You should learn how to read. They may have schools for that.
Can there really be someone better than Messi in modern football?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Ask yourself why two people "misread" your post. Maybe it's you.
@Ji_Maria - Although it was a nice initial effort, being visibly stirred enough that I can tell from my own screen that your hands were shaking as you type in the followup hurts the WUM quality.
6/10.
6/10.
In his defence, in his later years at Madrid he was basically finished.
Maybe it's two people who inflect their own defensive Messi fanboism into any post that attempts to criticize Messi? Maybe after 3 responses you still haven't addressed the substance of my post (i.e., choking on a massive scale at the highest level)? Maybe you also need to learn how to count (they may have some academy somewhere that teaches that).
Clap for the internet psycho-analyst.
Yes, someone with more composure who could finish that run off.
You mean someone like this? Ronaldo was class no matter where he played or who he played with. Just compare the below clips with the one above. What a world of difference.
Right, of course Ronaldo never ever entered the box without it resulting in a goal or assist. Ever.
Phenomenal player!
Unbelievable player at his prime, absolutely an unstoppable one-man wrecking train. Essentially a bigger, stronget, faster and more agile version of Messi. Too bad his career ended early to injuries.
The criminal thing is how modern football commercial interests are bent on pretending Ronaldo Lima never happened and that there was no football before the "GOAT" Messi and CR7. Sells more jerseys and TV rights in China and the US I guess. Goal records and stats, ha, this isn't baseball.
Only player I saw that came close to Ronaldo are Ronaldinho and Messi.
He is best of his generation, so its not likely will be another better one in long long time, but still anything could happen in future and you never know.
I doubt the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo will ever be matched though.
I doubt the rivalry between Messi and Ronaldo will ever be matched though.
I still prefer Ronaldo of Brazil in his absolute prime to Messi. Crazy as it sounds. I think Ronaldinho pisses over most for technique and outright skill though
That's rather ironic considering Ronaldo's ("special") relationship with Nike was very much at the forefront of the exponential rise of commercial interests in football...
I read a book recently - Outliers. The premise of it was that no matter how great or talented you are at something, things still need to fall your way for you to achieve greatness.
There might be another Messi or hell even a player better than Messi but will they;
1 - Be as lucky with injuries? - Ronaldo De Lima was crazy talented, but never had luck with injuries.
2 - Be lucky enough to be part of a team that is regarded as one of the best ever? - Having mentors like Ronaldinho, Iniesta and Xavi have done nothing but enhance Messi's creativity.
3 - Will he have a another player playing for a rival team who is also ridiculously talented and consistent? - Having Ronaldo also banging them in every week must push Messi to get better and better.
There might be another Messi or hell even a player better than Messi but will they;
1 - Be as lucky with injuries? - Ronaldo De Lima was crazy talented, but never had luck with injuries.
2 - Be lucky enough to be part of a team that is regarded as one of the best ever? - Having mentors like Ronaldinho, Iniesta and Xavi have done nothing but enhance Messi's creativity.
3 - Will he have a another player playing for a rival team who is also ridiculously talented and consistent? - Having Ronaldo also banging them in every week must push Messi to get better and better.
Ronaldinho did.
For as great as Messi is, Ronaldinho did things with a football that were usually kept to an futsal pitch not a 90 by 70 meter football pitch. Messi is hardly doing things we havent seen before, just more consistently.
Until recently (with the buildup to the 2006 WC), football has always been a sideshow for sponsorship, even during the Ronaldo Lima years. Nike's historical annual reports state what their target sports are, and you can view how this list has changed and evolved.
The major factor behind the change was that there were very limited broadcast rights in the 90s/early 2000s of European football outside of Europe and therefore a much smaller viewership base. You also had the internet and internationalization of broadcast rights (satellites and digital TV). Viewership records are now being shattered across the board. TV deals, sponsorships, commercials, advertisements, are how teams (and players) make money these days. And it's not just broadcast. You have game companies like EA (which make $1 billion+ per game they publish) pouring millions into teams and player contracts.
Just to put things into perspective, Barcelona paid $19.5 million (12.8 million pounds) for peak Ronaldo in 1996. MUFC have paid more for: Blind, Rojo, Shaw, Fellaini, Valencia, Berbatov, Ferdinand, Veron, and the list goes on and on and on.
