not a good analysis.
I think the concept is simple, but you’ll see a lot of players that don’t play this way to create sufficient angles.
The point he is making for Americans is that soccer is very similar to other sports they can relate to. Jockey and basketball both use angles and triangles much like soccer.
Lacrosse, Hockey, Soccer, and Basketball all utilizes motion offense.
Basically all ball team sports is about creating space, moving into that space, and then putting the ball in that space.
yeah. its understandable why so many believe the game gets ruined when people immediately shoot 3s before “playing the game” first.
isnt shooting 3s still fit? Theres space on the 3 point perimeter, player move or already in that space and putting the ball in that space, so either the defender move out and close the space or they hope it miss.
Exactly. The three is such a good shot because it’s two folds. Mathematically it’s the most efficient shot and it also creates so much space because of how stretched out the defense becomes.
I’m actually curious what would happen if the league got rid of the 3 point line. I feel like long range snipers will still be valued because of the space they bring but I wonder if it’ll be worthit when they’re shooting 40% on 3s
I would say comeback of long 2s since no 3 pt line so those 2 have the same weight. Long 2s biggest criticism is, a step or 2 back you can get an extra point
Watch this video:
https://youtu.be/hhB1vPM8ItA?si=q1-v-HUWwAvBgpes
Obviously not a perfect breakdown but definitely an interesting perspective
yeah im not saying all 3s. The situations im pointing out is when a player just shoots a 3 pointer before any of the Xs and Os and movement really take place.
If a player is good enough to do it, then he’s good enough to do it.
Same goes for dunking. People wanted to get rid of dunking too for similar reasons. I think even the jump shot was maligned for a bit.
It’s not even only ball sports. Ultimate frisbee too.
Bingo!
Probably why soccer and basketball are my favorite sports.
Water polo is also somewhat similar.
And Water Polo
Wait okay I am stupid and don’t know the rules of soccer very well - why is that not an offside if the pass was to a dude technically behind all defenders?
Not stupid. Good question. If u see when Olise releases the ball, Mbappe is onside. Thats what matters.
A player is not considered offside if he’s ahead of the defense when the ball is released. This is why, the timing of the run is paramount.
I’m just getting into the sport, this was an awesome explanation. Thank you.
Enjoy. It’s really a fun sport. Premier League is very competitive where the top 8 teams are very competitive. La Liga is fun too but only 2 top teams really. Same with bundesliga.
Yup. You don’t want to penalize a player for running faster than the defenders.
If u see when Olise releases the ball, Mbappe is onside.
What’s funny is Mbappe always feels like the King of Offsides because he seems to jump the gun so much on Real Madrid or just doesn’t care sometimes. His timing with France has been so much better.
He was onside when Olise passed it
What matters for offside is where the player making the run is the moment the pass is made. Looking at this video he was a bit further from goal than the defenders when it occurred, just timed his run perfectly
Others have already explained it but it took me forever to understand because I feel like nobody ever told me it’s when the ball is kicked, not when the receiver gets it. I feel like if people said that many many years ago when I asked asked many many times I would have understood
Interesting wonder if the popularity of soccer impacts basketball talent overseas
Massively. Basketball is a minority sport outside North America.
is it normal for soccer players to be over 6”6
I think some center backs and might be 6’4”x some of the freakishly tall guys probably aren’t quick enough. Theres a balance of height for headers and every other soccer skill/compenent.
if thats the case i doubt there is much overlap in regards to potential NBA talents who choose soccer instead
Those NBA talents played soccer instead of basketball when young. Hard to notice talent for completely different sport.
Those NBA talents were often more regular height when they were kids before becoming true basketball height later on. It definitely helps to have a size advantage in youth soccer.
Goalkeepers are usually on the tall side.
This is a huge reason why international players in the NBA have historically almost always been bigs (though that is starting to shift). Most young athletes are gonna be focused on soccer yeah but if you’re over 6’6 basketball is kind of the clear choice regardless of what country you’re from.
6’6 is goalie in soccer. Central defenders can go from 6’1 to 6’4” ish
It’s common for players to be 6’4+ in defence/goalkeeper or as a striker (think Haaland) but they’re typically not as mobile
From a young age they probably don’t train the same skills that they would in basketball so it’s difficult to catch up, they’d have to play basketball before football/rugby which just isn’t common
Rugby and swimming take a lot of those.
