Has to be Lassina Traore.
Who is the current best player in the world?
- Thread starter Eddy_JukeZ
- Start date
-
Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Not every athlete's performance ages the same. People still accept LeBron as the best player in the NBA because he backs it up on the court.
Not saying Messi can't turn it around, but his start of the season isn't "best player in the world" level.
Kimmich, Salah, Bruno 
Either Lewandowski or Shelvey.
Based on this season's performance?
Lewandowski.
Lewandowski.
It has to be Lewandowski on current form. I still think Messi has enough gas in him to be the best player in the world, but he's not going to do for Bartomeu's Barcelona.
Neymar
It's boring but it's still Messi or maybe Neymar.
Let those guys play in Bayern's or Liverpool's team and nobody would mention Lewandowski. Think people underestimate the influence the team has on the individual performance.
Let those guys play in Bayern's or Liverpool's team and nobody would mention Lewandowski. Think people underestimate the influence the team has on the individual performance.
Should have ended some time ago. It's their popularity that has kept them in the race longer than it should.
Just if individual and team work together. Sometimes that just does not fit. Lewy has learned that the more he plays for the team, too - the more the team works for him in other situations...
Yeah. Luca Modric was head and shoulders above both Messi and Ronaldo in 2018
Put Messi or Cristiano in Liverpool, Bayern or Citeh and they'd still be the best. Their teams ar shite.
Messi is a system player, requires the whole team to change to make it work, and the system isn't that good anymore. In particular Messi would make Bayern worse. He doesn't press, he hogs the ball for too long, he doesn't help much with counterattacks, he's too slow for high line defence. Muller is what Messi should play like to work well with Bayern, but he wouldn't.
Barcelona spent hundreds of millions of euro on making the system work again and it wasn't enough, and Messi isn't getting younger. Maybe he could work at Man City because Pep is obsessed with this system anyway (and can't make it work without Messi).
Cristiano is much more universal than Messi - any team could use a good winger/striker hybrid. But he's also not top 10 player anymore. I see no reason to think he would be better at Bayern than he is at Juventus. Both teams dominate their leagues, and yet Ronaldo isn't looking as good as Lewandowski or Haaland.
Messi and Ronaldo are only mentioned in this conversation because of stuff they did 3-10 years ago, not now.
Barcelona spent hundreds of millions of euro on making the system work again and it wasn't enough, and Messi isn't getting younger. Maybe he could work at Man City because Pep is obsessed with this system anyway (and can't make it work without Messi).
Cristiano is much more universal than Messi - any team could use a good winger/striker hybrid. But he's also not top 10 player anymore. I see no reason to think he would be better at Bayern than he is at Juventus. Both teams dominate their leagues, and yet Ronaldo isn't looking as good as Lewandowski or Haaland.
Messi and Ronaldo are only mentioned in this conversation because of stuff they did 3-10 years ago, not now.
Interesting that that suddenly the team is so important for Messi and Ronaldo, when their fans actually got really defensive every time somebody said that they score so much, because they play in an all-conquering and perfectly oiled super-team, a few years ago.
It's the same with them and Lewandowski: If your team is merely "good", they will still score a lot, but not those outrageous numbers.
You see it with all those three in their national teams, which is actually a good comparison (team, that is not well-oiled, way less automatisms etc.):
Messi: 70 goals in 138 matches (0.51 goals per match)
Ronaldo: 101 goals in 165 matches (0.61 goals per match)
Lewandowski: 63 goals in 114 matches (0.55 goals per match)
Right now I don't see how anyone can put Messi or Ronaldo above Lewandowski. Of course that could all change again, if Lewandowski regresses or Messi/Ronaldo somehow find their otherworldly form from a few years ago again, but for the past year and a half Lewandowski has been the best in the world.
Last edited:
Still Messi and Ronaldo at the moment. The thread is "who is the current best player" not the "in form performing" player
Lewanndowski and Haaland have obviously been excellent the last season and a bit but that is goal scoring not overall play, same with Salah.
If we are talking overall play DeBruyne deserves a shout
Lewanndowski and Haaland have obviously been excellent the last season and a bit but that is goal scoring not overall play, same with Salah.
If we are talking overall play DeBruyne deserves a shout
Might be interesting for you, for me it's not because I never argued that way. I defended Ronaldo before he won four CLs with Madrid and I defended Messi after Barcelona slowly detoriated after Pep's departure.
Lewandowksi scores like crazy, yes, but he's a pure striker. Even more so than Cristiano in his late years. But until he's as good a passer and dribbler as Messi is and has the same impact on the game, he's not on his level. Honestly, it baffles me how anyone who watched both players last season can claim that Lewandowski was better. It's mind blowing, really. Messi's output might have taken a hit but he still does things nobody on this planet can reproduce on a regular basis.
I miss the times when people actually watched football and didn't go by stats and titles. I guess today the Ballon D'Or would go to Eto'o over Ronaldinho and van Nistelroy over Zidane. I'm still going by that and consequently, Lewandowski doesn't even make the top 5 for me.
Might be true but then again, Messi's the most progressive passer in the world and is leading almost every metric in that regard since over a decade with the only player able to keep up over a short period being Özil. If anything, Messi has become more of a team player in recent years and sacrificed individual glory for that. This season is the best example. His stats are underwhelming but he's already at three or four insane pre-assists this season that went unnoticed.
