F9 version doesnt really fit in his team and old/current/wing what ever you like version walks 90% of the game, in my game he said he is using older version so i assume thats the case here as well.
B2B Draft SF: Jim Beam vs Enigma/Theon
- Thread starter Edgar Allan Pillow
- Start date
Laudrup or Ronaldo never needed him to perform a certain secondary role. I haven’t criticized his partnership with Messi in the last round, because he can definitely play with him, Messi would adore his penalty box movement, they’ll play one-twos etc.
When you add Cristiano here, everything crumbles.
it isnt that you play against Levante, he has a team of greats just like you so plenty of talent and brilliance in his team and the difference in workrate is enormous so in that specific scenario your stronger hand in individual brilliance means feck all, at least in my opinion.
And with Cristiano he can’t? Think Cristiano is having a bit of a rough deal here.
Isn’t the diamond he’s facing a much bigger issue for the opposition? Do you see our wing play being contained with the opposition hugely dependent on full backs providing in both phases? I see a lot of dual responsibilities for them and the side midfielders - Tigana and Iniesta, facing very elite attackers that can punish every mistake.
Yet you see the diamond not being an issue here? Individual brilliance is the exact type you need breaking up that side with pulling his midfielders wide.
Well, they don't have a false 9 younger version of Messi. If they do, they don't use him right.
You mean when he was 19?
So young Messi can play only as false 9?
I'll try to restrain myself from posting — as usual, I'm getting defensive about my choice and begin to argue for one team 
edit: Okay, 1 more thing.
edit: Okay, 1 more thing.
The young version shouldn't be played as a number 10. He didn't have the consistency and vision/understanding of the game that he learned throughout the years. So yeah, a young version of Messi should be placed either as a false 9 or as a young winger. You can't just take the workrate of one version, creativity of the other and say that this is his peak.
No, young Messi can play anywhere but then Romario, Ronaldo and co. are crap fits so you lose there.
Well Figo adds support to the midfield and wide threat in attack so we can have a defensive full back in Vogts who is excellent fit for a wide forward IMO
True.
We’re playing peak version who had enough vision to create tons of goals mate. It’s like peak Messi was a pure goal scorer.I'll try to restrain myself from posting — as usual, I'm getting defensive about my choice and begin to argue for one team
edit: Okay, 1 more thing.
The young version shouldn't be played as a number 10. He didn't have the consistency and vision/understanding of the game that he learned throughout the years. So yeah, a young version of Messi should be placed either as a false 9 or as a young winger. You can't just take the workrate of one version, creativity of the other and say that this is his peak.
Also you can’t take peak Desailly here - he’s the stopper that didn’t have the peak physicality didn’t he?
I’ll always take the best possible candidates for the job in an all time draft than take lesser players that fit better. Players like Cristiano and Romario can decide every game. I’d rather take that x-factor than Benzema and Neymar.
To each of its own I guess
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im the oppositeI’ll always take the best possible candidates for the job in an all time draft than take lesser players that fit better. Players like Cristian’s and Romario can decide every game. I’d rather take that x-factor than Benzema and Neymar.
To each of its own I guess
Yeah no problem mate, cheers for the feedback anywayim the opposite
I don’t think we take anything from his game mate. I’m pretty sure by the time the 02 WC was played having a trio of Ro-Ri-Ro would’ve been seen as a big clusterfeck yet they worked brilliantly.
Our attack is on the same wavelength it’s not like we’re fielding Lukaku up top.
Oh I think your attack will work well, like I said it's a suuped up version of laudrup, stoichkov and Romario.
This is tough. Absolutely love Beam Team, but in a close match, Enigma has that bit of individual magic that may tilt the scales in his favour.
Blohkin probably? Not really necessary though.
Ah yes! That’s actually pretty good example, cheers
What's the score mate?Yeah no problem mate, cheers for the feedback anyway
You are in the lead mate.
Agree with the general feel soemthing does feel off about that front 3, no. 10 Messi is a defensive liability and against Jim's team that can't happen. Maybe would look a bit better with Messi as the RW.
We’ve tried to explain Messi’s role and Figo’s role mate it’s not a simple 4-2-3-1 and more of 4-3-3 in transition depending on if we are with and without the ball.
I know you also fielded a diamond in your SF but to me forcing us wide and his side midfielders constantly putting a shift in is a much bigger issue stilistically. That and of course us having more individual quality through our ranks is a match winning combination.
