You're the one who brought mindsets into it. Ronaldo attempted to join the same "farmers league" that you decry Messi for joining. Go ahead and explain why the man with 18 goal contributions this calender year has more of a killer mindset than the guy with 52.
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You're the one who brought mindsets into it. Ronaldo attempted to join the same "farmers league" that you decry Messi for joining. Go ahead and explain why the man with 18 goal contributions this calender year has more of a killer mindset than the guy with 52.
Phil Neville coaching Messi? 
Yeah. Messi doesn't need to chase absolute statistics, either. A moments research unveils the following:
Messi has 67,871 career minutes.
Ronaldo has 77,137 career minutes.
Folks want Messi to play 10,000 fewer minutes than Ronaldo, beat De Bruyne for assists and outscore Ronaldo whilst playing majority of his time in midfield. Come on now. They've never in a million years hold Ronaldo up to this standard if the situation was reversed.
But ok.
Messi has a career 104 mins per goal.
Ronaldo has a career 113 mins per goal.
Hell, Messi's Champions League is 103 mins per goal vs Ronaldo's 115 mins per goal, so, unless Messi falls of a cliff, both literally and figuratively, it's an inevitablity prevented only by Messi's potential lack of desire to extend his longevity.
Those stats are lopsided to the younger player though. They haven’t gone through their can’t quite so what they used to do phase and if Messi does basically retire then he avoids that altogether.Yeah. Messi doesn't need to chase absolute statistics, either. A moments research unveils the following:
Messi has 67,871 career minutes.
Ronaldo has 77,137 career minutes.
Folks want Messi to play 10,000 fewer minutes than Ronaldo, beat De Bruyne for assists and outscore Ronaldo whilst playing majority of his time in midfield. Come on now. They've never in a million years hold Ronaldo up to this standard if the situation was reversed.
But ok.
Messi has a career 104 mins per goal.
Ronaldo has a career 113 mins per goal.
Hell, Messi's Champions League is 103 mins per goal vs Ronaldo's 115 mins per goal, so, unless Messi falls of a cliff, both literally and figuratively, it's an inevitablity prevented only by Messi's potential lack of desire to extend his longevity.
I expect Ronaldos to drop wildly before he retires because of my post above.
Nope. Messi can go without scoring for the next 98 matches and still have a higher scoring ratio than Ronaldo. Even with a decline, he's simply a better scorer.
That's not to mention the 6 golden boots and 8 domestic top scorer awards, that Ronaldo - having peaked and on the decline - can't catch.
To continue what @Hoof The Ball was saying, if we talk about total goal production, the gap is enormous (Messi has 78 more goals and assists, in 145 less matches) Messi can go 229 matches without scoring or assisting and still have a better production ratio than Ronaldo
But again, Messi doesn't care about that. he has the ballon d'ors and golden boots locked up.
I agree there were discussions to be found about which players were best in the world in the late 70’s (Maradona was being mentioned after breaking through in 77, but left out of Argentina for WC 78 as he was 17 and Menotti didn’t want to disturb the team dynamics (he was heavily criticized , but rescinded by the fact that they won the Junta-sportswashing championship in impressive fashion, the early 80’s (Rummenigge, Zico, Platini) and even late 80’s (Vialli, Gullit, Van Basten).
In an age were footballers were less streamlined into professionalized athletes, consistent superiority was less common. Also there was difficult to gage the quality of the South American leagues in comparison with the European, but it was definitively a much more even field than now.
Still, comparing Zico’s best years to Maradona’s years as a teenager and stopping before 86 seems a strange way to compare carreers. Zico playing most of his carreer for one of the best teams in South America (Flamenco) while Maradona left early to play most of his carreer at another continent, makes the SAPOTY trophy a contentious measure.
Also, focussing on goals scored while comparing players with different roles (Platini, Zico and Maradona) and playing in very different teams, and in an era of football where their roles as goals scorers was of lesser importance than their roles as playmakers, seems also very dubious.
For me, taking an overview, Maradona was of an higher order than the fantastic players that Zico, Platini, Gullit and Van Basten were. He was more inconsistent, due to the tragic clash between an immature boy being fed to the wolves in an immature star industry, but on song, he could take any team up three levels. The others mentioned here, where lynchpins in some of the strongest collectives of their time (70-s Flamenco, 80’s Brazil, 80-s France and Juventus, 88 Netherlands and late 80-s Milan). Maradona only played with that level of talent around him on a few occasions (Napoli around 87, and Argentina in 94). Had he been a little more protected by a sound management, his carreer would have been even more impressive. But watching him play at his best, it was simply a higher order experience.
