This is a fun video
Lionel Messi
- Thread starter Scarecrow
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
This is a fun video
My post wasn’t directed at you mate, it was directed at the general direction of where the thread was going.
Why is there a new thread for this?
Magnificent hat trick last night, and a great solo effort by Dembele as well.
I still think the scoreline was a bit harsh on PSV as Barca wasn't really anywhere near their best.
I still think the scoreline was a bit harsh on PSV as Barca wasn't really anywhere near their best.
Nothing to add I just wanted to quote this emoji
It's great to look miles better than everyone else on the pitch in these games while making it all look easy but then it can't all come falling down as soon as the circumstances get harder. Same as Neymar, when the game is difficult and the team isn't comfortable in the game then everything seems to change and there's an obvious lack of adaptability.
Another CL failure won't do, especially now that Barcelona have the best squad in the world and Messi basically promised the Camp Nou they'd do everything to win it.
Another CL failure won't do, especially now that Barcelona have the best squad in the world and Messi basically promised the Camp Nou they'd do everything to win it.
Eh?
Pretty obvious really by looking at the rest of the top teams in european football. Don't even think anyone gets close.
Might start a thread on it if people disagree though. Who would you say has a better squad than Barcelona?
The bend on that free kick was lovely.
Messi is a complete anomaly. The only footballer who defies logic with what he does on the football pitch. I've seen a fair few great footballers thus far. But nobody else constantly does things that just seem completely impossible. The ability in tight spaces to make split second movements, decisions, passes etc. is other worldly.
100%.
No other footballer quite combines every element he does, as an attacker.
He embodies literally the best (arguably even better than all) vision and passing of a CM/AM in the mould of Xavi/de Bruyne, combined with the dribbling and close control of Hazard/Robben and to still have the effectiveness and efficiency (goal output) of the best forwards to have ever played the game.
It's unreal.
The only player that I've read about who's remotely similar was Maradona. But other than mainly clips and old footage, I'm not old enough to have really seen enough of him, week in, week out, as I have of Messi.
There's nothing about their squad that makes it any better than it was last year, or the year before that.
Both Madrid teams, Bayern, City or Liverpool are capable of at least mixing it with Barcelona. Probably Juventus too.
Ronaldo didn’t play well in many big games last season, in fact Messi played much better in many big games than Ronaldo.
Then saying it is all well and good for Messi to play well against small teams but didn’t do it when it mattered against big teams.
Well Ronaldo went missing before Christmas and didn't perform against the small teams, believe it or not the small teams matter because they are the majority of the games.
United won plenty of titles by beating the small teams for the majority.
Madrid couldn’t win the league because they didn’t dispatch the small teams. They won the CL because them/Ronaldo only had to show up/perform in a hand full of games.
Messi was the best player in the world last season, regardless of what people like you believe/choose to ignore.
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It's the good old terrible team mates argument again.
Aguero, Dybala, Di Maria and co, such terrible players.
Go ask any Argentinian about those guys performing for Argentina.
The argument has been going round in circles for an age. Messi and Ronaldo both perform amazingly for their clubs, but both perform average for their countries for the majority. Even though both are the all time top scorers for Argentina/Portugal.
Ronaldo has been no better for Portugal than Messi has for Argentina.
There is a great quote by Valdano who said "Messi is Maradona every day"
Obviously beating the small teams matters... no shit. It matters a lot. Did I ever say it didn’t?
I’m just saying Messi and Barcelona can’t afford a repeat of what’s been happening in the past few seasons. The problem isn’t Messi looking two levels above everyone else at home vs Eibar. It’s him looking ordinary and repeatedly having a lot less influence when Barcelona fail to control the game.
It has nothing to do with how big the games are, I’m sure he’s as mentally strong as anyone.
Ronaldo left Madrid, Barcelona signed Arthur and Vidal for their midfield and have Coutinho and Dembele who seems like he’s adapted now that he has no injuries. Obviously there are teams that can beat them but it seems very clear that Barcelona have the best squad in the world.
Not true at all
They're average' (which they aren't) for those teams because they have lesser support. It's completely normal.
I don't speak about Ronaldo, but apart from these Russia games, Messi has always been the best for Argentina. Always. It's a complete myth he's been average.