On the commercial sponsors front:
In 2005, Nike's stock price was about $10 and by 2015 had peaked at $112.
In 2000, Adidas stock was around $13 and by 2015 was almost $100.
I just want football fans to be aware that the commercial interests in football are very powerful, and there are billions of dollars at stake each year. You can bet that the "powers" have an interest in making sure the current viewership continue to tune in, and right now promoting the CR7 and Messi rivalry is proving to be extremely lucrative.
And if you're still not convinced, I challenge you to ask a random non-football watching foreigner if they know who Maradona is, or if they have heard of Raul or Rivaldo or Figo or Totti or Ronaldo Lima. Now ask if they have heard of Messi and Cristiano. Even if you don't speak English, you've heard of and seen pictures of Messi and Cristiano.
What I also find interesting about Messi is that he hardly uses tricks or skills. He rarely does a scissor trick or elastico for example. Everything he does is so economical, he just blasts past you with insane close control.
Yep. He's getting more economical too, instead of dribbling past 5 players he'll play a perfect lofted pass to take them all of the game in one action
He's got great control, balance and incredible vision. But lets not make the mostake of saying he's fast - his speed is bang average compared to the likes pf Robben or Bale (something like 5km/hr slower when recording top speeds in game).
Tricks arent part of his game because he doesnt need them due to his exceptional vision and positioning and passing ability, which I rate as all superior to Ronaldo Lima.
Ronaldo was one of the fastest players to ever play the game and could execute tricks at high speed to humilate defenders all over the world. His only downside is, that was basically his only way of playing and once his knee had gone it was pretty mich over.
The difference between Messi & Pele, Diego or the other greats in the past, is that everything is recorded and accesible. If you want to know how good was Messi at X thing, there's a video for it. And in different angles.
So you can access to Messi's legacy. And then the stats speak by themselves. We do not know that much about Diego. For example, Maradona said his best goal was against Deportivo Pereira, a colombian team when he arrived at Boca. All we had was this incredible picture with all his rivals in the floor.
A couple years ago, the footage was discovered
So, there are two factors: The stats and the videos to judge someone. Maradona was so good that the videos we have are enough to know he was something else. But everyone says that his best days were when he played for Argentinos Juniors and Boca. And we don't have that much content on that.
Then with the time we tend to relativize everything. Messi will be relativized. There will be another great player (I hope Argentinian lol) who will break a couple records and will win almost everything. The key here is that this future best player will have to win a world cup or two if he wants to compete with Messi. People will look for Messi's weaknesses and of course the international stage is one of them. Of course I won't relativize Messi. But those who hasn't seen him will do it.
So you can access to Messi's legacy. And then the stats speak by themselves. We do not know that much about Diego. For example, Maradona said his best goal was against Deportivo Pereira, a colombian team when he arrived at Boca. All we had was this incredible picture with all his rivals in the floor.
A couple years ago, the footage was discovered
So, there are two factors: The stats and the videos to judge someone. Maradona was so good that the videos we have are enough to know he was something else. But everyone says that his best days were when he played for Argentinos Juniors and Boca. And we don't have that much content on that.
Then with the time we tend to relativize everything. Messi will be relativized. There will be another great player (I hope Argentinian lol) who will break a couple records and will win almost everything. The key here is that this future best player will have to win a world cup or two if he wants to compete with Messi. People will look for Messi's weaknesses and of course the international stage is one of them. Of course I won't relativize Messi. But those who hasn't seen him will do it.
In Argentina they call it the Gambetta dribbling style. This style focuses upper body movements like body feints, shimmies, shoulder drop etc. But don't take my word for it, I read it off from somewhere a long time ago.
In fairness your wording was very vague and can quite easily be misconstrued.
We all know Maradona was a great player, that bottom video though, I think in the modern game that would have been harder to score look at the defenders all of them try to slide tackle him, the back four is exposed too from the off. In a defence in Europe now they'd stay on their feet and try and make him run wide, yes Maradona would still probably score against that opposition but it was amateur defending in that video.The difference between Messi & Pele, Diego or the other greats in the past, is that everything is recorded and accesible. If you want to know how good was Messi at X thing, there's a video for it. And in different angles.