There are a few, but it’s pretty rare.
Definitely not. The average height for a goal keeper which is the position with the tallest players is 6’2-6’3.
Those kids don’t know they’re going to be tall when they play soccer and might be better suited to basketball.
Same for America. There are plenty of people that play football and basketball that could be premier soccer players but end up being too small for the sport they actually developed skills/passion for.
Not a basketball guy, saw this from a crosspost
Being tall is certainly an advantage. England’s Dan Burn stands at 6”7, Germany has Woltemade at 6”6. Generally a tall player will be a goalkeeper, striker or defender. Height isn’t necessary though, Messi is only 5”7.
Teams will generally have a mix of taller and shorter players depending on the tactics and position.
Basketball is a more niche sport over here, but you’d get a lot of tall lads pushed into that direction instead of football if they show promise.
England subbed in a 6’7” guy to defend headers after getting that red card last night, so there are at least a few?
No, but it’s not normal for people to be over 6ft6
But yeah outside of goalkeeper (and even then), people that tall in general just move too slowly and awkwardly to be that good at a sport like soccer.
While true, in terms of participation basketball is (a distant) #2 in a lot of European countries and the academies are very good. So there’s still a huge funnel of talent into hoops
A lot of foreign NBA players were soccer players first and switched over to basketball when they grew too tall. Bilal Coulibaly said he was the best soccer player in his area growing up
Thats the thing, tall athletes all over the world are being funneled into basketball, but in most places a kids first choice is football. I think that’s why the international game has advanced so much, and yet 99% of NBA guards are still coming from north america.
Not sure if you just meant comparatively but Basketball definitely isn’t #2 in most European countries and that’s pretty central to the talent pathway and development. We barely get a chance to play it and the athletic demands are pretty different from other sports so I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of Europe’s potential. On average abnormally tall guys will get funneled into Basketball wherever they’re from but there is a bunch of potential guard talent completely missed out on.
Given that the NBA is moving away from undersized guards (need to be 6’3” min these days as a guard unless you have outlier traits), I doubt there’s much overlap in the potential player pool…
Lots of football players around 6ft2 to 6ft4 but you may be right in that regard. Goes in cycles.
It’s not a minority sport outside of NA. It’s the second or third most popular sport in the world, depending on who you ask. It’s significantly more popular than soccer in China, for example. American football on the other hand is a minority sport outside of NA.
Hakeem has credited the Dream Shake to growing up playing soccer.
I think it always will. With basketball you need a hoop and properly inflated basketball to dribble, with soccer you can just put 2 shirts down for goalposts and can use any ball (although it won’t be as fun)
This video was flagged for violating our Community Guidelines
can anyone give a new link so I can see it?
https://nbaclips.com/clip/1upcx1g
ctrl F mirror
You the real mvp
Mirror for people CTRL+Fing like I tried.
Ive always said that Mason Plumlee is the Olise of the NBA and yall have been laighing at me for years.
Thierry “Tex” Winter.
I get it but aren’t any 3 players not in a line forming a triangle?
Answered your own question, win games by not standing in a line
It’s all about creating space and taking the best chances off of that created space
You’ll notice even more similarities if you played or are familiar with zone defenses at the collegiate level and lower.
This probably helps explain for some fans how you get a lot of passing around the outside of the zone, with an occasional run (cut) into the middle or spaces between defenders to try to shift the zone and create space. It’s the same game, same strategy, just bigger area, and harder to breakdown.
Fuck why can’t I see this???
Uhh three points always forms a triangle
Not if the points are collinear, which is part of the point. There are of course situations both in basketball and soccer where you may want some of the players to be “stacked” I.e. during set pieces in football or inbounds plays in basketball to create momentary positional confusion, but those are sort of special cases rather than in the free flow of the game. The more “open” the triangle is the more players can exploit space for passing angles (assuming of course they have the court/field awareness and speed to get to the spot).
Sure but he didn’t actually say any of that, my point is that this “breakdown” hardly explained anything
That’s fair. Mass market commentary is always a little disappointing in this regard - I’m a basketball sicko so I like to watch very detailed breakdowns of plays so a lot of this stuff intuitively makes sense at this point and I’m just reading between the lines. Maybe a more helpful presentation of the idea would have been to give an example of a successful triangle and one where the players were less organized and how that made their advantage go away. I’m way more familiar with basketball but I’ve always found it helpful to look at situations where players “misread” what they should do coming off a pick and roll and end up losing their 2-on-1 advantage whether by not rolling hard enough to the basket or taking the wrong angle and letting one defender more easily defend two players simultaneously in space.
