I think we still haven't lost a competitive match when he started for the nationalteam, so yeah, he's the one who will bring us the title. I'd love it if he won the Golden Ball. I guess it's difficult for him to collect individual awards and this is his chance.
Still an improvement over this one (the felft one):Messi looks like a fool on the pic
Would you be giving Lahm the award for his performances over the course of the season? You surely couldn't be suggesting he's deserved it on his performances in this tournament...
By the way: Kind of hilarious seeing people talk about how the winner must come from the World Champion team, when that hasn't been the case for the last four tournaments
Something like that, always impressed by him every time I see him play. I play ball myself for my university as a full back so fully appreciate Lahms game. Best full back around in my opinion.
Hummels has been excellent too. Very important goals against France and Portugal and defensively solid. Big game player and should excel in tomorrow's environment.
Which of his MOTM awards did he not deserve?
I thought there were a few in the Bosnia game that deserved it ahead of him. Pjanic in particular was better, I name him because although I remember being really impressed with a few of the Bosnian players I can't remember their names, but I do remember Pjanic was fantastic that night. Messi's goal was great but other than that I thought he was poor - you may think different but we're football fans, would be boring if we all thought the same.
Indeed it would be, I wasn't criticising you or anything just interested in your thoughts. For what it's worth I thought Messi had a really poor first half in that game but great second half (not just the goal, his overall play). Whether that's enough to be named MOTM is debatable, but I think it was deserved personally.
I agree that he wasn't the "best player" on the pitch, in the sense of being the most outstanding or impressive performer, against either Bosnia, nor Iran. But FIFA's MotM award mainly seems to value "decisiveness" in a match (and considering that Messi scored the most important goals in those games, which were both solo efforts as well, it makes sense). Also note that Higuaín got the MotM award against Belgium (while I thought some of Argentina's defensive players were a lot more deserving) and Romero against the Netherlands (should've gone to either Mascherano or Vlaar, although the latter loses "points" for his missed pen. IMO), so it's not just a popularity thing. They clearly look at the player they think had the most decisive impact on the result, not necessarilly the player that performed best throughout.
I just read there on FIFA.com that the Budweiser man of the match is based on votes by fans. Are there two separate man of the match awards or is that the only one? I remember reading that Ronaldo won man of the match vs Brazil in 2010 and people were saying he did not deserve it, including lucio who said he only won it due to popularity. He also won one for the match against Ghana at this world cup and people were criticising him for his performance in that match also.
I was certain I read somewhere that the MotM award was decided on by FIFA's Technical Study Group... now I'm not so sure anymore
I definitely recall in 2010 reading that Ronaldo won it vs brazil and a lot of people were disagreeing with it, including lucio who said he only won it due to popularity. I think that is a bit silly tbh as fans will just vote for their favourite player most of the time and the people who vote for their favourite will surely outnumber the people without bias most of the time.I was certain I read somewhere that the MotM award was decided on by FIFA's Technical Study Group... now I'm not so sure anymore
edit: indeed you're right, http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/awards/man-of-the-match/rules.html
I don't recall this being the case in previous tournaments? Although MotM award outside of the Final are a relatively recent thing anyway I guess.
Or, as the case was at the start of this World Cup* they'll vote for whoever twitter tells them to in order to fix it so that people can win bets on MOTM markets
Indeed. Anyway aside from those pure popularity votes, I think my reasoning is still valid that the "casual" viewer will likely vote for the player who's most decisive to the result of the match and not necessarilly the best player throughout the whole game.
I fully agree, hes been the standout player of this world cup to me, if only all wingers could play like him(without the diving of course)
Pretty fair summary. I'd only disagree with Shaqiri and especially Di Maria for the Swiss game.
It was a few hours after the final in 2010, the day after the final in 2006 and two days after in 2002.
Di María was very wasteful in that game, but next to Messi also the most active player for Argentina IMO and I also took him scoring the, fairly clutch, winning goal into consideration of course. But I can agree that there were maybe others ahead of him (maybe one of Behrami, Inler, Ricardo Rodríguez?). I'm curious about Shaqiri though, who would you have? I thought he played really well, created two clear cut chances for Drmic as I seem to remember, showed some decent dribbles and had a couple of dangerous deliveries into Arg's box. Granted, he was uninvolved for long periods, albeit through little fault of his own.