Messi will still roam - he’s not a immobile #10. Peak Messi hovered all over the place and I’m baffled of doubting his creative side.
So you're using young Messi here?
I'll be frank, I don't rate the current Messi, I've seen his lack of work rate be ruthlessly exposed. The Liverpool game was a good example of how 1 passenger can throw off the rest of the team. That's the only reason I made the original comment, esp when the opposition is extremely hard working and disciplined.
We’re not using current Messi mate.
Peak Messi is probably what I’d call him during the period 10’-15’.
Here’s what he’s capable:
He played in numerous positions all over the attack. He wasn’t the passenger he is today.
This is Messi passing skills 7 years ago when he was at his peak, seeing they are being questioned.
And some more:
True or false?
Team En/Th have the more solid defenders. I fancy their defenders: Baresi (the best defensive libero of all-time) Figueroa (the most complete CB with Nesta) and Vogts (best defensive RB with Thuram) containing/limiting/slowing down Blokhin/Platini/Rummenigge more than what Beam’s defence will achieve against their attack.
Team En/Th have the more solid defenders. I fancy their defenders: Baresi (the best defensive libero of all-time) Figueroa (the most complete CB with Nesta) and Vogts (best defensive RB with Thuram) containing/limiting/slowing down Blokhin/Platini/Rummenigge more than what Beam’s defence will achieve against their attack.
Now this piece is very long, but I recommend whoever has a bit of spare time to look it up and I guarantee that is well worth it.
Since we're discussing Messi's passing game I'd like to highlight just that, but the full piece is available on:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/
and the author took a real long time to go through his game on touch by touch basis.
The article is from 2014 - so no old, passenger Messi is here who also developed further his playmaking skills.
Passing and Assists
From the above, you might think Messi is a selfish player. Or you might assume that if Messi is so good at shooting, he’d focus on it to the exclusion of other skills. But, in true Wayne Gretzky-esque fashion, Messi is also one of the top assisters in our data set. Once again, that makes him a crazy outlier: No one else (aside from, yes, Ronaldo) even comes close to his combination of goals scored versus goals dished.
Not only is Messi the top game-by-game goal-scorer of the last four years, he’s the third-most productive distributor of assists, despite being the primary scorer on his own team! Only Mesut Ozil and Franck Ribery earned more assists than Messi, and Ozil did it on Real Madrid — setting up Cristiano Ronaldo.
But how does he do it? The biggest obstacle to evaluating Messi’s passing ability is accounting for the fact that he plays for the most pass-happy team in the world. Watching Barcelona can be a bit like watching a playground game of keep away. Barcelona’s players are infamous for their “tiki-taka” style of play, which relies on an enormous amount of short, high percentage passing. Above all else, they try to maintain possession of the ball until a chance opens up. This sounds like a great strategy, but there’s a reason it isn’t employed universally: To make it work, a team has to be stocked with amazing passers, and it has to have strikers capable of creating chances against set defenses.
Messi is both of those things. And what’s more, his passing profile is nothing like the other Barcelona forwards, who typically send 72 percent of their passes back or square. Messi is far more likely to try to advance the ball toward the goal, and far more likely to succeed:
Messi makes more passes than the other forwards, with a higher percentage of those passes trying to advance the ball toward the goal, and a higher percentage of those passes finding their targets (typical Messi!). His 3,800-plus completed forward passes are nearly twice as many as any forward in our data set (Francesco Totti for FC Roma has 2,200, followed by Wayne Rooney, the English striker, with 1,800 and Ronaldo with 1,500).
One measure of the quality of a group of passes is how many are completed successfully, but it also matters what happens when those passes get where they’re going. It doesn’t help if a player passes 60 yards to someone swarmed with defenders. So a useful metric (made possible by play-by-play data) is the percentage of a player’s passes that lead to “successful” plays on the other end — meaning the receiving player manages to get off a shot, or passes the ball to someone else, and so on.
As it turns out, not only does Messi pass the ball forward aggressively, he does so accurately, and the balls he delivers are “successful” a very high percentage of the time.
For example, let’s look at Messi’s long ball forward passes from the midfield area. I’ve created a scatter comparing each player’s completion percentage for these passes to the percentage of them that are “successful,” and I’ve shown the volume of long pass attempts for each player as bubble sizes:
Messi is among the most accurate passers for both metrics, and no one with as many attempts is more accurate.
