Lionel Messi

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rednev said:
:lol:

One brilliant season?

How exactly does someone manage 324 club goals in 458 games by only having only one brilliant season? And that's not to mention his 62 goals in 97 games for Brazil.
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Depends what you call brilliant, now Luiz Ronaldo's season at Barca, Cristiano Ronaldo 07/08 are brilliant seasons.

Scoring many goals in each season like Shearer and Henry did for most of their PL careers would be great seasons, but not quite brilliant.
 
Scholesy said:
This may sound silly, but how could Mardona be better than Messi?

Messi's dribbling is just incredible.
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Youtube some compilations... and check the one I posted on his passing earlier...

The spin he gave the ball as to make it stop for the strikers running through... inside of his foot, outside of his foot, the heel of his foot... Subtle chips...

Imagine if Messi had Scholes' vision and passing ability...
 
Eriku said:
Youtube some compilations... and check the one I posted on his passing earlier...

The spin he gave the ball as to make it stop for the strikers running through... inside of his foot, outside of his foot, the heel of his foot... Subtle chips...

Imagine if Messi had Scholes' vision and passing ability...
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He does imo.
 
Ronaldo last night just simply murdered Arsenal in the biggest game of the season so far.

You wouldnt bet against Lionel doing it tonight against the rent boys...
 
FranklyVulgar said:
at 21 he is already excellent in this area, the pass to henry underlines that and he can only continue to improve on this aspect of his game.
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He is excellent in this area, agreed.

He can only continue to improve, now that's a very strange conclusion, logic isn't your strength, is it?
 
mjdj said:
Ronaldo last night just simply murdered Arsenal in the biggest game of the season so far.

You wouldnt bet against Lionel doing it tonight against the rent boys...
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Destroying our defence is a hell of a lot easier than destroying Chelsea's.
 
Messi tore Chelsea at Stamford Bridge a new one when he was 18.
 
Kevin said:
Messi tore Chelsea at Stamford Bridge a new one when he was 18.
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Unfortunately he managed feck all in 180 minutes against Chelsea now he's 21. :smirk:

Best player in the world ever ever fails yet again against English sides...
 
He was anonymous to say the least.I thought he was shy, he wasn't asking for the ball like a true great player would.He was well guarded but IMO that performance wasn't convincing from Messi
 
kouroux said:
He was anonymous to say the least.I thought he was shy, he wasn't asking for the ball like a true great player would.He was well guarded but IMO that performance wasn't convincing from Messi
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He was marked so tightly that his team mates wouldnt pass to him, even when he was open he wasn't recieving passes. Iniesta should have gave him the ball at one stage and the amount of times super monkey ball alves tried to cross when he could have given the ball to Messi on the edge of the area was embarassing.

Saying that it wasn't vintage messi but when he did have the ball he was good, he done Cole any time he got the ball and only bad tackles by Alex (booked) and Malouda (ref missed it...) stopped him going through on goal. He also had the presence of mind to not be desperate and lay the ball off to Iniesta.

Anyway, this wasn't vintage Messi and the wonder goal by Essien made sure of that. I thought if Barca scored first it would have made for a fantastic game and opened up and actually with Barcas defense so shakey it actually could have worked against them if Chelsea came out to win. But they didn't and Chelsea did what EPL teams do against Barca, packed the middle and had men behind the ball. Malouda at left back whilst cole stayed tight on messi all the time. If Barca scored first we would have seen the best of Messi, like we did with Ronaldo when United scored first. I'm convinced of that.
 
FranklyVulgar said:
statistically he got an assist in that game :lol:
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But he was rubbish, utter rubbish and you know that, yet you'll hang on to his 'assist'.

Watching this tie i was interesting in seeing how Messi does, and quietly how Iniesta does. There were so many stories about how he would rip Chelsea's defence to shreds. Well he didnt, he wasnt even in it, his threat was totally nullified and honestly he had a couple of absolute stiners, he went totally hiding for 180 minutes and as brilliant as he has been this season, theres no denying that. While Iniesta was magnificent and decided the tie.

If anything Messi is lucky Iniesta has given him another shot to prove a point. Otherwise i can only imagine his image being slightly tarnisehd (he is young and it is ONE season after all)
 
amolbhatia100 said:
But he was rubbish, utter rubbish and you know that, yet you'll hang on to his 'assist'.

Watching this tie i was interesting in seeing how Messi does, and quietly how Iniesta does. There were so many stories about how he would rip Chelsea's defence to shreds. Well he didnt, he wasnt even in it, his threat was totally nullified and honestly he had a couple of absolute stiners, he went totally hiding for 180 minutes and as brilliant as he has been this season, theres no denying that. While Iniesta was magnificent and decided the tie.