What's the 'killer mindset'? That he cares more about records than about playing well? That he wants to leave because he fears for his all time UCL goal record?
I'm sorry but for me, that doesn't highlight his 'killer mindset' but the fact that the only reason Ronaldo could keep himself in the conversation is by devoting everything to optimize his numbers. He's not trying to be the best version of himself he could have been but trying to be the version that looks best on a spreadsheet. And that's a huge contrast to other greats of the game who would have gotten much more goals themselves making selfish concessions like that but decided against that because it would have made them worse players.
It's like a sales person that tries to make the most conversions but doesn't care if those customers actually stay and produce revenues as long as he can claim he's the all time great conversion maker.
@Grande
Don’t get me wrong, I still put Maradona ahead of them but all I wanted to achieve was a discussion because the gap is a lot closer than the way it is seen nowadays. The others mentioned are all truly all time great players.
I wanted to point out that Zico actually won individual awards vs Maradona and I am sure Platini would have too if it were possible.
Furthermore I think comparing Maradona at 17 with Zico was already possible. He was already that good. Pele too was already the best in the world at 18 when you’re ready, you’re ready. I stopped comparing in 1986 because by then Zico’s career was as good as over.
Who knows perhaps as an unknown player Maradona could have made a big impact on the WC 78 just as Pele did in 58.
The competition Maradona had during his career was far bigger than the one Messi had.
Another era where competition for being GOAT was enormously hard was the late 90s and 2000s with the likes of Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Ronaldo and I am sure I am forgetting a couple.
Don’t get me wrong, I still put Maradona ahead of them but all I wanted to achieve was a discussion because the gap is a lot closer than the way it is seen nowadays. The others mentioned are all truly all time great players.
I wanted to point out that Zico actually won individual awards vs Maradona and I am sure Platini would have too if it were possible.
Furthermore I think comparing Maradona at 17 with Zico was already possible. He was already that good. Pele too was already the best in the world at 18 when you’re ready, you’re ready. I stopped comparing in 1986 because by then Zico’s career was as good as over.
Who knows perhaps as an unknown player Maradona could have made a big impact on the WC 78 just as Pele did in 58.
The competition Maradona had during his career was far bigger than the one Messi had.
Another era where competition for being GOAT was enormously hard was the late 90s and 2000s with the likes of Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Ronaldo and I am sure I am forgetting a couple.
Add Benfica.
Regardless of which team he plays for or league he plays in, Messi is and has always been on another level interms of allround play.
Besides, not too long ago Ronaldo's Juve were knocked out by Lyon.
When Ronaldo went to Serie A, Juventus were by far the best side. He did not play for the challengers or a team further down.
He did not decide to come to United or England but rather we were the ONLY club for sentimental reasons willing to take him for the wages. If PSG had offered him a contract, he would be playing there right now.
He also wants to jump ship because he doesn't have players around him to set up tap ins for him so he can't stat pad.
The freak mindset thing is ofcourse a lie.
Madrid was all about shape and it was broken once Pepe (who was playing as a DM) got sent off - and all the remaining players had a bit of hesitation on who's picking up whom. Great goal mind, just not his greatest.
Inthink it’s a good point that the gap was smaller than people percieve, and that even goes for today. Messi and Ronaldo are frontrunners in that they are maybe the two most professionalized and driven supertalents yhe world has seen, and that comes down to their talent, and also the development of professionalization that has gone on within football catxhing up to other sports. At the same time, they have been professionalized goal scorers in a time were collectives once again have been rigges maximally to exploit a few specialized goal scoring roles, which has not happened in this way since the days of Dixie Dean, Ferenc Puskas and to a degree Pele. And they have played at a head in globalized capitalistic monopolies, where clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid, with their unique combos of national TV-deals and global market appeal, have been like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, able to for a while equip the worlds best players with a host of servanta who also are the worlds best players. All this has mad them score not 20 goals a year, not 30 goals, not even 40 goals a year, but even more ludicrous numbers.
If Ronaldo or Messi had been dealt De Bruynes role at City or Reus role at Dortmund, for instance, they would still be considered some of the best players of all time, but they would undoubtedly appear leas superhuman than they have thes last ten years.
Finally a coach will get hold of Messi and educate him on the real fundamentals of football: long diags.