There are players who complete a higher percentage of these passes and/or are more “successful” with them, but they’re typically being more selective in their attempts. For example, Ronaldo’s “success” rate of 60 percent beats Messi’s 54 percent (with a slightly lower completion percentage), but Ronaldo has only 35 successful long ball passes to Messi’s 81.
Given that, it’s no surprise that Messi excels at the through-ball, the delicate and gorgeous play that requires perfect circumstances and perfect timing to be successful. Messi attempts almost twice as many of these passes as any other forward, and still manages to beat the trend.
And then there’s the bread and butter of aggressive passing: moving it toward the goal on the opponent’s side of the field. In attacking territory, no one attacks as often as Messi does, and no one has more success doing so.
These passes are where most assists come from, and indeed, Messi has the most assists per game from these kinds of passes of any forward, by a large margin. And again, despite making twice as many attempts as most people, he beats expectations.
Touch by Touch
By this point, it should be evident that Messi has at least a little bit of skill. But there’s still heavy lifting to do: We have to show that he actually makes his team better.
First, to ensure that we’re celebrating the greatness of Messi and not the greatness of Barcelona, we need to make sense of Messi on Barcelona. The easiest way to do that is to evaluate Barcelona without Messi, also known as the Spanish national team.
The contrast between Spain in 2010 and Spain in 2014 seems huge: The 2010 team won the World Cup, and the 2014 team was tied for first in the tournament to be mathematically eliminated. But lost in this narrative is that the 2010 championship team wasn’t all that great, at least on offense. That World Cup team scored fewer goals per game than this year’s: only eight goals in seven games in 2010, while this year’s group-stage dropouts scored four goals in three. (That’s 1.2 goals per game overall.) For comparison, in the 2010-11 UEFA Champions League (the highest level of competition for European club soccer), Barcelona scored 30 goals in 13 games. In 47 UEFA matches since 2010, Barcelona has scored 104 goals, or 1.08 goals per game more than a Spanish team comprised of a similar offensive core and using the same “tiki-taka” playing style, minus Lionel Messi.
Perhaps that’s an unfair comparison to make — but it’s consistent with the theory that Barcelona’s “play keep away until lightning strikes” offense really only works when it has Messi as its striker.
Between Messi’s shots taken and chances created, he is responsible for about 48 percent of Barcelona’s regular (non-penalty, non-set play) shot attempts. Yet he and the players he assists score about 60 percent of Barca’s goals.
In fact, the more involved Messi is in a shot attempt, the more likely his team is to score. He has scored on 22.1 percent of his regular (non-set, non-penalty, non-shootout) shots for Barca himself. The people to whom he’s dished assists and chances have scored on 18.1 percent of their shots. Meanwhile, Barcelona shots that didn’t come from Messi’s foot or Messi’s passing scored just 12.5 percent of the time.
Even though Barcelona is one of the best teams in the world, there’s a huge difference between when Messi is involved in creating shots and chances and when he isn’t. Here are the equivalent differences for all players since 2010 with more than 100 games played and four or more shots or assist chances per game:
Of course, these are raw shooting percentages and don’t account for the types of shots each player is taking or assisting, or the number of attempts. It’s generally harder to stay valuable over a larger number of shots, and we haven’t yet factored in that difficulty.
For that, we turn back to the goals above average model, which compares each shot or chance outcome with its expectation. From this, we can tell whether a player has exceeded expectations for all of his shot attempts and chances created. Then we can do the same for all shots taken by his team without the player’s involvement, and compare the two. For example, if the player scored .02 goals above expectation per shot attempt, and the rest of his team scored -.01 goals less than expectation, that player’s value-added would be +.03 goals per shot (the value above replacement for that player on that team). Now let’s plot that added value against each player’s total offensive participation (the percentage of team shots he’s involved with):
Finally, after however many charts, we see a diminishing return. At least for everyone not named Lionel Messi. He once again tops the field, impervious to the burden.
But that’s just what happens once the shots are lined up. If we want to explore a player’s efficiency, we have to look into his touches more deeply. For this purpose, I created a stat called “possessions used.” It’s a little bit analogous to usage rate in basketball, and incorporates the number of touches in which a player:
Obviously passing the ball is an important skill (which I covered a bit above), but for this metric I just want to know about the relative likelihood of good outcomes (goals, assists) to bad ones (misses, turnovers, etc.) when the player does something possession-ending.