That’s what I was thinking lol they didn’t “form a triangle” there’s just three of them there
Pythagoras would be proud
Shoutout when mazzula said he borrowed from pep
Triangle offense, still alive
I know this is genuinely cool analysis, but all I can think of is everyone from Ted Lasso telling him to shut up.
NBA legend Mason Plumlee
FTFY
That ugly animation was pointless. They already showed it more clearly with the game footage.
My cousin is a lacrosse coach. I went to a game with her once and she asked me if I’m following what was going on.
I said, “yeah, they pretty much just have to keep their triangles to move the ball”. She looked at me stunned that I somehow realized that lacrosse, soccer and basketball are all essentially the exact same thing.
Throw hockey in there too.
At the end of the day a whole lot of sports are simply 2 teams trying to put an object into a bigger object for points.
This video was removed where can I watch it?
Breaking: Phil Jackson to coach Brasil
Phil Jackson wouldnt play washed ass Neymar so automatically an improvement
Seeing Plumlee being compared to Olise, even slightly, is diabolical and funny at the same time.
This is amazing
Thierry has ball knowledge
no Reverse dunk!
downvote
I’m beginning to think you can make triangles out of almost any three players
And their defensive schemes is very similar to basketball zone defense. Also the offside rule is like the nba 3 second rule.
Damnit. I would berry much like to see this. They’re too fast sometimes.
“This video was flagged for violating our Community Guidelines”
Uh, what ?
How’s he not using Wemby
Neat! I also learned this from the manga/anime Aoashi
This is why the US always has good goalkeepers. It’s not just that they’re tall and can catch a ball…it’s that so many of the movements are similar and the goalkeeper is the only player who has everything in front of him and can/needs to communicate that to his teammates. A lot of American goalkeepers played some basketball growing up.
I mean, define good in this context?
Touché, lol. However, he cleared that ball like someone who grew up playing other sports.
I will say…. I was myself a converted basketball player and played keeper into my mid 40s. I didn’t have good feet either and hated that play. He made the right decisions - imho - to come out and chest the ball down. He needed to just clear it and his foot got stuck in the turf. It’s honestly a harder play than it looks because you never practice it and your only thought is that the goal is wide open and the opposing players are just trying to block the clearance….because they know the goal is open.
Honestly, by the time I got to be 40, I learned to chest the ball down and just ran thru the attacker: professional foul, accepted my yellow card and got back in the goal for the free kick. But our keeper isn’t old enough to be that cynical yet.
I wasn’t even refering to this game’s play, more just in general, because the only keeper I can remember from the US is Tim Howard.
Kasey Keller. Brad Friedel. Brad Guzan. Matt Turner. And we’ve always had about 6-7 other keepers who we could tap and they’d do a competent job. Like Nick Rimando. I’d sorta forgotten about him. He has 22 caps for us and was too short (5’9”) to be top shelf, but he was a really good keeper and you weren’t nervous about it. Lots of countries don’t even have 1 solid keeper.
Wish we had one for the World Cup
Some of the best basketball teammates I played with also played soccer during the fall. Always the best cutters and passers!
Mason Plumlee is the goat confirmed
give and go too
For context, this France team has 3 offensive players in soccers equivalent of the MVP race (Olise, Dembele, Mbappe) and they have the second best young offensive player in the world (Doue) in their front 4. Their team is like the 2017 Warriors
The similarities between the games has increased in the last 20 yrs as more foreign born players entered the league. They have brought more motion to the game.
Hmmmmmmm
Mason Plumlee best soccer player confirmed.
Jamal Murray was offside.
i wanted it to just be clips of people flopping in both.
Weird title
Can you believe it? Three points remain in a triangle in (almost) every configuration, no matter how they move?
Amazing.
Pythagoras and Euclid wouldn’t be impressed.
I respect Thierry as an analyst and i can sort of parse out the point he was getting at with the distractions and the cutting here, but illustrating it with triangles was nonsensical lol.
“See you have a triangle here. And then you remake the triangle and then it’s very difficult to defend”.
Alright big man that’s it give us nothing!!