I mean if you were compiling a 5 minute highlight video of Ronaldo, you've got 1000 games to pick from, you could make him look like just about any kind of player you wanted with that much material. You could make him look like a poacher, you could make him look like a dribbling great if you just picked his best dribbles. You could make him look like a free kick god, even though that ability disappeared during the second half of his career. My point is no one sees the shit games Maradona played, when all you're going on is highlight videos, of course all you'll see is the best moments.
Lionel Messi | PSG Watch
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I don't think it's anything to do with nostalgia, it's just that the top 3 were more skilful players with more all round impact on a game in addition to having a similar end product. But we can't continue in this vein, we'll derail the thread
@jm99 reminds me of a lawyer who knows they can’t win a case so just buries the opposition with as much paperwork as possible. You have made the same point about penalties on repeat for two days, it’s tiresome. You are well entitled to your opinions, but try using the thread to talk about the good things messi is still doing, and if you enjoy what Ronaldo is doing in Saudi Arabia, use his thread. Trying to win people over in an argument on here is like trying to climb a lamppost that’s covered in grease.
It's the same as with conspiracy theorists. They'll always find a reasoning however absurd it may be to prevent admitting they were wrong. Their conclusions are already made, they only look for arguments to justify them. You'll even see whataboutism strategies ("but what about non penalty goals"). There's no real point in arguing but it still can be fun at times.
Like i said above, for most people, not everyone, there are some 60 year olds who watched Pele live. You're only seeing their best clips. Ronaldo was atrocious at free kicks for the second half of his career but if all you'd seen was a highlight video just including his 60 free kicks, and none of the misses you'd think he was one of the all time great free kick takers. People don't include misses on highlight videos, they don't include games where the players didn't contribute, so it massively helps your legacy to be judged off of them, rather than people seeing it unfold in real time
Yes - if I was a manager absolutely. It's fine is you disagree, I suspect from your "??" you strongly do but I don't think he's been top level for a while now. Son has had a bad season but he won the golden boot (joint) previously so I'm assuming he's not just fallen off a cliff, even though he should really move clubs. I get if you were a manager you would likely try to accommodate Messi but I just don't think that works at the highest level and whilst it was worth it for younger Messi, I don't think it is for a guy about to turn 36. Let's see, maybe he'll dig out an insane performance second leg versus Bayern and I'll eat my words.
Go ahead, make a video in which Cristiano looks like Maradona. It's impossible because Maradona regularly did things Cristiano never could and never did (which isn't a shame considering that's true vor 99.99% of footballers out there).
this is just not true. You can watch many games where he doesn’t play well. Footballia.net has 233 full Maradona games to play. So you can watch 39% of his career games, and many people have.
https://footballia.net/players/diego-armando-maradona
I saw Maradona play and he was definitely a better player than CR IMO. The level of skill is night and day in terms of the difference. Ronaldo made up a lot of the gap with his application and dedication to get as much out of his talent as possible. But it was a significantly inferior talent and I can't stress that enough.
The discussion started about Messi, it was me quoting someone who said real Madrid fans were being ridiculous thinking benzema should have won, its spiralled from that discussion because people seem to be trying to equate it all with Ronaldo. Bringing up penalties wasn't me trying to say, see Ronaldo is great for scoring a bunch of penalties, it was to say that not noting that Messi's goals total was a load of penalties is hypocritical.