Looking at players who “use” more than 15 possessions per game, we can plot possessions used against scoring and assists like so:
Cutting out all the passing that doesn’t end in a shot, Messi generates the most points per touch of any player with a similar usage rate. But there are a couple of other important things to notice in this graph: Despite not taking as many shots, Messi uses more possessions per game than Ronaldo does. This is generally because Messi is much more likely to take on defenders, and thus is much more likely to lose possession of the ball or turn it over entirely. (He is also relatively more likely to set up a potential assist.)
Importantly, turnovers in soccer aren’t as big of a deal as they are in basketball or American football. Shots, even bad ones, are more of a limited resource in soccer than possessions. Risking a turnover to increase your chances of scoring a goal even by a small amount can be worth it.
Finally, Messi’s defense is consistent with that of a high-volume striker.
That he’s practically munchkin-sized (he’s only 1.69 met — ahem, excuse me — 5’ 7” tall) seems not to matter.
To look at Messi’s defensive skill, I combined successful tackles, interceptions and blocked shots, then adjusted for number of opponent possessions (as I did with offense above).
There are a few lines where Messi’s stats are considerably worse than his peers’ (meaning Ronaldo’s): He doesn’t get a lot of clearances — although this is partly style, as Messi is more willing to pass out of defensive territory (or even take on defenders). And he doesn’t go for (or succeed at) a lot of aerials (50-50 balls in the air). While I haven’t studied this aspect of his game in depth, soccer experts in the FiveThirtyEight office theorize that it has something to do with his stature.
Since we're discussing Messi's passing game I'd like to highlight just that, but the full piece is available on:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/
and the author took a real long time to go through his game on touch by touch basis.
The article is from 2014 - so no old, passenger Messi is here who also developed further his playmaking skills.
Passing and Assists
From the above, you might think Messi is a selfish player. Or you might assume that if Messi is so good at shooting, he’d focus on it to the exclusion of other skills. But, in true Wayne Gretzky-esque fashion, Messi is also one of the top assisters in our data set. Once again, that makes him a crazy outlier: No one else (aside from, yes, Ronaldo) even comes close to his combination of goals scored versus goals dished.
Not only is Messi the top game-by-game goal-scorer of the last four years, he’s the third-most productive distributor of assists, despite being the primary scorer on his own team! Only Mesut Ozil and Franck Ribery earned more assists than Messi, and Ozil did it on Real Madrid — setting up Cristiano Ronaldo.
But how does he do it? The biggest obstacle to evaluating Messi’s passing ability is accounting for the fact that he plays for the most pass-happy team in the world. Watching Barcelona can be a bit like watching a playground game of keep away. Barcelona’s players are infamous for their “tiki-taka” style of play, which relies on an enormous amount of short, high percentage passing. Above all else, they try to maintain possession of the ball until a chance opens up. This sounds like a great strategy, but there’s a reason it isn’t employed universally: To make it work, a team has to be stocked with amazing passers, and it has to have strikers capable of creating chances against set defenses.
Messi is both of those things. And what’s more, his passing profile is nothing like the other Barcelona forwards, who typically send 72 percent of their passes back or square. Messi is far more likely to try to advance the ball toward the goal, and far more likely to succeed:
Messi makes more passes than the other forwards, with a higher percentage of those passes trying to advance the ball toward the goal, and a higher percentage of those passes finding their targets (typical Messi!). His 3,800-plus completed forward passes are nearly twice as many as any forward in our data set (Francesco Totti for FC Roma has 2,200, followed by Wayne Rooney, the English striker, with 1,800 and Ronaldo with 1,500).
One measure of the quality of a group of passes is how many are completed successfully, but it also matters what happens when those passes get where they’re going. It doesn’t help if a player passes 60 yards to someone swarmed with defenders. So a useful metric (made possible by play-by-play data) is the percentage of a player’s passes that lead to “successful” plays on the other end — meaning the receiving player manages to get off a shot, or passes the ball to someone else, and so on.
As it turns out, not only does Messi pass the ball forward aggressively, he does so accurately, and the balls he delivers are “successful” a very high percentage of the time.
For example, let’s look at Messi’s long ball forward passes from the midfield area. I’ve created a scatter comparing each player’s completion percentage for these passes to the percentage of them that are “successful,” and I’ve shown the volume of long pass attempts for each player as bubble sizes:
Messi is among the most accurate passers for both metrics, and no one with as many attempts is more accurate.