So you can access to Messi's legacy. And then the stats speak by themselves. We do not know that much about Diego. For example, Maradona said his best goal was against Deportivo Pereira, a colombian team when he arrived at Boca. All we had was this incredible picture with all his rivals in the floor.
A couple years ago, the footage was discovered
So, there are two factors: The stats and the videos to judge someone. Maradona was so good that the videos we have are enough to know he was something else. But everyone says that his best days were when he played for Argentinos Juniors and Boca. And we don't have that much content on that.
Then with the time we tend to relativize everything. Messi will be relativized. There will be another great player (I hope Argentinian lol) who will break a couple records and will win almost everything. The key here is that this future best player will have to win a world cup or two if he wants to compete with Messi. People will look for Messi's weaknesses and of course the international stage is one of them. Of course I won't relativize Messi. But those who hasn't seen him will do it.
To answer the question to the topic posed in the title though, Yes.
I'm a Messi advocate to me he is the GOAT currently.
Although "Modern" won't be the right terminology when we look back 10 years post-Messi it'll be history at that point but someone growing up now will be learning from Messi, Iniesta videos and has greater exposure to football as a result of all the top leagues being aired now.
It's like how Education is always going to get better, our understanding of the world will do, coaching gets better. Eventually there will be a player better than Messi.
just like Usain Bolt has come by the sprinting world, Ronnie O'Sullivan in Snooker, Phil Taylor one of greatest darts players ever eventually the bar is raised higher.
Here's a question though, feel free to ridicule me.
Messi grew up in relative Poverty, so did Ronaldo (7), Maradona, Pelé did too, do you think their backgrounds of growing up in poverty help them become the players they are? do you think perhaps playing football to escape that and not going home to an xbox or playstation help them in earlier life develop into greater players?
Now I realise Germany, Netherlands, Spain etc completely different from this in most cases but the way they have won world cups (not Netherlands sorry dutch people) is through organisation and great players like Iniesta, Xavi who are more "thinkers" mixed with talent, there's often talented players in Europe like in this thread Europe tends to produce very good defenders, and midfielders: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/all...-time-south-american-xi.416055/#post-18995932
However the South Americans team completely dominate due to sheer talent in attack, is this down to the reasons listed above?
Nowadays that is changing too. In Argentina I can tell you there is a lack of talent now. I think it happens because the street football is kinda loosing its place. I find it very important. The Potrero style is not related to poverty but to the working class. Messi's family has never been poor (Maradona, Tevez & Aguero they did were poor) but in the neighborhoods we used to play all day long when we were kids. It was part of a culture that now is getting lost. In the past you could see there were a lot of talents coming up (Aimar, Dalessandro, Riquelme, Tevez) and now those talents are A) Not coming up B) Being sold to Arsenal/Madrid while they are kids. And in the clubs, the academies now are selecting physical players over talented ones.
But the thinkers thing is just relative. For me Fernando Redondo is one of the best midfielders of all time, so is Riquelme. They are both "thinkers". The fail with Argentina is that the organization is really bad, the FA is corrupted and the coaches have been Maradona, Batista, Basile... who didn't have the level required to manage the team. Well, the entire organization of argentine football is ridiculous. The same happened with Brazil but they had the best generation of all time a couple times and won 5 world cups. Now that Oliveira is their N° 9 with 35 years old and they aren't even qualifying for the WC you can tell the CBF is just as caotic as the AFA.
Football is more complex than just running or racing or playing snookers. And way more popular. So the comparison is not valid for me.
But the thinkers thing is just relative. For me Fernando Redondo is one of the best midfielders of all time, so is Riquelme. They are both "thinkers". The fail with Argentina is that the organization is really bad, the FA is corrupted and the coaches have been Maradona, Batista, Basile... who didn't have the level required to manage the team. Well, the entire organization of argentine football is ridiculous. The same happened with Brazil but they had the best generation of all time a couple times and won 5 world cups. Now that Oliveira is their N° 9 with 35 years old and they aren't even qualifying for the WC you can tell the CBF is just as caotic as the AFA.
