Why not? Players like Riquelme, Ronaldinho, Laudrup and the legendary Maradona are all attacking midfielders who ran games as good and even better than Xavi does. While playing much further up the field than he did. You can definitely compare their pasing for my money. Messi simply still has some work and growing to do to match a Xavi when it comes to passing.
Lionel Messi
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Relax Marcos, you will never get any sense from that one.
And you're right regarding pass completion stats. According to those clueless posters Denilson's a better passer than Fabregas, thanks to pass completion rate.
Not sure about that, although both are obviously very good passers of the ball.
Its perhaps worth noting that Messi isn't the same player for Argentina as he is for Barca, that much was evident from the world cup.
The passing abilities of the likes of Xavi and Iniesta (in my view particularly Xavi) form the basis of Barca's style of play. Messi thrives in that system.
I personally have never seen a player with passing like Xavi. I can't remember him making a losse pass more than once in a game. Absolutley fantastic player, should have had more credit at a younger age.
Well you didn't have to. No one believe it is. Rather they believe it is one of the indicators of the level of passing skills players have. Of which assists is probably the weakest indicator.
well, to really analyse it, we'd have to break down 'passing' into its constituent parts.
In terms of 'raw ability', being able to pass a ball accurately, with the right pace, curl etc. I think messi is better. He pulls off through balls that, in addition to great vision, are tremendously difficult to execute with the proper weight, timing and technique.
But then, this has never really been Xavi's strongest suite. He has always been behind the likes of Pirlo when it comes to executing the most difficult of passes and rarely attempts them.
Where Xavi wins out is the game in his head and unbelievable consistency. He always picks the right pass, is impossible to harass and harry into giving the ball away and his ability to make so many simple passes that connect into influent play for the team overall is unparalleled by anyone anywhere. No matter the opposition or the game, Xavi will sit in midfield and distribute play without error.
Furthermore, while he may not be the best at the 10/10 passes, he retains his amazing consistency even on 8/10 passes, which is a tremendous feat in and of itself as well and helps him regularly top the assist charts.
Messi isn't in Xavi's league in those departments (no one is), but in addition to having better 'raw' passing ability, I think Messi does have better vision. He's better at spotting the pass no one else would notice.
In terms of 'raw ability', being able to pass a ball accurately, with the right pace, curl etc. I think messi is better. He pulls off through balls that, in addition to great vision, are tremendously difficult to execute with the proper weight, timing and technique.
But then, this has never really been Xavi's strongest suite. He has always been behind the likes of Pirlo when it comes to executing the most difficult of passes and rarely attempts them.
Where Xavi wins out is the game in his head and unbelievable consistency. He always picks the right pass, is impossible to harass and harry into giving the ball away and his ability to make so many simple passes that connect into influent play for the team overall is unparalleled by anyone anywhere. No matter the opposition or the game, Xavi will sit in midfield and distribute play without error.
Furthermore, while he may not be the best at the 10/10 passes, he retains his amazing consistency even on 8/10 passes, which is a tremendous feat in and of itself as well and helps him regularly top the assist charts.
Messi isn't in Xavi's league in those departments (no one is), but in addition to having better 'raw' passing ability, I think Messi does have better vision. He's better at spotting the pass no one else would notice.
Not really. Before Rijkaard came in, he looked like a player that was never going to fulfil his early promise.
For the first couple of seasons under Rijkaard he was very much playing second fiddle to Deco's violin before he turned shit.
Ronaldinho never ran games the way Xavi did. He wasn't that kind of player.
'The way' are through key words in your post. Zidane is the perfect example. Dropped deep to run and usually boss the game and drove forwards to do more damage than xavi could dream of doing.
Messi is a great passer but in every aspect of it Xavi is not only better but a lot more consistent.Watch him specially last season for Barca where he was something else in terms of passing.
There's no argument to be had, here. I'm not disagreeing that Xavi is a better passer all-round.
Messi's defence splitting passes are as good as anyone's. If you are disputing this, you've not seen him play enough. Again, I'm not making him out to be a 'master passer'.