The Argentina situation is really complex though, I don't think the news get to England. But the management has been incredibly poor. All of us are convinced that his FA with all their internal politics have wasted the talent of the best of all times, and despite that incapability of making a comptetivive team with a good organization and good managers working under an idea, we still reached to 3 consecutive finals with Messi and lost to Penalties
No, but for some strange reason they don't work together.
Aguero, Dybala, Di Maria and co, such terrible players.
Not true because Ronaldo has been better I assume? If so then I can’t be bothered to derail the thread any further by telling you why he has not been better. This debate has been done to death also.
They are not average compared to every other player in world football, I mean they are average compared to their normal standards. My point is that one has not been better than the other on the international stage.
I didn’t mean any disrespect. I mean that Messi has not been as great as he has been for Barcelona. Yes he has been the best player for them for many years now, and it is unfortunate they couldn’t pass the final hurdle.
My point was that they have both performed to a similar standard internationally. Forget what they have won etc, but look at their individual performances, without looking at who they have around them, because individually it doesn’t matter who they have around them.
We have moved on from telegrams - news does reach our shores pretty quickly these days
Another thread ruined, well done to all involved!
Yep. Can't the Ronaldo weirdos enjoy Ronaldo without slithering into every Messi thread and shouting CL QUARTER FINALS.
That said the Messi weirdos probably do the same in the Ronaldo thread, and so world turns.
I am (unfortunately) old enough to have seen Maradona, and he was quite honestly nowhere near Messi. He was more a mercurial player, who would produce moments of absolute brilliance. He was more like Ronaldinho than Messi.
The reasons he is compared to Messi are that he was the best player (for a much shorter period of time) in his day, he is also Argentinian, and he had a similar stature to Messi. He doesn't physically resemble Ronaldinho, so it's not such an obvious comparison, but in fact his style of play was much more like the Brazilian than Messi.
You would never see Maradona do what Messi did yesterday, and drop right back into midfield to link the play. Although he had exceptional technical ability, he wasn't really a player to make Xavi-like slide-rule passes in the final third, just as Ronaldinho wasn't. He was an attacker, he didn't combine the qualities of a midfielder and a forward as Messi does.
What Messi does is absolutely unique. It's not just his unbelievable level of technical ability. It's the fact that he combines several roles in the team in one player. There has never been anyone else who you can say is the best passer in the world, the best dribbler in the world, the best free-kick taker in the world, the best finisher in the world, who goes past more players than anyone else, who makes more assists than anyone else, who won the Golden Shoe, who has more key contributions, who made more completed dribbles than anyone else. There has never been anyone like this before, and there will never be anyone like this again.
If you watched yesterday's game, Messi spent a lot of it in a deep position on the right-hand side of midfield. Then he moved infield to pick the ball up and begin attacks from a central midfield position. For any other player, you would have watched the early exchanges and thought it impossible for him to score a hat-trick. Only Messi can do this, while also making all of the best passes in the game, and being a constant threat with dribbling. And he hardly ever scores easy goals. The majority of his goals are sheer quality, he hardly ever relies on tap-ins.
No-one else that has ever played football can touch what he can do on the field, and does do with incredible consistency. No-one else should even be compared to him.
Believe it or not, not every news get to every country these days, even with the internet.
Man city comfortably have a better squad than Barca. Liverpool are also a better team with a better manager as well. Juventus would be a massive failure to not reach the final at least either. They are one of the bigger favourites according to the bookies
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Just a joy to watch. The way he flicked that free kick in was magic, his passing throughout mesmeric and a couple of tidy finishes to go with it. Illuminated a drab enough Barca performance.
Special goal from Dembele notwithstanding.
Special goal from Dembele notwithstanding.
Must be a luxury for Ronaldo to not show up at all in the semi finals and final of CL and have competent teammates who can finish the job. If Messi played as poorly as Ronaldo did in any round Barca never advances
Won’t happen anymore in this thread, my apologiesNo more Ronaldo mentions or comparisons here please — in any context, use this thread instead: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/messi-v-ronaldo.400526/page-325
Rule violators will be harshly dealt with!
Noooooo!
It'd be better to stick with the term greatest Cal?, not best.
Vidal's had his best days and in the meantime they've lost players like Iniesta and Neymar.
I think there's also an argument to be made for Madrid becoming more fluent as a team without Ronaldo, though it's obviously a lot of goals to replace.
Again, man city easily haveabetter squad than Barca as well as the much better manager
Valverde isn’t even top 5 manager in the world and that makes a big difference
Valverde isn’t even top 5 manager in the world and that makes a big difference
At the end of the day, he's just one player and there's other 21 in the pitch.