There are players who complete a higher percentage of these passes and/or are more “successful” with them, but they’re typically being more selective in their attempts. For example, Ronaldo’s “success” rate of 60 percent beats Messi’s 54 percent (with a slightly lower completion percentage), but Ronaldo has only 35 successful long ball passes to Messi’s 81.
Given that, it’s no surprise that Messi excels at the through-ball, the delicate and gorgeous play that requires perfect circumstances and perfect timing to be successful. Messi attempts almost twice as many of these passes as any other forward, and still manages to beat the trend.
And then there’s the bread and butter of aggressive passing: moving it toward the goal on the opponent’s side of the field. In attacking territory, no one attacks as often as Messi does, and no one has more success doing so.
These passes are where most assists come from, and indeed, Messi has the most assists per game from these kinds of passes of any forward, by a large margin. And again, despite making twice as many attempts as most people, he beats expectations.
Touch by Touch
By this point, it should be evident that Messi has at least a little bit of skill. But there’s still heavy lifting to do: We have to show that he actually makes his team better.
First, to ensure that we’re celebrating the greatness of Messi and not the greatness of Barcelona, we need to make sense of Messi on Barcelona. The easiest way to do that is to evaluate Barcelona without Messi, also known as the Spanish national team.
The contrast between Spain in 2010 and Spain in 2014 seems huge: The 2010 team won the World Cup, and the 2014 team was tied for first in the tournament to be mathematically eliminated. But lost in this narrative is that the 2010 championship team wasn’t all that great, at least on offense. That World Cup team scored fewer goals per game than this year’s: only eight goals in seven games in 2010, while this year’s group-stage dropouts scored four goals in three. (That’s 1.2 goals per game overall.) For comparison, in the 2010-11 UEFA Champions League (the highest level of competition for European club soccer), Barcelona scored 30 goals in 13 games. In 47 UEFA matches since 2010, Barcelona has scored 104 goals, or 1.08 goals per game more than a Spanish team comprised of a similar offensive core and using the same “tiki-taka” playing style, minus Lionel Messi.
Perhaps that’s an unfair comparison to make — but it’s consistent with the theory that Barcelona’s “play keep away until lightning strikes” offense really only works when it has Messi as its striker.
Between Messi’s shots taken and chances created, he is responsible for about 48 percent of Barcelona’s regular (non-penalty, non-set play) shot attempts. Yet he and the players he assists score about 60 percent of Barca’s goals.
In fact, the more involved Messi is in a shot attempt, the more likely his team is to score. He has scored on 22.1 percent of his regular (non-set, non-penalty, non-shootout) shots for Barca himself. The people to whom he’s dished assists and chances have scored on 18.1 percent of their shots. Meanwhile, Barcelona shots that didn’t come from Messi’s foot or Messi’s passing scored just 12.5 percent of the time.
Even though Barcelona is one of the best teams in the world, there’s a huge difference between when Messi is involved in creating shots and chances and when he isn’t. Here are the equivalent differences for all players since 2010 with more than 100 games played and four or more shots or assist chances per game:
Of course, these are raw shooting percentages and don’t account for the types of shots each player is taking or assisting, or the number of attempts. It’s generally harder to stay valuable over a larger number of shots, and we haven’t yet factored in that difficulty.
For that, we turn back to the goals above average model, which compares each shot or chance outcome with its expectation. From this, we can tell whether a player has exceeded expectations for all of his shot attempts and chances created. Then we can do the same for all shots taken by his team without the player’s involvement, and compare the two. For example, if the player scored .02 goals above expectation per shot attempt, and the rest of his team scored -.01 goals less than expectation, that player’s value-added would be +.03 goals per shot (the value above replacement for that player on that team). Now let’s plot that added value against each player’s total offensive participation (the percentage of team shots he’s involved with):
Finally, after however many charts, we see a diminishing return. At least for everyone not named Lionel Messi. He once again tops the field, impervious to the burden.
But that’s just what happens once the shots are lined up. If we want to explore a player’s efficiency, we have to look into his touches more deeply. For this purpose, I created a stat called “possessions used.” It’s a little bit analogous to usage rate in basketball, and incorporates the number of touches in which a player:
- Takes a shot;
- Passes the ball to a player who takes a shot;
- Turns the ball over;
- Tries to pass the ball and fails;
- Tries to take on a defender and fails.
Obviously passing the ball is an important skill (which I covered a bit above), but for this metric I just want to know about the relative likelihood of good outcomes (goals, assists) to bad ones (misses, turnovers, etc.) when the player does something possession-ending.