You're making it sound as you're talking about some easy tap in goal, not one where there was 7 players infront of him before he decided to go nitro. They were shaken with red card alright, still that doesn't take a bit from this genious moment.
Yeah it's like that "Mad Men" meme IMO (with the Ronaldo guys saying "I feel Bad for the fact that You play in the Uber eats league and have scored less champions league goals than Ronaldo" and Messi in the Don Draper role).
He dribbles and beats Lass Diarra, beats Sergio Ramos for speed and takes Albiol to lunch. A great goal, but the goal he scored against Bilbao in the CDR final or the Getafe one were much better - imo.
Respect your point of view, can understand your point.
Also agree that those goals were spectatular as well, with more dribbling and faints- he really makes complicated thing easy on the eye, as if anyone can do that.
What stands out for me with this one that there werent't other Barcelona players in the final third, or anywhere once he took ball off Busquets, so Madrid players didn't have anyone else to cover but to stop him, and he didn't have anyone to play one-two or anything really, so he runs slmost straight through them like they're second grade opponents, brilliant.
Erm the Barca players didn't even try to support him and get in the box. He just picked up the ball from the half way line and ran past the real Madrid team like they weren't there. Dunno how any can't rate it as one of the best cl solo goals of all time if not the best. The thing is Messi makes it look easy.
If Messi just wanted to keep going with his goal stats he wouldn't be dropping deeper and deeper as he has since 2015 and beyond. I think Messi values his legacy but I also think he's confident about it. He's been talked by famous pundits, players and managers as the greatest ever or up there for over a decade now. Sure a world cup would be befitting of his cv, but I just dont think he cares as much as the other guy about his total numbers. Like Guardiola said "just watch him".
One of the best ever champions league goals. It's not just the goal though, it's also his allround performance. They simply couldn't live with him that night; by FAR the best player on the pitch.
Personally I think Messi cares a lot about scoring goals but he feels less pressure than Ronaldo about it because he can fall back on other aspect of football which Ronaldo apparently can't.
Messi this season is scoring for fun again, perhaps he wasn't even that bad last year after all. Perhaps I was blind because I only looked at the stats and they were disappointing. I have to admit I have never seen a French league game in my life.
Messi this season is scoring for fun again, perhaps he wasn't even that bad last year after all. Perhaps I was blind because I only looked at the stats and they were disappointing. I have to admit I have never seen a French league game in my life.
I hear you in isolation it's a stupendous goal, worthy of any accolade. But for context, it came in the 87th minute after Barca (and Messi) had been toying with Madrid for an hour and a half, dragging them out of position and Madrid were in 10, causing confusion on who's supposed to pick up whom. And the game was all but over.
Messi had also scored the first one (a peach of a goal, stealing in the first post and burning Ramos and Casillas for pace/agility). The second one just feels like a slo-mo, after soe half-assed challenges from Lass, Albiol, Ramos.
Stunning goal nevertheless.
Messi, at this stage of his career, resembles a Brazilian player like the fat Ronaldo or Ronaldinho. He barely moves on the pitch, but he's still capable of deciding many games.
Yes, another early CL knockout would make this psg era a big failure
Ronaldo only went to England because he was offered being the highest paid player in the history of the epl. He went to serie a and joined a team that won 8 straight league titles prior to that.
Yup. 8 league titles in a row, 4 doubles in a row, and 2 UCL finals in 4 years. They immediately regressed in the league and never sniffed a double or a Champions League title again. Moreover, he tried to join PSG but they didn't want to offer a fee for him.
Back to Messi. He seems content with his legacy as the consensus best ever, and I can imagine him moving to Miami and enjoying semi-retirement. He's not going to be caught in the Ballon d'or or golden boot races (7 vs 5, and 6 vs 4 to his nearest competitor, respectively), and the only thing i think he really should aim for is the career mark for trophies, before he leaves. It would require PSG to do atleast a double (which isn't impossible).
He leads the next active player by 78 in the total career goals and assists (and that doesn't appear to be in jeopardy, either).
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Messi is the GOAT, it's undeniable.
Messi has played 145 less games and has 33 less goals and 111 more assists. He is man of the match in his games roughly two and a half times more than Ronaldo is in his. So who really has the greater mentality?
This is a great post. It's not about box ticking.
It’s embodiment of his career. He’s working hard, and has completely belief in himself that he can push himself further when everything points him hit being able to reach that level. It’s not getting him down, he’s not tuning away from it. That’s the killer mindset. Not reportedly fecking off to MLS after spending 2 years in France when he’s still in amongst the top 10 players in world football.