Anyway, if you want to see it like that, it doesn't make sense to speak about players as individuals at all. And if you do, there might be other players who proved to be more important for Bayern than Lewandowski. Thiago or Kimmich are the first to come to mind.
Messi is still the best by a distance, even now.
Lewandowski have been the top scorer AND top assister last season in Champions League. This season in Bundesliga he has 10 goals and 5 assists in 5 games (and 1 almost-assist). He's crucial for Bayern's build-up play when going from defence to attack - Neuer or Alaba makes a long pass, Lewandowki wins the header and holds the balls to let people come forward or speeds up the counterattack with a first-touch pass. His first touch and ball control is outrageous and he passes better than any striker I've seen.
Yet people say he's "pure goalscorer and does nothing else". It's clear to me these people don't watch Bayern.
Yet people say he's "pure goalscorer and does nothing else". It's clear to me these people don't watch Bayern.
Messi is not a goalscorer, he scores, yes, you can't measure him by that.
Nor does that statistic factor in that Poland and Portugal get to play cannon fodder teams in the EC qualifiers. Messi's average level of opponent is much higher than the ones Cristiano and Lewandowski faced with their national teams. And that's just one argument for why that comparison is apples and oranges.
Because you're simply biased against Bayern and overrate certain aspects of the game (flashiness, technique etc.), while underrating other aspects (workrate, pressing etc.) .
Nobody claims that Lewandowski is better than prime Messi and Ronaldo, but currently he's better than both of them.
Last edited:
Daniel James
I can’t see any way pogba could be above KDB.
You have an odd fixation on Mata. Troubling...
Thiago was one of their least important players last season (at least from their starting 11).
He was out for nearly the entire second half of the season and they didn't miss a beat.
Last edited:
You have an odd fixation on following me around.
Ain't no way the slayer of Nimes,Dijon and Amiens is the 2nd best player in the world when he's not even the best player in Ligue 1
I'm not denying I don't like Bayern but I'm able to look past that when judging players. I mean, you can find posts of mine where I claim that Robben was the third best player of his generation or that prime Boateng was the best CB I've seen in my lifetime. Credit where credit is due. My assessment of Lewandowski, too, has nothing to do with him playing for Bayern. I'm simply a strong advocate of not only looking at scorers. You can convince yourself of that in the Messi vs. Ronaldo thread.
Thing is, chance creation is IMO much harder and much more important for success than chance conversion. And last season Messi was leading almost every statistic measuring offensive impact, be it successful dribblings, key passes, chance conversion, through balls, goal impact, packing rate and so forth, like he's done throughout his whole career. He's simply a freak of nature and playing in a tier of his own. Lewandowski is a great striker, quite possibly the best of his generation (although Suarez also has a strong claim on that title) but he's just not that good. It's tough for the stars playing at the same time as he does but it's simply the way it is.
Because they don't need him in the league anyway. Kimmich could rupture his ACL right now and they would still dominate almost every game, too. That doesn't mean Kimmich isn't important.
Just look at the final. Thiago was the best player on the pitch that day. The amount of pressure he absorbed and the progressive passes he made were really, really remarkable. In general, Bayern's team is a very cohesive and well drilled unit but Thiago is one of the few players who stood out. Lewandowski does, too, but I simply struggle to rate a player so highly if his contribution outside of goals is so low. That's also why I never really warmed up to the late version of Cristiano who for me was much better during his late United and early Madrid years and why I thought that the Ballon D'Or for Modric was deserved. That's actually a very good comparison, now that I think of it. If a player beats the pressing of the opponent time and again, ensures you dominate the other team and sets up the attackers frequently, that's worth more than a goal for me. To me that player is more important than the one who's at the end of the assembly line. I mean, we're talking about a player that makes maybe 50-70 good plays a game against one who maybe makes 10. It just happens that the latter affects the scoring sheet more prominently.
Using this criteria I'd probably say Neymar.
Lewandowski atm. People saying Messi He’s one of the best ever but if you only became a football fan from the beginning of last season, which is a good timeframe, then he’d struggle to make your top 5.
He’s one of the best ever but if you only became a football fan from the beginning of last season, which is a good timeframe, then he’d struggle to make your top 5.i think Neymar is the best player.
Kimmich, Lewandowski, De Bruyne, maybe Mbappe but his stats are not that great for PSG. One of Sterling and Mane would do it for me as an "unpopular" choice.
Yeah on the training ground maybe, would explain a lot.
The only way FIFA would give an award to Eto'o over Ronaldinho is if he changed his name to Etoinho
Lewandowski atm. People saying Messi
Honest question, how often did you watch both players last season?
Lewa but I expect KDB to overtake him.
Frequently, and Messi has not been better than the machine which Lewandowski has been.
I don't rate Lewandowski as highly as some do, they had an easy run to the CL last year and players score for fun in the Bundesliga. Over the last 5 years hes often been missing in the big games in the CL.
I wouldn't give it to one player but say its a mix of the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and KDB, all for various different attributes. Which is more due to the former 2 getting older than anything else.
I wouldn't give it to one player but say its a mix of the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and KDB, all for various different attributes. Which is more due to the former 2 getting older than anything else.
Why is KDB regarded as a better overall footballer than someone like Mane for instance. KDB is obviously a better passer of the ball but what else does he do that makes him better. Mane is a more effective goal scorer, more effective defender, better at heading, better at dribbling, is both faster and fitter with less injuries. What is it that makes KDB a better overall footballer?
I mean he hasn't shown that for a long time. Destroying bad la liga sides doesn't show that.