Its the same hypocrisy when people say Messi definitely should win over benzema because the WC is the peak, but they don't say that about messi's 2010 win. I wasn't trying to make this a Messi vs Ronaldo thread, and I really don't care what Ronaldo does in Saudi Arabia, its a retirement league. I was just trying to point out that Messi fans will always pick what makes him best, world cup year where his performers aren't great, its club matters more, WC year where his club form isn't great but his WC is, WC matters more
so you think that PSG or Argentina would’ve been better teams with either Son or Mane in the place of Messi? I’m not sure that you’ve been watching football this last 10 months
But again, Maradona played at a time when you could have substance abuse issues and play top level football, I really don't think you can discount the difference in the quality of the game, the quality of the coaching and tactics nowadays. I think if you have a 24 year old Ronaldo play in that era, he can absolutely dominate. But like i said I haven't seen these older players play and so wouldn't include them in my personal rankings at all, like not that I'm putting Ronaldo ahead of these players, or putting Messi ahead, I'm just flat out not including them in my GOAT list because I think you need to have seen someone play to do so
How many people actually do that though? These players have huge legacies among most people who watch football, and I can guarantee you the vast majority of football fans have not sat down and watched full games of Maradona playing
There's a website called footballia, it has about 40 full matches featuring Pele (including nearly all his World Cup games) and 100-200 full matches featuring Maradona. Even some games with Argentinos Juniors. The people making these lists do not have to rely on highlight videos even if they are not 60. years old. Your argument is maybe relevant for players from the 40s but not for Pele and Maradona.
I personally don't think you can gauge much from internationals - most CL teams in the knock outs would comfortably beat Argentina or France given they train so much more together in my opinion.
I guess re your question it depends what you mean, I think Mane would make both a better team overall but Son wouldn't really be a like for like so it's a weird question. Obviously for Argentina that's undoubtedly a motivational aspect Messi brings with him that couldn't be replaced.
Your question to me was if I had to pick Mane/Son or Messi today which I'd pick and my answer is the former two. If I were a manager I don't think I'd have a player in Messi's current role because, as said, I don't think the elite level of football allows that anymore. Feel free to come and tell me I'm wrong if he has a great game versus Bayern.
I mean I'm sure Maradona never scored a goal like Ronaldo did against Porto in the CL, they're different types of players. What I'm saying is if Ronaldo was player from 40 years ago and all you saw was his best moments, he'd be revered as an all time great. Modern players in general suffer from every game being watched. Messi did last season too, a slight drop in standards at the age of 35 was being counted against him that doesn't happen when you're watching a career in retrospect and only seeing the highlights
But the general public do, and that influences these players legacies, and legacies have just a big a role in these list as performances.
The thing is that you ask Messi to have an insane performance against Bayern, you’ll never ask Mane or Son the same because you know they’re not in Messi’s level as great both players are.
I think the only respect you'd take either over Messi right now, is considering his age, it's not unlikely that at a certain point his legs just go and the performances fall off a cliff, might be 6 months from now, might be 2 or 3 years but in terms of current ability he's definitely still clear of both of them
Nobody says that Mane bottled the final vs Madrid last year for example.
If Messis PSG lose that game a lot of the blame would have been placed on him.
The lists are not made by fans. That's the point. But I'm sure plenty of people have done it and the fact is that you can do it if you really want to know how good someone was. You don't have to rely on the legend like you do with Meazza or someone like that. You are misrepresenting the situation by referring to ' a few grainy clips' That was the situation in the 1930s, not with Pele and Maradona. Not to mention of course that there are plenty of people alive now who saw both of them play hundreds of times with their own eyes.
That's literally not what I said at all. I'm bringing up the CL game because he chose to move to a weaker league and so it's much rarer to see him against top level opposition. Bayern v PSG is a great example to look at both Mane and Messi and praise/critique both accordingly, assuming both play.
I get that, but you can't say these lists operate in a vacuum and that the legacy players have doesn't influence the decisions made by these journalists.
I get what you're saying but you regularly see goat lists on here include players from the 50s, 60s and 70s and while I'm sure some people like yourself did watch them play, most won't have seen full games of players that they include on their greatest of all time lists
It's swings and roundabouts. Yes people in the past played with substance abuse issues but then again it was a much more brutal game back then. Defenders were allowed to deal with skilful attacking players in a much more violent fashion than they are now. Every team had a least one 'hard man' (some teams had 11 hard men). Ronaldo and Messi may well have been able to play in that era (I believe great players can play in any era) but they would have been injured much more often I reckon
it’s literally what you said
I just mean let's see if he has a good game - same goes for Mane.