Looking at players who “use” more than 15 possessions per game, we can plot possessions used against scoring and assists like so:
Cutting out all the passing that doesn’t end in a shot, Messi generates the most points per touch of any player with a similar usage rate. But there are a couple of other important things to notice in this graph: Despite not taking as many shots, Messi uses more possessions per game than Ronaldo does. This is generally because Messi is much more likely to take on defenders, and thus is much more likely to lose possession of the ball or turn it over entirely. (He is also relatively more likely to set up a potential assist.)
Importantly, turnovers in soccer aren’t as big of a deal as they are in basketball or American football. Shots, even bad ones, are more of a limited resource in soccer than possessions. Risking a turnover to increase your chances of scoring a goal even by a small amount can be worth it.
Finally, Messi’s defense is consistent with that of a high-volume striker.
That he’s practically munchkin-sized (he’s only 1.69 met — ahem, excuse me — 5’ 7” tall) seems not to matter.
To look at Messi’s defensive skill, I combined successful tackles, interceptions and blocked shots, then adjusted for number of opponent possessions (as I did with offense above).
There are a few lines where Messi’s stats are considerably worse than his peers’ (meaning Ronaldo’s): He doesn’t get a lot of clearances — although this is partly style, as Messi is more willing to pass out of defensive territory (or even take on defenders). And he doesn’t go for (or succeed at) a lot of aerials (50-50 balls in the air). While I haven’t studied this aspect of his game in depth, soccer experts in the FiveThirtyEight office theorize that it has something to do with his stature.
Thank you for that comment, mate. Certainly that is our main point.
It's also worth mentioning that whilst Desailly is obviously an elite stopper (since Messi got questioned) he's playing here in his latter stage of his career when he was significantly slower on the turn compared to his physical heyday and Romario is the type of striker that can exploit just that.
And whilst I love Dasayev just about as anyone, you can also add having advantage with Buffon as last pillar of the defence
ok, will cut this crap in a minuteStay along enigma
Yeah, ask Beckenbauer. Who has the better platform to perform here? Platini or Messi?
Should have put GOAT level attack with Il Fenomeno and Best to get some votes. Blokhin is a nightmare to guard and pain in the ass harassing you all over the pitch. And you have Rummenigge on the other side. It's like guarding me when I go out.. There is no way you will know where will I end up. And underestimating of Platii is ridiculous. The man had a sonar when it comes to passes and has everything built his way.
The underrating of Platini is hilarious here.
Ode to Michel ft. antohan:
One thing that's remarkable about GOAT debates, winning a World Cup, not needing to win a World Cup, etc etc - is that in those discussions, Platini inevitably comes to mind. I'm not sure if everyone on here is too young, or his French/UEFA personna has distorted people's memories, so here we go:
Platini had an exceptional career. Superb for St. Etienne, he was already picking up the French Footballer of the Year regularly in the second half of the 70s while occasionally making the top three for the Ballon d'Or (3rd in 1977 and 3rd in 1980).
Then he moved to Juventus and was the architect for the most dominant side in their history. Up until Messi, he was the only one to have picked the Ballon d'Or three seasons in a row and in all three of them he was the top scorer in the most miserly league anyone has witnessed. A midfielder, not a false 9 with brilliant service, he delivered the service AND the goals. Stunning!
People from a certain generation remember Platini being what Messi is now (the Frenchman was Ballon D'Or Top 3 and eyewatering 5 times in 9 seasons), or Maradona was in the late 1980s - but unfortunately, Platini hadn't won a World Cup. You could argue yourself silly banging on about Schumacher's decapitation of Battiston having a say in that, 1984 being the revenge, and 1986 bound to be the grand finale.
He arrived in Mexico somewhat over the hill. Much like Zidane in 2006, but carrying an injury, a bit like Maradona going into Italy 1990. I vividly remember my family being shocked as I celebrated Brazil crashing out. How come I'd rather France went through?, they asked. "Platini deserves to win a World Cup, it would be a travesty if he didn't", was my answer.
About 24 hours later, Maradona changed some the perception. He had always been "the next big thing", but Platini was firmly ahead and was The Big Thing until that quarter-final against England.
And, while Maradona deserves all the plaudits he gets, the criminal outcome of it all was not how England crashed out to the Hand of God, but how suddenly Platini was shaken from his pedestal. Without a shadow of a doubt the best player so far in a decade plagued with outstanding No. 10s.