This is bringing in other aspects of football other than passing, not to mention that it fails to take into account the difference in role, and the time taken to adapt to such an adjustment.
Nothing particularly controversial or over the top about saying that Messi is in a similar league of passing to Xavi. Again, you are just being too extreme in order to prove a point. You do a lot of this, most likely because it makes you stand out.
Messi's defence splitting passes are as good as anyone's. If you are disputing this, you've not seen him play enough. Again, I'm not making him out to be a 'master passer'.
This is bringing in other aspects of football other than passing, not to mention that it fails to take into account the difference in role, and the time taken to adapt to such an adjustment.
Nothing particularly controversial or over the top about saying that Messi is in a similar league of passing to Xavi. Again, you are just being too extreme in order to prove a point. You do a lot of this, most likely because it makes you stand out.
No i didnt. Just because you say something, doesn't mean it is true. Quite the contrary, you flitter through threads and jump down anyones throat with an opinion that doesnt match your idea of what football is about or what it constitutes.
A keyboard worrior yes, the end all of football knowledge? far far from it. When you find yourself agreeing with cal with actual regularity i think it's about time you take a long hard look at yourself.
Further more i confused nothing. I explained fully my reasoning and why. Kouroux asked the question and i answered. However he merely asked a question, you and cal put words in peoples mouths in attempts to belittle there otherwise valid opinions.
Is it just because they dont match your own or is it because the people you challenge so readily might actually be right. No better defense than righteous indignation huh "chief"?
Xavi is all round better because he has the head for it. He is a 99% player. By that i mean he 99% of the time does something that he thinks he can or more so knows he can. That's why he rarely misses a pass, he isn't a holywood passer although he is capable but he is a very accurate and percentage based passer.
Messi takes more risks so of course he's going to give it away more. However his eye for a through ball and execution is one of his strongest points. Xavi is a midfielder, he's the hub of the team but Messi is the X factor. What Messi can do with a ball, even in a passing sense is unmatched, even by Xavi.
It's impossible, if you say Messi you are belittling Xavi, if you say Xavi you base it on his natural game. Pass and move, he does create a lot but really in recent times Messi has been so consistent with his passing and even then some of the passes are just.... so imaginative.
And probably the most telling thing from that World Cup hangover game was how ineffective Spain were without Xavi in the first-half - bullied out of the game and three goals down.
There seems to be a school of thought here that Messi is better at the killer pass than Xavi. I don't really buy it though - 12-18 months ago nobody would have said Messi was the best passer in the world. It simply wasn't a remarkable feature of his game. For someone who plays in such an advanced position, he does have very good passing (both the neat-and-tidy stuff and the incisive ball) and far better than others whom we often compare him with. However, he needs to make the kind of ball he played through to Villa against Madrid a consistent element of his game for the comparisons to actually carry a bit more weight. As it stands, Xavi plays balls of that calibre (on top of the invariable dominance of possession) pretty much every week and has done so for several seasons.
I think it's just his fans or as science has labelled them..homo erectus.
From what I can tell, he wasn't really doing it with the same kind of regularity 18-24 months ago. He's come on leaps and bounds in that department though. Or does that not count?
I still don't think Xavi has quite the same ability to play the most difficult of through balls. He's still a better passer overall though.
Not sure the same applies to Iniesta though.
One of the best at it, not saying he's the best, but he is one of the best passers around these days.
IMHO You must be kidding. His rapping of Milan at the San Siro when Barca won the Champions league springs to mind. I've not seen a player dominate and run a game like that since Maradona.
Xavi was never this good back in the day, or maybe he didn't have the same type of movement around him affording him to attempt more passes
from the bottom of my soul I rate Cesc Fabregas as a better passer than Xavi, his range is consistently higher and he sees the over the top through ball early and splits defences deep in his own half, I hate he's an Arsenal player but he's one of the msot natural passers I've ever seen
as good as Xavi is he doesn't convey this sort of vision/range as consistently as Fabregas does, and pleas take into accont he doesn't have the type of movement Xavi has at Barca.
