There was a performance thread. What happened to it?Why does every Messi thread have to devolve into the same, tired nonsense?
Can there never be a thread for him that just talks about his current form and performance?
Lionel Messi
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His goal scoring record is as good as anyone's, his dribbling is in a league of its own, and the range and precision of his passing is second to none. He really is a joy to watch.
Pelé. You also managed to mention same things twice and thrice in your post.
Yet he just had a poor world cup, go figure.
Only by his insane standards. Even stars like Hazard get praised for performances Messi is criticized for. If his team loses/draws and he hasn't scored, people say he was bad, even if he had countless dribbles, initiated many attacks, created chances, retained the ball well etc.
nah, he was mediocre at the tournament.
Mediocre.
Pffft Messi isnt even the best player at Barca .
Only kidding
Only kidding
Absolutely.
He suffers from a) the impossible standards he's set for himself b) perspectives being too basic to bother to look at anything beyond goal/assist/win/loss when judging an individual in a team sport.
That's not true though, is it?
Messi's eternal anchor is being heralded and expected to perform at the level of Pelé and Maradona, exclusively, and part of that eternal weight, is the necessity to be amazing, and win, a World Cup.
It's a unique weight, that is shouldered by so few players in history you can count them on your hands. It's the burden that has really sunk countless all-time greats and one that'll do the same to players who we've not even heard of yet that come along in the future.
There's no other player this generation with that same [singular] burden Messi has had on his shoulders since his early 20's. That's the bad that comes with being so esteemed, unfortunately.
It's entirely true. As is what you say. Messi bears the burden on near impossible expectations, partly because people expect you do match/suprpass the achievements of all the past greats but I was speaking more from the point of view of actual performances. He does the absurd with such regularity that beating players and playing passes others mostly dream of, is nothing to rave about.
The problem is when you don't view performances from a place of perspective. I'm afraid no one takes this summer's Argentina to win the WC. Similarly, Maradona not dominating European club football to the extent Messi has also has to do with the respective teams they played with. It's a team sport, which is lost on many.
Yes, but beyond a certain level, it is expected and, indeed, taken for granted, because the default level is simply beyond that of other good/great footballers - this is when a certain echelon entire a realm where they compete only against their own level and that of peers that have gone before them and nothing else they do really, and I mean really, registers as that's what they are supposed to do. It's a terrible, crushing burden in itself, and, like I said before, it befalls so few throughout history that you can count them on fingers, and toes, if you're being generous.
Messi went beyond comparison with 'good' and 'great' relative to his own era a long, long time ago, and from there, he was expected to go on and do what others of the same esteem have done before him, and that was simply to validate him (in relative terms), not even have him surpass them.
Maradona's downfall was entirely down to him, I would proffer. It's left no mark on his legacy because his peaks are probably the highest football has seen, plus the club game was very different back then with no super squads to blur lines like we see now.
The last player before Messi to carry an equivalent burden was Ronaldo Lima. It is probably fair to say it takes 15yrs, at a minimum, for these kind of players to come along and carry the torch.
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^^ Tell a lie: the last player before Messi, carrying that burden was Ronaldinho in 2006, which he completely capitulated under.
It's win or bust for him in the last 8 years, watching the games in the Spanish tv was specially aggravating, one day you have the pundits praising Isco for a decent performance, next day you have them criticizing Messi for not scoring a bunch of goals, when he was doing almost 3 times the amount of work Isco did.
The top 10 players of this era are mostly compared to Messi at his normal/worst level, Leo is the only one that has to deal with living up to his legendary seasons, performances and ultimately the Pelé/Maradona comparison.
Best player I have ever seen. Bettee than Maradona, Pele etc etc.. I'm not taking achievements into account, just football played.
As a player I think he's clearly the best there's ever been and I don't think there could be another guy as good as he is in almost every aspect of the game. On his day, he's the best finisher/dribbler/passer in the world. It's an uncommon and unreal combination of atributes.
The greatest might be Pele or Maradona, it depends on the perspective.
The most entertaining player of all times is between Maradona and Ronaldinho. I know it has nothing to do with Messi but I've found an old video about maradona, one I saw when I was like 14 (being 27 now) and I remember I was shocked by how entertaining he was, the way Maradona dribbled, controlled, the way he lifted the ball first for then cross with a bycicle kick (!!!!) which is not seen nowadays. The way he misses is also entertaining. I enjoyed the hole ronaldinho cycle and he revitalized football, but I don't think there's ever been a more entertaining guy with a ball at his feet than Diego.
I know it's potato quality but I find it fascinating (and the video is like 13 years old at least)
The greatest might be Pele or Maradona, it depends on the perspective.
The most entertaining player of all times is between Maradona and Ronaldinho. I know it has nothing to do with Messi but I've found an old video about maradona, one I saw when I was like 14 (being 27 now) and I remember I was shocked by how entertaining he was, the way Maradona dribbled, controlled, the way he lifted the ball first for then cross with a bycicle kick (!!!!) which is not seen nowadays. The way he misses is also entertaining. I enjoyed the hole ronaldinho cycle and he revitalized football, but I don't think there's ever been a more entertaining guy with a ball at his feet than Diego.