Tbf Messi and Ronaldo are ridiculously durable, even by modern day standards. Apart from ronaldo's knee problems and Messi having a couple of injury ridden seasons they basically spent zero time injured bar the odd knock. Messi particularly due to his style of play deals with a lot of tackles and still didn't pick up many injuries,
Seria A was the worlds super league in the 80's. It was quite remarkable that Maradonna performed as well as he did despite snorting coke and what have you.
And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a bike. Cristiano didn't play in the 80s and you have no idea what kind of player he would have been if he did. Chances are he wouldn't score any goal from 30 meters because the balls were twice as heavy. His goal record would also be probably around 60-70% due to goal inflation and pre-superteam era. There are so many variables that this is just a pointless debate. What's a fact is that Maradona could do plenty of things with a football Cristiano can't.
And yes, there's obviously more emphasis on the bad matches of players these days. But there's also more hype due to the viral nature of the internet, and there's also recency bias with many being very ignorant of previous eras - even more so than you.
Tbf I'd imagine a lot of players weren't anything like as strict, not as much coke but cigarettes and alcohol definitely they would have. Particularly cigarettes if I've learned anything from watching gomorrah
Italians seem to love it on that show.Even as recently as the 90s clubs were far less strict regarding diet and stuff,there was an article on here the other day about the Madrid galacticos and how much partying they'd do. I think it make the achievements of these two stand out even more given that its against a field where every club has sports scientists, dieticians etc. I'd imagine back then certainly a lot of the top clubs would have something like this but most of the lower table sides definitely wouldn't, whereas now every single club in la liga or the PL will have these things
Tbf recency bias can be a gift and a curse, many who were calling Ronaldo solidly top 5 goat are now saying he isn't top 10 because of a bad season at 38 years old. Basically nowadays you're only as good as your last match an awful lot of the time. I mean it's not ignorance of older eras most people will be familiar with football from when they started watching it, to be familiar with much beyond that requires a level of commitment that would normally be given to a full time hobby
Ronaldo in the 80s wouldn't have the physique he had in modern era, he wouldn't have the advanced medicine, advanced training, and legal PEDs to achieve such thing, it would be just him and his ability (which isn't on par with Maradona) to shine.
Messi in the 80s wouldn't be a footballer, the hormones he needed to grow were not very developed yet back then.
I'm sure i can kill Achilles with a shotgun if i travel to the past and fight him 1 vs 1... now show me where can I get a shotgun in those times.
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the point is that everybody demands insane performances from Messi, if he has only a good game it will be a bad game for his ridiculous standards. He put the bar way too high.
They don't say this because he had a bad season aged 38. Cristiano suffers immensely from being a box striker for a whole decade now. He chose to focus so much on goals and overwrote the memories of the all action attacker he used to be himself.
You need to burn the grease first and then climb the lamppost(when it's cold). In the case of a conversation, you need to obfuscate and when everyone is tired of your nonsense you address the original point by which time eveyrone has moved to something else and you can claim victory.
I forgot about the hormone thing with Messi. Yes it's highly likely he would not have been a professional player in an earlier era.
Tbf Ronaldos physique isn't exactly unobtainable without ped use or modern medicine, I made the assumption with Messi that we were just counting his ability in the discussion
His center of gravity would be legendary. Im sure he would be an even better dribbler.
Yeah I think @jm99 it's missing the point.
Ronaldo and Messi in the 80s, would be a complete different thing comparing to their modern version, one wouldn't have the physique he had to dominate, because lack of modern medicine,diet, training, etc and the other guy probably wouldn't even be a footballer.
Now imagine a talent like Maradona with better nutrition, better medicine,legals PEDs, and sport psychologists...scary.