incredible
Lionel Messi is OFFICIALLY the Greatest Player of all Time (CONFIRMED OFFICIAL)
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
A bit of recency bias maybe. And that list is a bit dodgy in general.
There will always be those who whinge about every list that comes out. But he's come up on top in multiple lists over the past few years.
The consensus is taking hold and many of those that had him second prior to his exploits at the world cup will be putting him at the top of the pile now.
Including UCL?
It is not a terrible list, considering that it comes from a single person.
There are some insane decisions there (Zidane and R9 ahead of Cristiano, or well, those two being in top 10), or Di Stefano not being in top 10, and might be the only list ever that has Beckenbauer ahead of Cruyff and Di Stefano, and Baggio in top 10 what the feck is doing, or ...
Actually, it is a pretty horrible list.
Saying that, it does not suffer from recency bias. It has only 12 players that played this century, 2 of which (R9 and Zidane) are there partially because of their achievements before 2000, and 1 (Baggio) completely cause of that. So less than 15% of players are those who played this century. So at the contrary, it has a bias for older players which were not as good as the ones who have played in the last 20 years.
I dont know why presume you presume that i havnt watched or watched footage of the players mentioned. You dont think i watched fecking Zidane, R9, Maldini and Cristiano Ronaldo for christ's sake?
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But have you watched hours of Giuseppe Meazza and Matthias Sindelar?
Let's be fair, this video (I think the only one that exists) of Sindelar proves that he was better than Messi.
Without replays, and at real-time speed, it should be around 20 seconds.
Look at the dribbling skills at 1:40
Well have a look at what is being discussed and then try and work it out for yourself
No, it’s your statement. At what aspect of football was Maradonna ahead of Messi?
Obviously the more you take, the more likely you are to miss. But I remember hearing somewhere that Matt Le Tissier only missed one in his whole career.
Four Four Two do a list which they update periodically. They had Maradona at number one for ages IIRC and in their most recent one they put Messi at number one, and this was before the World Cup.
It's amazing what winning the World Cup can do for you, it has 10 times the prestige of any other trophy.
Will Messi overtake Ronaldos goals?
Do you count Saudi league goals?
I can imagine Ronaldo continuing into his 40s in pursuit of 1000 goals.
with Messi in MLS that will kinda balance out a bit
It is not a bad list, but very much biased towards oldies. Many modern awesome players like Ibra, Suarez, Lewandowski missing there. Also, Di Stefano in 12th is the lowest I have ever seen.
Any list that doesn't have Cristiano Ronaldo at least top 4 is a bad list. Yes he has a massive ego but that should not be grounds to discredit the career he has had. He absolutely ripped apart the 3 toughest leagues on the planet by a significant margin and has 5 Ballon D'ors while not being the most popular player with media. He's without question the greatest European footballer who has ever played. It's not close either.
12 is definitely way too low for DiStefano. They also had Pele fourth in the latest one which is hilarious.
Johan Cruyff and Ferenc Puskas say hello.
No he wasn't. If you are talking of Ronaldo before 06/07, his dribbling was very very pointless despite probably a good number. Someone like Ben Arfa has good numbers but his dribbling often leads to nothing, Ronaldo was worse.
06/07 he was very good at meaningful dribbling. From 07/08 he became more of a goalscoring machine. His dribbling stats : 09/10 3.3/game 10/11 to 14/15 he hovered around 2 per game and thereafter has been on around 1 per game or less. Not elite at all.
You are so full of shit.
Meazza and Sindelar
Complete nonsense from a salty Brazilian. I have seen many of those you've mentioned and not 1 of them was as good as Messi.
I see the nations league is now also counted as a “major” international tournament.
Di Stefano and Beckenbauer say hello too
Disagree. Indon't think he necessarily belongs in top 4. R9 is in front of him for mr and between him and Cruyff, Best, Beckenbauer, Zico, etc. it is a close call.
Cristiano definitely was an elite dribbler up until 2013 or so. No need denying it.
I was exagerating but it wouldn't suprise me that it was said here
There are several posts, especially in the old Messi vs Ronaldo thread, trying to paint Ronaldo as a static tap in poacher having it all easy, which is ridiculous, and also putting other players ahead of him that IMO make no sense at all.
Completely agree. How can anyone put R9 ahead of him? Based on what? A momentary peak. These debates are always tedious.
No he wasn't. His dribble completed per game in 2012/13 season was just above 2 per game which is not at all elite.
It's not a major international tournament, the teams there want to win it but they don't care much if they lose/are eliminated.
