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Is Messi the best you've seen?



J

joeinbrighton

New member
Nov 20, 2012
1,853
Brighton
I don't buy the argument that Messi has to own a World Cup before he can be considered an all-time great. That may have been true once when European club football wasn't the omnipresent force that it is now and so the World Cup was the principal barometer of determining who the best player of any one time was, but these days, the top players are competing against one another all the time and Messi has shone in that competition over a number of years now. I'd say he is the best footballer I have seen in my time.

Also, there are some great players who are still regarded as great players even though they did not win anything for their country. Not because it was their fault, but because they were in teams that were otherwise not good enough to win tournaments, or in the case of George Best and George Weah, to even qualify for the World Cup. Even so, players like Puskas, Cruyff, Di Stefano and Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as Best, would surely be in most people's top 10-15 players of all time even though they never won a World Cup. In the last 30 years, you could say that Maradona, Zidane and Ronaldo are the only players who have really carried a team to win a World Cup on the strength of their own efforts (and in Zidane's case, France got to a final after he missed a couple of matches to suspension).

Argentina have never been the best team in the world during Messi's time and it is only because Messi is in the team that anyone would seriously have expected them to win a World Cup. His team-mates in a blue and white striped shirt also don't quite have the same understanding with him as his Barcelona team-mates do and they haven't built the team around him in the same way. In fact in 2010, under Maradona, he was completely marginalised. Although he did not light up the 2014 World Cup quite as you might have expected, it was his goals that won Argentina the group and therefore set them on the path to the final. But I think Argentina need to utilise him better if he is going to win them a World Cup, added to which, they need to strengthen a couple of areas of the team to be a major contender for a World Cup outside of South America.
 




Simster

Simster

"the man's an arse"
Jul 7, 2003
54,244
Surrey
How anyone can rate Messi ahead of Maradona is beyond me. Messi is a phenomenal player and scores sooo many goals, but he is surrounded by world class players at Barca. On the other hand, Maradona not only won a scudetto pretty much on his own (for Napoli), he did the same for his country at a World Cup (1986) and was massively influential in nearly doing it again in 1990! It's hard to overstate Maradona's importance to that 1986 Argentina team - they were really very ordinary, except him. The only person who has come close to being the one man team he was is probably Brian Laudrup for Denmark.

I never saw Pele and Messi & "CR7" are indeed awesome players but can't imagine I'll ever see a player as good as Diego Maradona.
 


Stumpy Tim

Stumpy Tim

Well-known member
Jul 6, 2003
14,036
Back in Brighton. Well Hove actually
Simster said:
How anyone can rate Messi ahead of Maradona is beyond me. Messi is a phenomenal player and scores sooo many goals, but he is surrounded by world class players at Barca. On the other hand, Maradona not only won a scudetto pretty much on his own (for Napoli), he did the same for his country at a World Cup (1986) and was massively influential in nearly doing it again in 1990! It's hard to overstate Maradona's importance to that 1986 Argentina team - they were really very ordinary, except him. The only person who has come close to being the one man team he was is probably Brian Laudrup for Denmark.

I never saw Pele and Messi & "CR7" are indeed awesome players but can't imagine I'll ever see a player as good as Diego Maradona.
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This
 


the wanderbus

the wanderbus

Well-known member
Dec 7, 2004
2,944
pogle's wood
I remember the good times said:
Best, Greaves and the many others from years gone by did not have every kick televised and shown over and over again.
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Exactly that plus players like Cruyff, Best, Pele, Maradona etc used to get very little if any protection from the ref and would find them continually up against defenders happy to kick lumps out of them, so for me you cannot compare players from different eras .Besides truly great players don't disappear in World Cup finals.
 


Megazone

Megazone

On his last warning
Jan 28, 2015
8,679
Northern Hemisphere.
the wanderbus said:
Exactly that plus players like Cruyff, Best, Pele, Maradona etc used to get very little if any protection from the ref and would find them continually up against defenders happy to kick lumps out of them, so for me you cannot compare players from different eras .Besides truly great players don't disappear in World Cup finals.
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Truly great players don't drink large amounts of alcohol or take illegal drugs.
 




M

matbha

Well-known member
Apr 13, 2014
983
W.C. said:
Some of the comments on here are laughable.

I'll accept the wc ones to a certain extent, and who apart from Maradona has dragged a team like Napoli to a title?

But Messi is a beautiful footballer. He is football. He's football at it's best if you ask me.
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Messi still hasn't hit his prime , Ron is in his prime ,Messi will get better for Ron its decline
 


U

um bongo molongo

Well-known member
Jul 26, 2004
2,703
Battersea
Simster said:
How anyone can rate Messi ahead of Maradona is beyond me. Messi is a phenomenal player and scores sooo many goals, but he is surrounded by world class players at Barca. On the other hand, Maradona not only won a scudetto pretty much on his own (for Napoli), he did the same for his country at a World Cup (1986) and was massively influential in nearly doing it again in 1990! It's hard to overstate Maradona's importance to that 1986 Argentina team - they were really very ordinary, except him. The only person who has come close to being the one man team he was is probably Brian Laudrup for Denmark.