Michel Platini
One thing that's remarkable about GOAT debates, winning a World Cup, not needing to win a World Cup, etc etc - is that in those discussions, Platini inevitably comes to mind. I'm not sure if everyone on here is too young, or his French/UEFA personna has distorted people's memories, so here we go:
Platini had an exceptional career. Superb for St. Etienne, he was already picking up the French Footballer of the Year regularly in the second half of the 70s while occasionally making the top three for the Ballon d'Or (3rd in 1977 and 3rd in 1980).
Then he moved to Juventus and was the architect for the most dominant side in their history. Up until Messi, he was the only one to have picked the Ballon d'Or three seasons in a row and in all three of them he was the top scorer in the most miserly league anyone has witnessed. A midfielder, not a false 9 with brilliant service, he delivered the service AND the goals. Stunning!
Then he did it for yet another side, France with him spearheading the Carré Magique, in one of the Top 3 most outstanding individual tournament performances you will ever witness:
People from a certain generation remember Platini being what Messi is now (the Frenchman was Ballon D'Or Top 3 and eyewatering 5 times in 9 seasons), or Maradona was in the late 1980s - but unfortunately, Platini hadn't won a World Cup. You could argue yourself silly banging on about Schumacher's decapitation of Battiston having a say in that, 1984 being the revenge, and 1986 bound to be the grand finale.
He arrived in Mexico somewhat over the hill. Much like Zidane in 2006, but carrying an injury, a bit like Maradona going into Italy 1990. I vividly remember my family being shocked as I celebrated Brazil crashing out. How come I'd rather France went through?, they asked. "Platini deserves to win a World Cup, it would be a travesty if he didn't", was my answer.
About 24 hours later, Maradona changed some the perception. He had always been "the next big thing", but Platini was firmly ahead and was The Big Thing until that quarter-final against England.
And, while Maradona deserves all the plaudits he gets, the criminal outcome of it all was not how England crashed out to the Hand of God, but how suddenly Platini was shaken from his pedestal. Without a shadow of a doubt the best player so far in a decade plagued with outstanding No. 10s.
Makes you wonder, though he did find some justice with his inclusion in the Team of the 20th Century, as well as the World Cup Dream Team to go beyond the Ballon D'Ors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Team_of_the_20th_Century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Dream_Team
That's rarefied company - one of only 4 players to feature on both - apart from Pelé, Maradona, Beckenbauer and Yashin.
Ballon D'Or: 1983, 1984, 1985
Highest ever Scorer in a European Championship: 1984
World Cup All-Star Team: 1982, 1986.
European Cup Top Scorer: 1985
World Cup: 1982 (4th), 1986 (3rd)
European Championship: 1984
English Football Hall of Fame - voted All-Time Greatest European Footballer
Serie A Capocannoniere (Top Scorer) - 1983, 1984, 1985
340+ Career goals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Team_of_the_20th_Century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Dream_Team
That's rarefied company - one of only 4 players to feature on both - apart from Pelé, Maradona, Beckenbauer and Yashin.
Ballon D'Or: 1983, 1984, 1985
Highest ever Scorer in a European Championship: 1984
World Cup All-Star Team: 1982, 1986.
European Cup Top Scorer: 1985
World Cup: 1982 (4th), 1986 (3rd)
European Championship: 1984
English Football Hall of Fame - voted All-Time Greatest European Footballer
Serie A Capocannoniere (Top Scorer) - 1983, 1984, 1985
340+ Career goals.
Credit to he knows who he is...
And where he plays now? With a classic striker (Aguero) which looked the shadow of himself whenever he played with him. Without pressing as Romario and Ronaldo won't close down. And against Rijkaard no less. Oh, and without so much possession. That looked great whenever it happened.
If you think he has the better platform to perform then Platini not sure what to say. But hey ho, add another GOAT for the final and problem solved.
Messi also had the best midfield alongside him. One of them plays for me. They dominated and won everything on international stage without him.
You will not have anything close to Barca set-up. But, pound for pound we are better... Do you even press? Nope? Possession based? Nope as you can't win the midfield battle. More work-rate? Nope, you will have 2 passengers.
But, pound for pound... Pound for pound I wouldn't take any of your players in my team. You probably wouldn't either. Fair play. But, if you look at both teams and say which one is set to bring the best out of every player it is a one way street.
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I need one too, but will wait for tomorrow, working day unfortunately coming up fast