That said some people were comparing it (League A) to the Copa, and to be honest let's see the teams competing in both the last time:
Croatia
Denmark
Austria
France
Spain
Portugal
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Italy
Hungary
Germany
England
Netherlands
Belgium
Poland
Wales
vs
Argentina
Uruguay
Paraguay
Chile
Brazil
Bolivia
Peru
Colombia
Ecuador
Venezuela
And in the knockouts (last 3 times)
Croatia
Spain x2
Netherlands x2
Italy x2
France
Belgium
England
Portugal
England
vs
Argentina x3
Ecuador x2
Uruguay x2
Colombia x3
Brazil x2
Chile x3
Peru x3
Paraguay x2
Venezuela x2
USA
Mexico
So the Nations League has stronger teams in average and for an outsider to win you have to expect that several major nations are in an off-year.
This said it's obvious like I said that the Copa is a much more important competition.
Correct. Ronaldo had won Ballon D'or 5 times, and finish runners up for 7 times. There's not a single European player in history who has even reach half of his individual achievements, and that is with the huge disadvantage of competing with peak Messi throughout the same period too.
Imagine If we took Messi out from this era, Ronaldo would have won Ballon D'or 9 times. And If we place peak Messi to other era, his competitors might even struggle to win more than 1.
I can understand people ranking him below Messi, Pele and even Maradona. But how is he not the greatest European footballer and ranked below 4, is beyond common sense.
I personally would have him fourth (below Messi, Pele and Maradona), but think that he can be put as high as 2nd (below Messi) or as low as 6th (below Di Stefano and Cruyff).
Everything below that is really not being objective, and the idea that R9 was better than him is hilarious.
It's a joke man. If you presented their achievements side by side to someone who had no idea about the sport and took out their names, not one person would pick R9.
Cristiano outscored Di Stefano at Real Madrid by over 100 goals and has the best goals per game ratio in the history of Real Madrid. There is no debate there.
Cruyff and Beckenbauer combined have 5 Ballon D'ors and 6 european cups. Ronaldo alone has 5 Ballon D'ors and 5 European cups in the most difficult era to win either of those trophies.
Zico and best are not in the same category. Not even worth discussing.
Literally the only arguments anyone can have against Ronaldo are things that relate to him not being aestethically pleasing to watch compared to others and the fact that he didn't play in 1970 and the fact that he has a big ego. There is very little in the way of objective reason to leave Ronaldo out of the top 4.
Because the same reasonjng that works against him in the Messi vs Ronaldo debate works against him when discussing CR7 vs R9, CR7 vs Cruyff, etc. etc.
I for instance find it absurd how anybody could have him over R9 when you actually saw R9 play football. As good as CR7 was, he doesn't come close to this level.
He's 21 goals away in goals for top 5 teams and internationals.
Ronaldo's count will stop if he moved to Saudi. Messi will surpass it sometime next season.
Cruyff is better. Simple as that.
Because it's about the longevity of his carreer isn't it? By the way R9 between 96 and 98 was way more impressive than Messi with the same age too...
Why then R9 scored only once over 40 goals (Cristiano managed it 9 times, including 8 in a row), was not able to win UCL and win only one league, despite playing with PSV, Inter, Barca, Real and Milano. Also, why he couldn't win more than 3 Ballon D'Or despite not having Messi as a contender.
Maybe he just didn't like to win trophies, eh?
Saying that R9 was more talented is ok (debatable, but ok), but saying that he is better is frigging absurd.
But the argument isn't a 19 year old R9 against a 19 year old Messi. It's peak R9 against Messi and Messi at his best had arguably the highest peak in football history.
On the flip side, Cruyff, R9 and several others had higher peaks than Ronaldo.
If you want to focus on longevity, that's your prerogative but others value peks play more.
Things are only conclusive when a player has a higher peak AND better longevity/total career accomplishments.
This is doing fatty a bit of disservice the poor lad basically had only 2 years at the top before his knees gave up and was riddled with injuries and in those 2 years he broke goalscoring records at Barcelona and put up breath taking numbers at the hardest league to score in also at the time he played in those teams neither of them were the biggest dogs around so again hard to hold that against him.
In the end he doesn't rank in the top 10 players of all time because how lamentably short his peak was but that was beyond his control.
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I wouldn't even go as far as peak R9 (the Barca version) being better than CR7 2007-2008, let alone the Real Madrid version.
But in any case, peak R9 was 1-2 seasons. 'Peak' CR7 (as one of the greatest ever) was a decade.
But in any case, peak R9 was 1-2 seasons. 'Peak' CR7 (as one of the greatest ever) was a decade.