I never saw Pele and Messi & "CR7" are indeed awesome players but can't imagine I'll ever see a player as good as Diego Maradona.
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This has saved me the effort of typing the same thing. Messi is brilliant - as is Ronaldo (although he loses points in my eyes just for being a tw@t) but Messi plays in a better Argentina team than maradona did and hasn't single handedly won them a WC in the way he did. And Maradona's title win with Napoli stands up to any achievement - to do it over a season and drag a very average side to a title was phenomenal.
 








W.C.

W.C.

New member
Oct 31, 2011
4,927
matbha said:
Messi still hasn't hit his prime , Ron is in his prime ,Messi will get better for Ron its decline
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and you're a poet ;)

Is that right then? Can't say I follow his career that much and I don't even know how old he is. Exciting if that's the case .
 


W.C.

W.C.

New member
Oct 31, 2011
4,927
Simster said:
How anyone can rate Messi ahead of Maradona is beyond me. Messi is a phenomenal player and scores sooo many goals, but he is surrounded by world class players at Barca. On the other hand, Maradona not only won a scudetto pretty much on his own (for Napoli), he did the same for his country at a World Cup (1986) and was massively influential in nearly doing it again in 1990! It's hard to overstate Maradona's importance to that 1986 Argentina team - they were really very ordinary, except him. The only person who has come close to being the one man team he was is probably Brian Laudrup for Denmark.

I never saw Pele and Messi & "CR7" are indeed awesome players but can't imagine I'll ever see a player as good as Diego Maradona.
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I think the argument that Messi is surrounded by world class players, although clearly true, does his skills a disservice.

That said, I agree with you about Maradona. There is a superb documentary about him that aired years ago. His time at Napoli really was incredible.
 




Biscuit

Biscuit

Native Creative
Jul 8, 2003
22,220
Brighton
Hand on heart I think Pele is better than Maradona, and Messi has a little way to go to knock Maradona of his perch.

How come Argentina/Brazil/South America in general produce so much quality?
 


Mowgli37

Mowgli37

Enigmatic Asthmatic
Jan 13, 2013
6,371
Sheffield
It really is a nonsense argument that you have to win a world cup to be considered a true great, football is a team game after all. Having said that I still rate Messi behind C.Ronaldo in terms of players I've seen during my lifetime and they're both behind Zidane in that respect too.
 


T

turienzo's lovechild

New member
Oct 25, 2003
23,964
having seen Messi twice this season, I can confirm that the bloke is ****ing incredible

and those saying that he 'hasn't done it at international level' should have a look at Argentinas all time record goalscorers list where you'll find a certain TWENTY SEVEN year old sitting at number 2, just 11 goals off first place- and not far off outscoring any Englishman ever.

That's not even scratching the surface with him- the stuff he's accomplished at club level is nothing short of ridiculous for someone he's age
 




Megazone

Megazone

On his last warning
Jan 28, 2015
8,679
Northern Hemisphere.
Mowgli37 said:
It really is a nonsense argument that you have to win a world cup to be considered a true great, football is a team game after all. Having said that I still rate Messi behind C.Ronaldo in terms of players I've seen during my lifetime and they're both behind Zidane in that respect too.
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Zidane is the most complete player of the last 25 years. Had Zidane been in the same team as Messi and Ronaldo. Zidane would've been the stand out player. Pure wizard.

 




the wanderbus

the wanderbus

Well-known member
Dec 7, 2004
2,944
pogle's wood
Megazone said:
Truly great players don't drink large amounts of alcohol or take illegal drugs.
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Truly great players CAN drink large amounts of alcohol or take illegal drugs and still be great players
 


the wanderbus

the wanderbus

Well-known member
Dec 7, 2004
2,944
pogle's wood
turienzo's lovechild said:
having seen Messi twice this season, I can confirm that the bloke is ****ing incredible

and those saying that he 'hasn't done it at international level' should have a look at Argentinas all time record goalscorers list where you'll find a certain TWENTY SEVEN year old sitting at number 2, just 11 goals off first place- and not far off outscoring any Englishman ever.

That's not even scratching the surface with him- the stuff he's accomplished at club level is nothing short of ridiculous for someone he's age
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To put some perspective on the middle part of that statement the only way to compare international scoring records is to do it as goals per game
He needs 5 goals to outscore Bobby Charlton but if he is to do it he has 10 games to better Charlton's goal per game ratio(0.462), his own gpg is slightly less (0.461)so it should be close. Messi's gpg ratio is only slightly better than Rooney's(0.455) , considerably worse than Lineker's(0.6) and not even close to Jimmy Greaves(0.771)! Even for Argentina his gpg ratio is nowhere near that of Batistuta(0.718)
 








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