Football is more complex than just running or racing or playing snookers. And way more popular. So the comparison is not valid for me.
I think it's hard with other sports, Snooker, Golf, Tennis etc you need a fairly wealthy family to fund it, go to lessons each week, where-as football you can kick around on the streets as you said
JI Maria is letting nostalgia take over if he thinks Ronaldo is better than Messi, I don't even see how it is debatable when comparing the careers of both players.
LOL are you serious?
Records yeah Messi is amazing. But since when do we judge a player's talent based on records? And did Messi have a better career than Ronaldo notwithstanding his records? Honestly that is debataeble since he never won the WC whereas Ronaldo lifted the champions trophy in multiple leages plus European and WC competitions, half of those after his serious knee injury.
Plus I cant get over how mediocore Messi has been at multiple WC. I dont think you can understate how big winning the WC is to a player's career. I guarantee Messi would trade all his CL or La Liga titles for a single WC trophy.
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He hasn't had a perfect career due to his intentional career which pales in comparison to what he's done at Barca. it'd be difficult for any player in the future to have the 3 best midfielders in the world, in their respective positions behind them, hence I think his club stats will be perhaps be out of reach for future greats.
Ronaldo never won the CL. Didn't win La Liga with Barcelona. Didn't win the Serie A with Inter. And won one league title with Real Madrid. Hes got the international trophies but just how you can't understate how important it is to win a WC, it's equally important not to understate the importance of record breaking goalscoring feats, dominant seasons year after year in a monopoly over the best league around, multiple CL wins (best competition in the modern game) and 5 Balon Dors (with something like 7 or 8 in a row in the top three). Plus it's not like he hasn't had an international career. He did nearly win the WC and Copa in the space of two years with the margins being very slim.
As for "better" (this thread is about better not more talented), I'd imagine you judge it based on records i.e individual performances levels, combined with trophies and honours.
Messi wasn't mediocre at multiple WCs. He hasn't been close to his peak form we've seen at Barca, but he was still a quality player. I also think that it's highly unfair to hold Ronaldo's World Cup win (or wins if you want to include the 1994 one as well, which no one should) over Messi. For all the talk about how Messi can only do it with a terrific supporting cast like at Barca, surely we can't ignore how 'mediocre' Argentina's squad is compared to Brazil in 2002, where Ronaldo could play as a rather limited goalscorer and leave all the work of actually creating goalscoring chances to Rivaldo, Carlos, Cafu at their peak and a young and not at his peak yet but already quality Ronaldinho.
If you compare that to the mostly atrocious performances of Aguero and Di Maria at the World Cup and the fact that Rojo and Zabaleta were playing as the fullbacks in a rather defensive set-up, it's just silly to even bring it up. Messi clearly was one of the best players at the tournament in 2014, he's just held to insane standards because he hasn't won it yet. And throwing terms like 'mediocre' around just shows how stupid the discussion has become.
I don't think Messi came close to Ronaldo's peak World Cup level that we saw in 1998 and it's a fair enough criticism to question Messi's performances for Argentina in an alltime context. But the way some people blow it completely out of proportion while making excuses for Ronaldo's questionable trophy haul at club level, well it just sounds hypocritical to me.
Is is possible to be physically stronger than Messi?
Is is possible to be better at headers than Messi?
Is it possible to be faster than Messi?
Is is possible to be better in penalty shoots (or even free kicks) than Messi?
Is it possible to have a bigger charisma/leadership than Messi?
I think that the answer to all of these is a clear yes. So, the ceiling is definitely not reached, not even close. Now will there be an another guy who will have all the things Messi has in addition to some of those I mentioned, is an another matter, and is hard to imagine that. But I think that people would have said the same for Di Stefano, Pele and Maradona (didn't mention Cruyff because Pele was before him and people rate Pele higher, although I just don't see it), so I guess that no-one knows.
It is a pile of shit, to be fair. Without the friendly matches, the total goes to 643 instead of 1088. In addition, the defenses back then were just awful.
That is not to say that Pele wasn't an amazing player, he really was, and is right there with the best players the football offers. Some might say that he is the best ever, and while I particularly don't agree, there might just be the case. But undoubtedly, there has been a 'mythization' of Pele from FIFA, as his 'official' number of goals shows.