I know it's potato quality but I find it fascinating (and the video is like 13 years old at least)
I feel the only reason you would put Maradona over Messi is because of international career, winning the world cup with an Argentina squad that's been revisioned in history as a him winning it single-handedly when he had a really good team around him (oh and also cheated pretty infamously to win it). Messi dwarfs him in pretty much every category, the only debatable one might be long-range passing.
....and cocaine bumps.
Naah, he was very average. What I found even weirder was his reluctance to get heavily involved at times given how poor they looked. He needed to run those games, go the extra yard but he wanted to walk around waiting for the ball.
Who's #22 and does he get the assist for that goal?
The only category that Messi "dwarfs" Maradona is his goalscoring. Their passing, dribbling, free kick are pretty much on par (and I'd say that Maradona was a marginally better passer and a more inventive dribbler) — and when we look at mentality and leadership, there is only 1 winner. The goalscoring gap is huge though, even when we take away the goals-friendly time and league and the advantages Messi gets by playing in such dominant side.
Apart for a few glimpses of brilliance he was rubbish, some people are too biased to acknowledge it though.
Can someone post the goal vs Espanyol in which first Iniesta and then Messi decided to dribble through their defence. Messi's effort was initially saved but Suarez scored from the rebound.
A few moments later in the same match, Messi went on another similar dribble and the move was finished by jordi alba.
It's unforgettable moments of quality like these which makes Messi special apart from all his goals and trophies
A few moments later in the same match, Messi went on another similar dribble and the move was finished by jordi alba.
It's unforgettable moments of quality like these which makes Messi special apart from all his goals and trophies
Excellent post, I agree completely.
On a weekly basis, Messi produces the kind of football that world class players produce only a few times a season. But for Messi, that level is ordinary, it's his default setting and unless he dribbles past half of the opposition and scores a great goal, he isn't doing anything special for his own standard. So really, it's not about whether Messi is better than the other players, it's whether or not Messi is better than the best version of Messi people remember.
I actually think the current version of Messi is the best Messi, even though a lot of people seem to think his peak is behind him. I disagree, for me his peak is now because his game has evolved. He does less flashy stuff like dribbling everybody (only sometimes) so he will attract less attention now than he did with the Getafe goal, for example. Instead, he will play in a way that develops Barça's game, drop deep to receive the ball from the DM, play team-mates through and basically contribute to building attacks rather than waiting upfront to finish them.
He started doing this to compensate for the lack of creativity in our midfield due to the departure of Xavi and the aging of Iniesta so he now plays several roles for the team. One player does what is usually done by several world class players, and he does it so well that all of the aspects of his game are now more or less of equal quality, which ironically makes it less likely for people to notice what he actually does because his duties on the pitch no long have him dribbling the entire opposition team from the half-way line. Back when he had Xavi and Iniesta behind him, he had the luxury of doing the kinds of things players get individual awards for, but now he has more responsibility and a far greater role that he takes on and excels at without a problem. It's astonishing to me how he developed and kept growing, which now sees him encompass so many aspects of Barça's game that the team cannot do anything without him.
The people who criticize Messi don't even realize they are holding him to a much higher standard than they do the rest of the elite players. His 2017/18 season bests every other player in the world comfortably, and yet people now think Mohamed Salah can be in the same sentence with The Number One.
Clearly not true.
Why not
Agree: said something along the lines here:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/whi...enny-of-their-fee-wages.441448/#post-23062018
Good post.
have a day offPipe down, he said as good as.
He has what - 40 odd less career goals than your boy? Being younger too.
Best description of Messi's situation I've read.
Sometimes I believe he would've been rated even higher than he is now if he had declined in a similar manner as Ronaldo, Ronaldinho or Maradona. His longevity made his brillance seem like business as usual. But if you really watch him without this bias, see his plays and what he does in the games he plays I can't imagine anyone could come to the conclusion that there's been a player which has been better than him over a period longer than a few months since Messi won his first Ballon D'Or.
There we go again, the absolute certainty that Messi fans possess and being completely dismissive of the other side of the argument.
The football world has already voted someone else better for 6 of the last 11 calendar years and about to make it 7 out of 12. Yet the managers, footballers and journalists know nothing. The Messi fans know best.
He's clearly referring to talent/ability Cal?.There we go again, the absolute certainty that Messi fans possess and being completely dismissive of the other side of the argument.
The football world has already voted someone else better for 6 of the last 11 calendar years and about to make it 7 out of 12. Yet the managers, footballers and journalists know nothing. The Messi fans know best.
The Ballon D'or isn't an annual objective endeavour to determine who is technically best player in the world. It's essentially an annual prize given to the player, from a group of the world's greatest players, who had the best season. And that 'best season' is heavily influenced by team success.
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no chance of being a top 3. his standards are pretty ridiculously high. interesting topic though
Different opinions and stuff. Closest space dribbling I've seen.
When it happens occasionally, you can put it down to form, team performance, etc.
When someone has the better year more often than not, the most reasonable conclusion is that said player is better.
Occam's razor
At least he doesn't cry when sent off
Occam's razor may apply if everyone agreed on the same parameters for the discussion. In other words, you have to be more specific with your terminology Cal?. If you want to claim Ronaldo is the greater player then that's fine, and an argument can certainly be constructed to bolster that claim. The better player though? No.
It's not an assist, It isn't a goal but the whole Stadium is chanting his name. Can you imagine any other player doing that on a daily basis, score and assist several times a game his teammates? I just can't