What is he supposed to do when Roma bait Barcelona into playing hoofball, put 3 players covering him and suddenly Valverde's plan to counter that is to replicate the hoofball?. Game turned to a duel of Dzeko and Schick vs Pique and Umtiti in one side, and Suarez vs Fazio, Manolas and Juan Jesus on the other while Messi had 2 to 3 players covering him and the rest of our team did nothing, he's the best for a certain set of skills, but going Tony Pulis isn't one of them, and Roma aren't the first ones to lead us into a game of aerial duels to neuter what Messi can do with a ball in the ground.
The fact that someone can blame Leo for what happened that game, when the manager had every resource in the bench to turn the game around will baffle me everytime.
He can scream and shout at the players to calm the feck down and start passing it and rally round and make sure everyone knows that they've got a leader to follow. There are many different types of captains and they don't all have to be the screamy, shouty type but if ever there was a time for it, it was then and Messi just stood there looking miserable and disinterested.
When everything is going mad on the pitch you just need one player to rise up and take control and it makes it easier on everyone else to shift the dynamic. Messi didn't/doesn't do that when things get hard, or at least he certainly doesn't against the insane standards he's judged (standards that he's responsible for given we know just how good he can be when he just goes for it).
Was Roma the only big game Messi played in last season? Of course it wasn't. Any claims of Messi not being a big game player should be ridiculed.
Pele perhaps because of his goal scoring stats but Maradona isn't on the same level as Messi at club level. Messi can do everything Maradona could do but better not to mention he's also one of the greatest goal scorers in the history of football.
Yeah, because the guys in our squad look at Messi, what he's done, his achievements, his legacy and the way he behaves daily, and they're not sure they have in him a leader to follow. What they just needed was something screaming at them to calm down.
Puyol was that kind of leader for 15 seasons, and the first 6 it amounted for nothing, zero titles to show, because his team couldn't be fixed by shouting or leading, it needed to be improved tactically from the bench. I don't get how Messi shouting would make Suarez grow 10 centimeters, Pique stop doing his usual dumb actions, Busquets forget that he's playing injured or teach Semedo how to properly cover Manolas in a corner.
The insane standards he's judged are being set by people that only want to watch him fall and take active part in achieving it, I don't think how you can watch the game vs Roma and come to the conclusion that he was at fault of anything in that leg, he's sacrificing his stats just to fill the role the team asks for him, and when the team isn't up to what we need to win a game he's the first one to eat the blame, even if he was the best player on the pitch.
You can have all that knowledge behind you but in that moment on the pitch when everything is going to shit nothing about the past matters, it's all about the present and players panicking and resorting to hoofball need one person to just say 'slow it down, calm down, start passing' and then lead by example and people will follow. We're mostly sheep at the end of the day looking for a shepherd. I know that through playing football myself and seeing the difference between players panicking and hoofballing to suddenly playing tiki-taka because they're taking a second to think about what they're doing after someone has told them.
Every time the camera focused on Messi during that Roma game it looked like he was doing nothing at all. It's similar to when everyone said Mascherano was the leader during the 2014 World Cup even though Messi got all the plaudits. Sometimes that warrior spirit is needed so that people can feel safe and secure knowing in that moment somebody is standing up proud and not just standing there looking dejected and sheepish. That visual and audible message coming from a leader can be enough to make everyone snap out of the panic and start doing things properly again.
You don't get it and that's fair enough but I've seen the evidence of it. Different times call for different leadership approaches and for many a time all it requires is for Messi to do his usual run past four/five challenges and either score or play an inch perfect pass and boom, goal and that's fine but those times come against easier opponents. When somebody actually puts pressure on you and you're seriously under the cosh, you need someone loud and proud to stand up and take the game by the scruff of the neck and everyone rallies behind them. Annoyingly Steven Gerrard was excellent at that and he's remembered the way he is because of that.
There are many, many occasions in the face of extreme pressure that Messi has wilted. Sometimes I agree that there isn't much he can do if his team mates have just lost it or they're not good enough but he so often looks like he can't be arsed in those moments and they leave a lasting impression just as much as his incredible goals, assists and dribbles do. Much like Ronaldo having a hissy fit is part and parcel of him when things go wrong, Messi turns into a shy little child.
Nobody is perfect and that is Messi's big flaw in amongst all of his amazing attributes.