Easy
Replicate Messi/CR7 feats whilsy winning a world cup or two. Pele is your answer
I hate this point. Biceps strength and/or height and strength on a football pitch are completely different attributes. Messi's footballing strength is 10/10. No one else can ride challenges and keep going while his shirt is being pulled and getting hacked left and right like he does. No one.
Can someone be better? In theory maybe. In real life I doubt it. Someone who can score 91 goals in a year (for the record, Cristiano's best mark is 69, just to get a clue how insane that record is) but at the same time drop to center circle and play passes like this literally every single game?
If we are lucky we will see one more player in our life times who can do the same IMO.
That's a sensible approach. Messi is a specialist, he's a magnificent dribbler, he's on a different time scale, he makes two steps and has two touches while others can only have one. Of course he's got the beautiful technique and touch to perform this at such a high speed, but it's this single quality that makes him really stand out.
Cruijff and Maradona weren't just the best dribblers of their day by a certain margin, they were also the best playmakers, they had the best shots, the best first touch the best long range passing, the best dead ball kicks, the best vision, the best leadership. Like Ronaldinho, who was quite wasteful with his talent, they were just better at football in general than any other, in all aspects of the game, in anything that could be done with a football.
To be fair to Messi (and to Ronaldo da Lima), with one special quality like that, and other qualities at a very high level also, he's not necessarily a less valuable player than Cruijff and Maradona were with their all round superiority. With their allround superiority they made whole teams play better, they elevated teams, clubs, cities, countries and even football. Messi was never in a position to do that, because football has changed but he didn't seek it either, but to do that he needed to have developped into a different kind of player. So I'm actually looking forward to Messi getting older, wiser and slower, and see if he can do different things with his talent. Modern football and his immense specialism has denied him the possibility to develop into a more allround superior player, yet.
Once thing is for sure, if Brazil has an exceptional talent, the Brazilians will make those claims. There should be a Brazilian discount, they are chauvinists who will always exeggerate and keep nagging on about it until the rest of the world gives in and agrees. That's why people rate Pele higher. As much as I was impressed with Ronaldo and even more with Ronaldinho, one should always take a least 10% off when it's a Brazilian, especially a Brazilian who is with Nike.
No one will agree with me but until Messi wins the World Cup with Argentina - he will be one of the best but not the best of all time.
As amaZing as he is, there is a difference between Argentina messi and Barcelona messi and that to me is down to Barcelona being a well oiled machine. They were that even before Messi- who then took it two levels above.
That's why I rate international football so highly because you do not get half the practise or team you do at club level but you have players like Ronaldo, Maradona, Ronaldinho and Zidane playing things single handed.
If he wins it - it's not like he plays for Ecuador - greatest of all time and unlikely to be over taken.
As amaZing as he is, there is a difference between Argentina messi and Barcelona messi and that to me is down to Barcelona being a well oiled machine. They were that even before Messi- who then took it two levels above.
That's why I rate international football so highly because you do not get half the practise or team you do at club level but you have players like Ronaldo, Maradona, Ronaldinho and Zidane playing things single handed.
If he wins it - it's not like he plays for Ecuador - greatest of all time and unlikely to be over taken.
That's a bit of a false notion though, Messi is a better player technically than Ronaldo (9) Ronaldinho and Zidane, levels above, and Maradona its arguable he is better than him too.
Those teams has great players around them, Messi is playing CM for Argentina and has a set of players who squander chance after chance and have poor decision making around him.
The same reason Portugal can't win having CR7.
Messi is fantastic but to me he does what other players do - better than anybody else. I watch him dribble past 3 or 4 defenders and scoring but more than the quality and shock of what I have seen- it's the consistency that I appreciate.
I've seen people score the occasional goal like messi does and he is the best right now because he always does it. Again, it's consistent.
However, to this day I miss zidane, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho ( few others too) because they played their unique brand of football and that has not been copied.
BTW- I appreciate that you rate messi but this is just my feeling. He doesn't make me enjoy football the way Ronaldinho or Ronaldo or zidane did. I was literally glued to the TV watching them.