Not being comfortable in a poor Barca side and being forced to leave due to financial rules. That’s not a man pushing his career as far as he can and that elite mindset is 100 percent a factor in sports. It’s actually the first time I’ve ever seen it downplayed and, surprise surprise, it’s because one side of Ronaldo v Messi has that in his favour. As good as Messi is, he does have a history of settling imo. Should have left Barca a lot earlier, should never have went to France and the MLS is a travesty
Complete nonsense
Some of this stuff is cracking (ly stupid). Bet you're one of those numpties who thinks that Sir Alex got lazy and comfy at United whereas Jose-got-sacked-a lot Mourinho is the true greatest ever football manager.Now apparently you aren't allowed to leave Europe at the age of 35/36 when you have almost nothing to prove given you're obviously the best of your era, because some raging Ronnie fan will cry / boast ? about you lacking the proper mentality while their hero stinks up the PL and fans can't wait to get rid.
Comical stuff.
Now apparently you aren't allowed to leave Europe at the age of 35/36 when you have almost nothing to prove given you're obviously the best of your era, because some raging Ronnie fan will cry / boast ? about you lacking the proper mentality while their hero stinks up the PL and fans can't wait to get rid.
Comical stuff.
They really are a deluded bunch. Joining a Juventus team that had won 8 doubles in a row shows "mentality", apparently. Running away from the challenge in Spain where your main competitor was leading his team to title after title = mentality.
But:
Most Goals in a calendar year (91)
Most Assists in a calendar year (36)
Most Goals in a season (73)
Most Career assists (344)
Most Career non-penalty goals (681)
Most Career goal contributions (1129)
Most Ballon D'ors (7)
Most Golden Boots (6)
2 trophies from being the decorated player in the sport's history
is...."meh. no mentality"
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The man who was the best player in the world for almost 16 years has mental issues, ok.
Congrats, you didn't adress any of my points
First of all, it is pretty obvious at this point that Ronaldo's mindset is flawed since it is a) bordering obsession and b) misdirected. It's actually a decent point to make that Ronaldo would probably have utilized his talents better if he was a slight bit less obsessed and actually devoted his determination to the right things instead of superficial metrics and pointless individual accolades.
But that's all of secondary importance. Even if Ronaldo's mindset was as elite as you described it, it's still not a means in itself. When I'm preparing incredibly well for my math exam but the lazy genius kid who did nothing still achieved a higher score, he's better than my regardless of my hard work.
This nonsense really has to stop.
The guy was settled in a country he had lived in since he was a kid, with a wife and children he probably didn't want to uproot. He was playing for the club he loved and felt a huge sense of loyalty towards, was winning every club and personal honour under the sun, and getting paid an absolute fortune more than he would anywhere else.
What reason did he have to leave? Other than to prove to the gormless morons of the world that he could 'do it on a wet, windy Tuesday night in Stoke' when he'd already been destroying the elite PL clubs in the CL for a decade plus.
Now apparently you aren't allowed to leave Europe at the age of 35/36 when you have almost nothing to prove given you're obviously the best of your era, because some raging Ronnie fan will cry / boast ? about you lacking the proper mentality while their hero stinks up the PL and fans can't wait to get rid.
Comical stuff.
Good point, why didn't Sir Alex 'test himself' by going to manage in a non-English speaking country? Rested on his laurels at United. Poor. No killer mentality. Jose meanwhile has 'proved himself' in different leagues therefore Jose >>>>> Fergie.
When it comes to career decisions at their old age, I'm a bit disappointed in both. Ronaldo should have went back to Sporting CP and try to catapult them to a league title while Messi needs(not literally) to play in Argentina while he is still very good.
This is the important point. Messi was at Newells as a kid and they couldn't afford the treatment that he needed. Barca stepped in and agreed to take him as a player and pay for the treatment. He therefore felt loyalty towards them as they were largely responsible for him being able to have a professional career.
He did not want to leave even at the time that he did; if he'd had his way, he would probably have been a career Barca player (with perhaps a late stint in MLS or back in Argentina). Because he was not able to stay longer, he was denied a proper farewell in front of the Barca fans, which is sad because his tenure there was by far the most successful in the club's history. The same cannot be said for any of Ronaldo's periods at his clubs.
No but that's not right. They should play in Europe till their legs fall off.