The reason I think he starts ahead of Fabregas for Spain is because Xavi controlls the tempo with his short passes while Fabregas tries to open up a team as often as possible. Constantly taking the risk.
If this was supposed to make me feel insulted I just have toGrow up. Me agreeing with Cal on something dosen't make it any less valid. But you would know that if you weren't Cal's identical twin on here
In case you never noticed,
I used the very explantion you used against you. Do keep up.
You wish. You and Cal do that all the time to each other and others. Plus it usually back fires on the both of you.
Mate you are a riot. Getting all worked up just because I don't agree with you.Trust me, on here I challenge you when I'm certain you are wrong. In the same vein, I back you up vehemently if I'm certain you are right. In the same vein I also accept your opinion if it is viable, even if I don't ascribe to it. I never mince words nor pretend to know more than I don't know. If you find my style to hot for you. Sorry
Ronaldinho did dominate games, because he did it all
but I think we have different views of dominating, my idea of dominating is when you can make a 8 to 10 min video of your performance in a single game, conveying how much you was on the ball or doing things with it
Ronaldinho was sensational at the San Siro but the game was so scrappy that he was in and out the game, you can't be on the ball enough to 'dominate' in those types of fixtures
Read this and learn Frankly Vulgar. I'm no the only one disagreeing with your assement of Messi's pasing.
You implied his passing was superior to Xavi's, even posting his assist stats for this season to beef up your view. At a time when the Spaniard is recognised as the best in the biz at the art of passing.
there seems to be some myths about Xavi these days, the comment about him playing that type of ball week in and week out is simply not true.
I watch Xavi as much as any of you and I really don't know which Xavi people are describing
Mate that dude simply made Pirlo and Gattuso give up To the extent he made the wining pass of the game from so deep in his half yet they didn't even bother to challenge him, whilst they were close to him. But fair dues. We most likely just view dominating differently.
agree with that. Except that Xavi does tend to dominate games like that, no matter how compressed the space is or how much you harry how.
Ronaldinho is more of an impact player. He'll split open the defence, but he doesn't knit things together like Xavi does. He looks too much to make something happen to be that kind of player. In fairness, when you're that good at it, that is what you should be doing.
Indeed Xavi does as his job is control the tempo and constantly be on the ball, basically he's the heart of a midfield because he keeps it ticking
Whats is the correct way of measuring who is the better passer then? Do you go by pass completion or by something like assists?
I haven't seen the stats but I reckon you might a few players with better pass completion % than someone like Fabregas but in this league there isn't a player who I'd rate as a better passer than him. All good playing the smart sensible passes 9 times out of 10 and bumping your stats up but he is one constantly looking for that through pass or the more difficult pass which could result in a goal and you won't always pull those passes off so his stats will suffer.
While assists isn't the only way to gauge a players passing it isn't the worst stat either.
And besides, IIRC Xavi had an absolutely ridiculous number of assists the past two seasons.
Yes. But that alone doesn't indicate how great his passing is. Which is my point. For example Becks in his pomp used to bag more assists than Scholes ever could. But we all know who is considered the superior passer of the ball.
The fact Xavi plays deep, yet still creates a ridiculous number of chances (35 or so direct assists in 08/09, never mind others like this), indicates he successfully plays that killer through-ball on a regular basis. It's one thing slipping the ball through past the last defender, another thing entirely piercing two lines of four.
Well put
Terrific vision for that pass. Xavi really does have Alves plotted into his gps doesn't he?
You're not good very at this are you?
Just blazed a woeful penalty over the bar. Messi, that is.
Over-rated.
Over-rated.
Dreadful penalty... That was a shocker!
It happens to the best of us
I kicked a penalty the other day, it hit the corner flag, I got stick from my mates for a month
I kicked a penalty the other day, it hit the corner flag, I got stick from my mates for a month
To be fair, I don't think the best of them have ever hit the corner flag with a penalty. That's quite some achievement.
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