Messi did the square root of feck all to get them to that final. He was anonymous in the knockouts. Thats revisionism.
Without Messi they don't leave the group stage, that's how bad the team was and then they struggled a lot during knockout stages.
The England defenders looked absolutely rubbish when Maradona scored his better goal in '86 and the guy running along side him is lazy af.
The gap has widened in the last decade as the top two have accumulated wealth at an exponential rate. That's why betweeen 1997 and 2007, Real Madrid never managed more than 80 points once, and since 2009 have done it 9 times out of 10. It's also why Real Madrid have scored over 100 goals in the league 8 times in the last 9 seasons, having only done it once in their history. As much as Ronaldo (and Messi) have contributed to that gulf, it's no coincidence that the highest scoring Pichichi winner of all time after Ronaldo and Messi is Suarez right in the middle of that period in 2015/16 with 40 goals. It's not just a La Liga thing as well as the same trends are apparent in other leagues. In the same season that Suarez rattled 40, Gonzalo Higuain became the highest scoring Capocannoniere winner of all time in Serie A, outstripping the totals of Ronaldo, Batistuta, Van Basten, Nordahl, etc. Go north to Germany and it's a similar picture where the two highest scoring seasons in the last 40 years (since Muller in the 1970s) have both come in the last three seasons. Exactly the same over in France where Ibrahimovic and Cavani's seasons in 2015/16 and 2016/17 are the highest scoring since 1970. It's blatantly clear that we have seen a more attacker-friendly environment emerge over the last decade, the product primarily of huge resource imbalances favouring the elite clubs, but also greater protection for attackers and slicker pitches making the game much more challenging for defences.
Zidane is the most overrated player of his era. He has had some good games and played in some great teams but his influence was never on the level of a Cruyff, let alone a Maradona or Pele. In fact, I'd wager that Riquelme's achievements for Argentina and Villareal were p4p better than Zidane's.
I think this is natural for the wider public, but when trying to analyze from a deeper perspective as football fans you need to work around this. Its not reasonable to say the 'best player of all time' has to come from one of 3 or 4 countries.
Iniesta is less than a year older than Ronaldo and he's being treated as a geriatric for a while now.
That makes no sense cause in the last 5 years (where he was aged 28-33) the likes of Fenomeno and Ronaldinho were finished when they were that age so you're basically saying that Ronaldo should've burnt out by 28-29 for you to place him higher due to his style changing which really shouldn't be held against him. If anything it should make you rate him even HIGHER for having the wits, desire and passion to be able to change his game and still compete to being the very best.
Wash your mouth out!
No quite sure you have read what i have said, never once said he should have been finished, i said he changed to a goalscorer, his dribbling abilty and entertainment value were not as good as before then, granted he still scores some cracking goals, but for entertainment i would pick the rest of them ahead of him.
Pele's greatness was not limited to international football it was merely a part of it. The man scored 757 goals in 812 competitive matches which is way more than Ronaldo has and he won more league titles (championships in Brazil) than both Ronaldo and Messi. Europe wasn't the be all and end all during Pele's time so you can't use that argument here.
If making a claim that arguably the greatest (or one of) players ever will "never" be the best isn't showing hate, then I don't know what is. But go on, tell us again how you aren't biased against him
Crazy when you consider he won his first PL with us over a decade ago. He's been a top, top player for so long and isn't showing any signs of slowing down.
What? Argentina were incredibly compact and defensively sound in 2014. They were actually a better version of 2016 Portugal. Their only shortcoming was having Higuain instead of Eder. They were the better team in the final and had better chances than germany until extra time. And Messi was great in the first 4 games, horrible against belgium, decent against the dutch and ineffective against germany. He did not drag them to the final anymore than Cristiano did Portugal. Argentina's best player in the ko rounds was Mascherano
They struggled to score. They had some trouble against the swiss, than dominated Belgium(despite Messi having an outright bad game), Netherlands, and were the better team on the 90 minutes against Germany
Benzema delivering nearly 200 goals + 100 assists in 400 matches for Real Madrid is nothing short but extraordinary. I'm curious to know his goal per 90 ratio (excluding pens/FKs), which would be an accruate metric considering Benzema wasn't always the undisputed starter when names like Higuain/Adebayor played for RM, always being subbed out, hardly took penalties + free-kicks to inflate goalscoring production etc. Never mind that Benzema has been deployed in other roles (false 9, SS or CAM) than just the ST role. While Benzema has been mocked for scoring 5 LaLiga goals this season, people overlook/ignore that he has also delivered 10 assists and created most goals per 90.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Mostly hate for me
Why is there such an inferiority complex with you Brits towards Americans on this forum?
Hmm..
Who's in your top 3? Just want to mention that Pele scored more competitive goals than both Messi and Ronaldo, won more domestic titles and according to France Football if non Europeans were allowed to be in the running for the Ballon D'or he would've won it a record 7 times from 1958-70. Maradona would've won it twice, Mario Kempes, Romario and Garrincha would've won it once. I also dont get your dig at the world cup. Europe plus a few other countries back then probably still constituted the best of the best worldwide. Many third world countries in Africa were still under colonial rule back then and there was a much wider gap in quality between European and South American football and the rest of the world. Btw I totally agree with what you said about an inferiority complex towards everything American by some members on here. Pretty common!Why is there such an inferiority complex with you Brits towards Americans on this forum?
Insane inferiority complex. Just admit everything the US touches turns to gold. I hope they continue americanizing football. VAR has been a blessing.
Won the "world cup"
You mean the European cup that featured an additional 4 non-european teams?
Pele is not even top 3.
Meh. Argentina will easily win that
Pele outscored all of them and achieved more personal honors including three world cups so why would you place them above him? I don't know how old you are so I guess I can understand Ronaldo and Messi because this is obviously our generation and you've watched them over the years but Maradona? The greatest thing Maradona did was win the 1986 WC and it was a feat he couldn't replicate despite playing in a total of four world cups (he was mediocre in the three other world cups he played in and only managed 1 assist and zero goals in 1990). He did elevate Napoli to two league titles, 2 Italian domestic cups and a UEFA cup but that doesn't measure up to Pele's 16 domestic titles and 2 copa Libertadores titles.
My dad watched Pele and Maradona. He said that Maradona was more impressive because he had poor surrounding casts compared to Pele. Pele was also sort of a myth, because it was difficult to watch his games back then. He always goes on about Jairzinho as well, I had no idea who Jairzinho was before my dad said he was better than Pele at the world cup in his opinion.
