majesticHow many goals will Messi score vs Curacao later today?
- Thread starter wangyu
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
majesticHave you never heard of Blue Curacao homeboy?!I had no idea Curacao even existed
I googled that at work. Thankfully relieved its an actual drink
It's quite similar to blue waffleI googled that at work. Thankfully relieved its an actual drink
Yeah. Used commonly as a mixer when you wanna make the drink colorful.I googled that at work. Thankfully relieved its an actual drink
Well that didn't last long
It's actually quite funny because if their situations were reversed Ronaldo would definitely be obsessed, despite just winning the WC.How can people believe that Messi is obsessed about Ronaldo's international record , after he just won the WC with Argentina.
So ridiculous, he even gave a penalty to Di Maria
Once I decided I was gonna make cointreau and white chocolate truffles for a friend's birthday but Sainbury's were out of cointreau so I bought blue curacao. Bright green they were.
International football can not be compared anymore with stats from decades ago. There are way more games played these days while the number of international top football countries has not increased. This results into a large amount of currently playing players breaking all kinds of scoring records.
It is not unlikely to have close to 200 caps if you have a long international career. Back in the 80s it was hard to reach 100 caps.
This is of course thanks to dozens of new countries emerging in the last couple of decades. They also deserve to play football but the overall quality dips hard as a result.
To strive for more quality matches and less matches in general I think the entire qualification systeem needs to be overhauled.
In my opinion there should only be 1 qualification tournament. That tournament decides the teams that play the European championship. The best teams of the European championship then qualify for the world cup. This means about 10 less international games played as there is no more qualification tournament for the world cups anymore.
It is done this way for the u21 tournaments as well.
It is not unlikely to have close to 200 caps if you have a long international career. Back in the 80s it was hard to reach 100 caps.
This is of course thanks to dozens of new countries emerging in the last couple of decades. They also deserve to play football but the overall quality dips hard as a result.
To strive for more quality matches and less matches in general I think the entire qualification systeem needs to be overhauled.
In my opinion there should only be 1 qualification tournament. That tournament decides the teams that play the European championship. The best teams of the European championship then qualify for the world cup. This means about 10 less international games played as there is no more qualification tournament for the world cups anymore.
It is done this way for the u21 tournaments as well.
Why would you need a Portuguese fullback to celebrate your friend's birthday?
Not enough money for Rod Stewart
Really not. I'm just as critical to Ronaldo and think Messi is a better player. Just think that Messi (travelling across half the globe to play friendlies agaisnt Curacao and Honduras) and Ronaldo (playing in Saudi Arabia and starts over guys like Ramos against Lichtenstein and Luxembourg) is a bit, meh, and is statpadding as bad as we've seen it since Pele travelled the world with his buddies to rack up hat tricks in friendly matches in the 70s. Everything for the recordbooks.
It's not the goals in the friendlies against Curacao or Honduras that makes Messi the GOAT, which he arguably is now.
Just like it's not Ronaldo's hat tricks in Saudi Arabia or braces against Lichtenstein and Luxembourg that makes him one of the greatest goalscorers of all time.
It's their contributions and dominance on the big stages, LaLiga titles, CLs, WCs, EUROs, Copa Americas and their fantastic longivity, goalrates and magical moments at the highest level.
You don't have to imagine it, just go over to the Ronaldo / Al Nassr thread and see the annoyance there about him 'stat padding' by scoring 4 goals in qualifiers v Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
I guess some of the counter points are looking for some consistency and less hypocrisy. If it's fine for other 36-41 year olds to play in the qualifiers (Giroud, Modric, Ibrahimovic, etc). And it's fine for 35 year old Messi to play the full 90 minutes in two friendlies v Panama and Curacao and wrack up 4 goals. Then why are some getting so annoyed about Ronaldo being selected and scoring 4 in competitive qualifiers?
Personally, I think they're all valid selections. And don't have a problem with any of them featuring - but that includes Ronaldo. I think the hypocrisy towards the reaction of that selection and those goals is why some may make references to all the other examples. Not because there's anything wrong with those being selected either, just to point out the inconsistency.
Last edited:
To be honest… Anyone giving more than a zero Fcuk about how many anything’s, any player has… is a child.
Perfect to make a Blue Lagoon
Honestly i think as others have mentioned that its post wc tour to bask in the adoration of the crowd while they get some easy wins and goals. If the main reason was statpadding for Messi he wouldnt have given the penalty to Di Maria.
Horrible forum
True.
Although you can say the same about 'if it was stat padding for Ronaldo in the qualifiers, why would they take him off after an hour or so both times when he was on a hat trick?'
The answer is obvious - the competive game was won by then, and there was a younger striker (Ramos) who could benefit from those minutes. But if you were also looking to criticise the Messi situation in a similar fashion, you could definitely question why Argentina kept the 35 year old on for the full 90 minutes of friendlies v Panama and Curacao, rather than give a younger player some minutes as sub - especially when the second one was 5-0 at HT and he'd already got his hat trick? The answer, as you say, could well be the obvious: it was a celebration, so they wanted to give the fans as much of Messi as possible.
Last edited:
Agree that scoring vs Curaçao is stat padding but the reason why those games are being played is to celebrate Argentina's world cup triumph. The games guarantee victories allowing the fans to enjoy the celebrations.