If anything Messi is lucky Iniesta has given him another shot to prove a point. Otherwise i can only imagine his image being slightly tarnisehd (he is young and it is ONE season after all)
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Double mark Iniesta and leave Messi to free like Iniesta was and it would have been the opposite.

Iniesta is a fantastic player, he's been barcas best in the last few months no doubt.

I'll hang onto his assist? :lol: Okay i'll ignore it to keep you happy, he didn't make an assist because he didn't exist :)
 
FranklyVulgar said:
He was marked so tightly that his team mates wouldnt pass to him, even when he was open he wasn't recieving passes. Iniesta should have gave him the ball at one stage and the amount of times super monkey ball alves tried to cross when he could have given the ball to Messi on the edge of the area was embarassing.

Saying that it wasn't vintage messi but when he did have the ball he was good, he done Cole any time he got the ball and only bad tackles by Alex (booked) and Malouda (ref missed it...) stopped him going through on goal. He also had the presence of mind to not be desperate and lay the ball off to Iniesta.

Anyway, this wasn't vintage Messi and the wonder goal by Essien made sure of that. I thought if Barca scored first it would have made for a fantastic game and opened up and actually with Barcas defense so shakey it actually could have worked against them if Chelsea came out to win. But they didn't and Chelsea did what EPL teams do against Barca, packed the middle and had men behind the ball. Malouda at left back whilst cole stayed tight on messi all the time. If Barca scored first we would have seen the best of Messi, like we did with Ronaldo when United scored first. I'm convinced of that.
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'Im convinced of that'

Whats happened has happened. Ronaldo was fantastic and Messi was rubbish. Why cant people just take the reality of things? Just like when Messi plays well and Ronaldo doesnt, people should see that as it is instead of making excuses. I see it how it is, Ronaldo was magnificent in the semi finals, Messi was awful. Hopefully this is the last on comparing the two in THIS thread.
 
So, I finally got to watch this Messi bloke you lot have been banging on about over and over again for the first time. He was not very good last night regardless of how tightly he was marked, which was expected. Not sure why it's up for discussion.
 
KeyserSoze said:
So, I finally got to watch this Messi bloke you lot have been banging on about over and over again for the first time. He was not very good last night regardless of how tightly he was marked, which was expected. Not sure why it's up for discussion.
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Agreed. He was tightly marked but still managed to create some havoc in the Chelsea defence whenever he touched the ball.
 
FranklyVulgar said:
Double mark Iniesta and leave Messi to free like Iniesta was and it would have been the opposite.

Iniesta is a fantastic player, he's been barcas best in the last few months no doubt.

I'll hang onto his assist? :lol: Okay i'll ignore it to keep you happy, he didn't make an assist because he didn't exist :)
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No please dont ignore it, it was a magnificent pass that clearly won the game for them. Wish one of our players could do that on such a big stage :lol:

Ronaldo also gets marked like that every game, stop making excuses. Ronaldo was alone up front against the entire Arsenal backline and destroyed them. Against Chelsea in the final they did it to him, what did he do? Score from an amazing header. Anyway im not saying only Ronaldo does that and Messi doesnt, im just giving you an example that it happens with ALOT of players, especially the best and they have to deal with it.

Iniest outshine Messi, no doubt about it. He wanted the ball, he got the ball, he did something with it.
 
FranklyVulgar said:
He was marked so tightly that his team mates wouldnt pass to him, even when he was open he wasn't recieving passes. Iniesta should have gave him the ball at one stage and the amount of times super monkey ball alves tried to cross when he could have given the ball to Messi on the edge of the area was embarassing.

Saying that it wasn't vintage messi but when he did have the ball he was good, he done Cole any time he got the ball and only bad tackles by Alex (booked) and Malouda (ref missed it...) stopped him going through on goal. He also had the presence of mind to not be desperate and lay the ball off to Iniesta.

Anyway, this wasn't vintage Messi and the wonder goal by Essien made sure of that. I thought if Barca scored first it would have made for a fantastic game and opened up and actually with Barcas defense so shakey it actually could have worked against them if Chelsea came out to win. But they didn't and Chelsea did what EPL teams do against Barca, packed the middle and had men behind the ball. Malouda at left back whilst cole stayed tight on messi all the time. If Barca scored first we would have seen the best of Messi, like we did with Ronaldo when United scored first. I'm convinced of that.
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I understand how he was extremely marked by some of the most agressive players in the world but at times he made so many bad decisions, he lost the ball countless of times.
I mean if you are marked like that it's not a surprise that you cannot create much but I expected a reaction of arrogance and better focus from him.He looked so lost out there it was funny to watch.Yeah he skinned players a couple of times but at this level you need more than that, his game was too predictable at times
 
Lionel Missing.

