Former Real Madrid vs Former Real Madrid: Robinho vs Robben

Posted by Borris Becker on Jul 28, 2010 in General | 1 comment

Source: Alfonso on Flickr

Two of the most entertaining players around. Robinho who incredibly still is at Manchester City and Robben who now plays for Bayern Munich.

Both were at one stage at Real Madrid. I don’t think they ever played with each other at Real Madrid. Robinho got tired of Real Madrid wanting to exchange him for Ronaldo and Robben saw his fate sealed at Real Madrid when Real Madrid bought Cristiano Ronaldo.

Source: Noodlefish on Flickr

Both are terrific players if you like to see players in your team who can take defenders one on one and actually beat them. Not just do stupid tricks and get bogged down on the flanks, cramped for space.

In fact, while Robinho and Robben are not comparable to Messi and Ronaldo when it comes to overall skills but I think if you just compare the quality of beating defenders and taking them on, then Robinho and Robben are right up there with Ronaldo and Messi.

Although both of them are roughly of the same age. Robinho is 26 and Robben is 26 too. In fact, Robben is 2 days older than Robinho.

Before we look into their differences and who actually is better, lets just have a look at what do these two super wingers have in common:

Both have similar physiques.
Both are light on their feet but are not strong on the ball.
Both do not like to track back and help the defenders out.
Both do not work hard when they loose possession.
Both have big attitude problems.

3 Reasons why Robinho is better than Robben:

Robinho can beat defenders either by dribbling or by trickery. He can do step overs and he knows how to nudge the ball quickly to change its direction (like Messi, Messi obviously does it better than anyone else) to beat defenders. Robben can only do the dribbling part, you do not normally find robben doing step overs or 360′s some which comes naturally to Robinho , him being a Brazilian.
Robinho can play with both his feet. He can shoot with his left foot and with the right foot. He can dribble with his left foot pretty well. Robben rarely touches the ball with his right foot let alone doing something with it and I have seen situation where Robben could have scored important goals had he been more productive with his wrong foot. It is pretty worthless but his left foot more than makes up for it.
Robinho Is more prolific at scoring goals between the two. Robben is not exactly a goal scorer, he is more of a dribbler and then pass it someone else TYPE of player. Robinho can score goals, he can make goals. He can do a lot of stuff but most importantly he can score goals and as Pele said it, the most difficult thing to do in football is to score a goal.
Robinho has scored 122 goals in 348 games while Robben has scored 83 goals in 320 games. So unless Robben scores an average of 2 goals per game for the next 20 games, Robinho leads the head to head record.

Overall, Robinho is a more complete player than Robben but then again same can be said about Ronaldo when we compare him to Messi but we all know that Messi is probably the better as he may only do a thing or two on the football field but he does them so beautifully, it is so hard to believe.