Big picture, none of it matters. A player is great or they are not. But it's very easy for people to get caught up in the small picture when you are actually witnessing the story at the time it happens. I understand that aspect of it.
See, I'm generally of the opinion that goal records are vastly overrated. But to suggest that Messi got to stat pad for the Argentina to the same extent as Ronaldo has done for Portugal is just agenda driven. South America has far less completely one sided matches in the qualifiers than Europe and I don't think that's even debatable.
I mean, it definitely is debatable considering we've had a megathread talking about their international exploits in this regard (prior to Messi winning the WC and Copa).
I only know because Tahith Chong was born there.I had no idea Curacao even existed
Most of my geographical knowledge is from sport.
Before your post, who was angry?
Yes. Those people are children.
There’s a somewhat passable grey area I guess. I wanted Ruud to outscored Henry and pick up the golden boot one year. But I’d have happily seen Henry score double if United won the league. It didn’t actually matter.
This modern day juvenilsation of supposed adults into fan boys for players is such a retrograde step.
Caring if a certain player scores in an international friendly on the other side of the world. Or in a qualifying campaign in a country they couldn’t name a single player from. Or watching the goddamn Saudi league. And talking about all these things as if it’s in any way more important than the last fart you ejected…
It’s all just so Fcuking embarrassing.
Absurd, I would say the agenda is driven by you instead
/joke.Europe does indeed have a much larger amount of weak teams to play against but south american teams, due the lack of qualifying games for the Copa, have plenty of friendlies and often it is against pretty poor north american teams (Curaçao is an example). And who do you think will be more of a challenge, weak teams in official games or weak teams in friendlies?
I don't think it matters if it's friendlies or not as playing against Messi or CR7 will be a lifetime event for most of those players. To me all of this highlights primarily that goal records are a stupid metric to quantify a player's career.Absurd, I would say the agenda is driven by you instead
Europe does indeed have a much larger amount of weak teams to play against but south american teams, due the lack of qualifying games for the Copa, have plenty of friendlies and often it is against pretty poor north american teams (Curaçao is an example). And who do you think will be more of a challenge, weak teams in official games or weak teams in friendlies?
Anyway, if this argument about statpadding is brought up then it clearly works against Cristiano, at least in the direct comparison.
Several things explain it:
1) Social Media and the internet generally
2) Massive increase in televised football, enabling people to see virtually any team or player they want play every single week even if they operate in a different country or even a different continent.
3) Great increase in statistical analysis of games which has bled into conversations that casual fans have with eachother.
Etc. etc. It's the world we live in now.
I don't think it is any more mature to idolise clubs. Actually I think it's even worse since having an idol is still better than having a tribe. Plus player idolization is more about the sport itself while club fandom is closer to patriotism/trivalism which I'm generally not a particular supporter of.
Where is Curacao? What’s the world record?
Football manager is pretty good for it.
Yeah Messi scoring a hattrick is all well and good but lets talk about Lautaro Martinez, what a crazy miss yesterday.
(I'm not allowed to post Twitter links, but someone should post it, it's hilarious)
(I'm not allowed to post Twitter links, but someone should post it, it's hilarious)
Only 7-0. Pathetic
England would never arrange a friendly against anyone of that level though. In recent times e.g. post 2000 can't think of any friendly opposition below the level of say Scotland/Wales/Ireland.
What would we call Messi if he didn’t score vs Curacao? Overrated? Past it?
These friendlies have been organised for the whole team and the fans to celebrate, not for some stupid inflation of goal stats.
These friendlies have been organised for the whole team and the fans to celebrate, not for some stupid inflation of goal stats.
Messi is playing against a bottle of alcohol?
Of course.
Just like teams play European qualifiers against 'minnows' because they're part of a group and every nation gets to compete, not because of 'stat padding' for individuals.
That hasn't stopped plenty saying Ronaldo shouldn't 'stat pad' for ego and should opt out of those games v 'minnows' in lieu of youngsters. So the exact same could certainly be said for selecting Messi for the whole 90 minutes in friendles v Panama and Curacao. Not that the games shouldn't take place, but should experienced players like him play all 180 minutes and 'stat pad' when younger players could be gaining experience?*
*Personally, I've no issue with either still being selected for these round of games. Or the likes of Giroud, Modric, Pepe, Ibrahimovic, etc. It's up to the international managers to decide which experienced players still bring enough to warrant selection. But worth pointing out how hatred certainly brought about different reactions to the Ronaldo selection and goals on here, social media, etc. Which is fine - each to their own and all that - except most of the arguments used are contradicted by so many other experienced selections.
Last edited:
You dont take off Messi because he is easily the fan favourite and a lot came mainly to see him.
Again, that's fair.
But, again, you could say that also applies to Ronaldo. The difference would be in the terminology - as with the latter, it would be described as ego trip, afraid to drop him, the Ronaldo show / circus, etc.
But, yeah, both would have had plenty there who were wanting to see them, both justified their selection with 4 goals, so I don't see the big issue with either selection.
Anyone claiming Ronaldo is stat padding is an idiot, particularly in a competitive match.
But I imagine most of the comments have been about the fact people believe Portugal are better without him at this stage, as was shown a little at the WC, and that he is maybe being given a chance to top the 200 caps mark as a sort of ‘stat pad’ which he has undoubtedly earned through his career.