One shot on target from the greatest attacking team in history:lol:
 
They are so lucky to be in the final. The ref was a biased spastic who clearly did not want an all-english final. You can understand the frustration of Drogba and Ballack, although they did go overboard.
 
kouroux said:
I understand how he was extremely marked by some of the most agressive players in the world but at times he made so many bad decisions, he lost the ball countless of times.
I mean if you are marked like that it's not a surprise that you cannot create much but I expected a reaction of arrogance and better focus from him.He looked so lost out there it was funny to watch.Yeah he skinned players a couple of times but at this level you need more than that, his game was too predictable at times
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All big players get tightly marked by one or two defenders. Even when we played Ibrahimovic we had a couple of defenders on to him when he got the ball very quickly. Ronaldo deals with it EVERY game. Greatness is in doing well in these games not against the likes of Madrid who dont even want to defend.

Sadly Messi has a chance to redeem himself and i hope hes unable to take it.
 
I really hope Cristiano will shine in the Final and considering his form right now i think he will. Messi is a great player (and i am not one of these who have to take something away from one player to big up another) but i would love it if the critics of Cristiano over the whole season who bigged up Messi would be silenced by an outstading performance of our number 7.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
No please dont ignore it, it was a magnificent pass that clearly won the game for them. Wish one of our players could do that on such a big stage :lol:

Ronaldo also gets marked like that every game, stop making excuses. Ronaldo was alone up front against the entire Arsenal backline and destroyed them. Against Chelsea in the final they did it to him, what did he do? Score from an amazing header. Anyway im not saying only Ronaldo does that and Messi doesnt, im just giving you an example that it happens with ALOT of players, especially the best and they have to deal with it.

Iniest outshine Messi, no doubt about it. He wanted the ball, he got the ball, he did something with it.
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The Arsenal defense aren't really any comparison to the Chelsea defense in all fairness.
 
kouroux said:
I understand how he was extremely marked by some of the most agressive players in the world but at times he made so many bad decisions, he lost the ball countless of times.
I mean if you are marked like that it's not a surprise that you cannot create much but I expected a reaction of arrogance and better focus from him.He looked so lost out there it was funny to watch.Yeah he skinned players a couple of times but at this level you need more than that, his game was too predictable at times
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He didnt lose the ball countless times, that's my point. You are making that up i'm afraid. He lost the ball trying to play needle passes through a wall defense which a few times almost worked and other times would have worked if Eto'o wasn't having a spastic day.

Yes he didn't run riot like everyone expects him to and for that reason people will talk about how he was rubbish, but i honestly didn't think he was rubbish and no doubt that'll be put down to my "utlimate messi fanboiiii" status.

He was rubbish in the first game, he wasn't rubbish last night, he struggled but he wasn't rubbish.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
All big players get tightly marked by one or two defenders. Even when we played Ibrahimovic we had a couple of defenders on to him when he got the ball very quickly. Ronaldo deals with it EVERY game. Greatness is in doing well in these games not against the likes of Madrid who dont even want to defend.

Sadly Messi has a chance to redeem himself and i hope hes unable to take it.
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Am I right to think that Zlatan was more dangerous against us than Messi against Chelsea ?
I don't think Ronaldo deals with it in EVERY game but in a lot of them surely and I agree with you that greatness is in doing well against the toughest opposition.
FranklyVulgar said:
He didnt lose the ball countless times, that's my point. You are making that up i'm afraid. He lost the ball trying to play needle passes through a wall defense which a few times almost worked and other times would have worked if Eto'o wasn't having a spastic day.

Yes he didn't run riot like everyone expects him to and for that reason people will talk about how he was rubbish, but i honestly didn't think he was rubbish and no doubt that'll be put down to my "utlimate messi fanboiiii" status.

He was rubbish in the first game, he wasn't rubbish last night, he struggled but he wasn't rubbish.
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Why would I make it up as I saw it with my own eyes ? He was wasteful last night and even a fan of him that you are wouldn't do to himself any harm by admitting he was shit
 
amolbhatia100 said:
No please dont ignore it, it was a magnificent pass that clearly won the game for them. Wish one of our players could do that on such a big stage :lol:

Ronaldo also gets marked like that every game, stop making excuses. Ronaldo was alone up front against the entire Arsenal backline and destroyed them. Against Chelsea in the final they did it to him, what did he do? Score from an amazing header. Anyway im not saying only Ronaldo does that and Messi doesnt, im just giving you an example that it happens with ALOT of players, especially the best and they have to deal with it.

Iniest outshine Messi, no doubt about it. He wanted the ball, he got the ball, he did something with it.
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:lol:

I wondered how long it would take for you to bring that up. You really don't understand football do you? :lol:

Arsenal needed to score, they were focused on attack attack attack which left an awful lot of space for Uniteds front line to expose, which they did. The game was over after 10 mins also which meant united could relax and pick them off at will. Which they did.

If you can't see the difference between Barca playing Chelsea a goal behind and United playing Arsenal with arsenal chasing the game from the outset then you have no business on a football forum.
 
kouroux said:
Am I right to think that Zlatan was more dangerous against us than Messi against Chelsea ?
I don't think Ronaldo deals with it in EVERY game but in a lot of them surely and I agree with you that greatness is in doing well against the toughest opposition.
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No, Zlatan is the most over-rated player in history. He did nothing against United.

PS, that was sarcasm.

Again i lead you to the fact it was a much different match, United were attacking Inter for most of the match, it was stretched and Zlatan was getting the ball in one on one situations and holding it up well bringing others into play.

Chelsea played ultra tight and the game was never open, not once was there space in behind chelsea or one on one situations with attackers on defenders and when there were such situations chelsea commited fouls to stop any momentum.
 
kouroux said:
Am I right to think that Zlatan was more dangerous against us than Messi against Chelsea ?
I don't think Ronaldo deals with it in EVERY game but in a lot of them surely and I agree with you that greatness is in doing well against the toughest opposition.
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Obviously he doesnt deal with it everygame. But performances in big games are a measure of greatness. Ronaldo in last years final, Ronaldhinio in most games 3 years back, Kaka in the CL two years ago etc Im not saying Messi is rubbish but this was his toughest two games of the season and he was terribly disappointing. Hope he continues to be in his next europeean outing :) then he can go back to dominating defences :D


zing said:
The Arsenal defense aren't really any comparison to the Chelsea defense in all fairness.
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Thats true but Ronaldo in last years final scored from a header which goes to show his array of talents. He can do that to Chelsea and then what he did a few nights ago to Arsenal.

You can also turn that around. Barca decimated a happles Bayern defence whereas we had to go away to Porto where they were going to give away very little. They did give very little away, we had very few chances and what did Ronaldo do, score a 40 yard screamer.
 
I really don't understand this concept that if a team attacks then you can perform well against and if they defend ala Chelsea you have an excuse if you have a shitty match.
 
kouroux said:
Why would I make it up as I saw it with my own eyes ? He was wasteful last night and even a fan of him that you are wouldn't do to himself any harm by admitting he was shit
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Giving a ball away in my books is getting tackled or passing to nobody, losing possession.

He did both once as far as i could tell. Other times he was going for the decisive pass in the final third, or putting balls into the box. yes chelsea would come out with the ball in these situations but you can't consider them moments of losing the ball imo. In the final 3rd attacking players who try and find openings and lose it aren't to be derided for it, that is the nature of creative players and he wasn't over hitting passes and ballooning things all over the place. It was last gasp tackles, fouls and blocks and inept striking play by eto'o.

Again, he wasn't great but i thought he was a threat.

YOu want to talk about shit? eto'o and also Xavi, that was one of the worst performances i've seen by Xavi this season.
 
FranklyVulgar said:
Giving a ball away in my books is getting tackled or passing to nobody, losing possession.

He did both once as far as i could tell. Other times he was going for the decisive pass in the final third, or putting balls into the box. yes chelsea would come out with the ball in these situations but you can't consider them moments of losing the ball imo. In the final 3rd attacking players who try and find openings and lose it aren't to be derided for it, that is the nature of creative players and he wasn't over hitting passes and ballooning things all over the place. It was last gasp tackles, fouls and blocks and inept striking play by eto'o.

Again, he wasn't great but i thought he was a threat.

YOu want to talk about shit? eto'o and also Xavi, that was one of the worst performances i've seen by Xavi this season.
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Why compare him to the worst performers in the Barca shirt ? In fact he wasnt much better. How was he a threat really? A couple of asthetically pleasing dribbles means nothing. He just showed that hes talented with the ball at feet. In terms of hurting the opposition and helping his team constructively in doing so, he did nothing.

FranklyVulgar said:
It's not an excuse but you must understand how much easier it is to perform as an attacker when you are given so much space... come on.
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Obviously, but were talking about the very best players here. It wasnt an excuse for Ibra and it shouldnt be for Messi. And infact, Messi is aiming a lot higher than the likes of Ibra. Its in these situations that the best prove themselves. I still remember how Ronaldhinio produced that magical goal out of nowhere to get Barca the advantage against Chelsea a few years ago.
 
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