Wow, physically, he hasn't changed a bit! 
Immense player.
Immense player.
Lionel Messi
- Thread starter cesc's_mullet
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The Messi & Ronaldo show needs to stop. They're making football look way too easy.
Scary how rooney scores 2 goals and everyones gushing about how the old Wayne is back and these two feckers bang hat tricks week in week out, on a different planet to mere mortals.
true thatThe problem is that I'm remembering now the days where a 0.75 goals per game was a pretty damn good percentage for a striker..
They've ruined it now.. You go back now to read about all those amazing names, and then you see (30 goals in 38 games, 70 goals in 100 games, 120 goals in 165 games, ...) and then you just think "Meh".
It'll be weird when they retire, "best player in the world" will be an open race again.
I didn't see the Madrid game but I thought Rooney was better than Messi. Messi's free kick was great but the other two goals were him on the end of a counter attack after Ajax' mistake. However having said that, 4-0 is the score with Messi in the team. It was a much closer game than the score reflects.
Regardless that is one week out of the last how many years that Rooney arguably outperformed Messi and guess what, he still got outscored. That is crazy.
Not really sure.. All of Messi's 3 goals were very well taken goals.. You could also say that Rooney's second was just the defenders' mistake...
However I do think that Rooney had a very good game for us the other night, and I also agree that the Barcelona game was much closer than a 4-0, but once again Messi made all the difference.
EDIT: Here are Messi's three goals...
Watched the game and got to say all three goals he scored were brilliant individual skills. You can see why there were fecked without him last season. They are more dependent on him than Madrid are on Ronaldo and we are on Van Persie certainly.
His finishing is absolutely lethal. He makes it look so easy you'd almost think anyone could do it. Then you see how other genuinely great players don't quite score those chances and you realise how far ahead of them he is.
Good point. Rooney did miss that sitter...
Not really sure.. All of Messi's 3 goals were very well taken goals.. You could also say that Rooney's second was just the defenders' mistake...
However I do think that Rooney had a very good game for us the other night, and I also agree that the Barcelona game was much closer than a 4-0, but once again Messi made all the difference.
EDIT: Here are Messi's three goals...
Of course they were well taken. It's "just" that it was "all" he did (can't really phrase this without it looking bad). His finishing was the difference between the teams in the game but regarding all the other aspects of the game he wasn't really much of a Messi. But like Raees sort of pointed out, not a special performance but still he manages a hat-trick. There's about two players in the world that are capable of that. I also believe it was his sixth CL hat-trick, if that hadn't been mentioned before.
For those that watched the Real game, wasn't it similar with him?
The man of the first round was probably Wiland, FC Kobenhavn's goalkeeper. He was class.
The third goal you think he probably should have passed to Pedro but he managed the more difficulty opportunity and somehow shot between those two defenders and into the net.
Look at how the ball is jiggling for the second goal while he was bringing it under control. Other players would have lost that before even getting in a finish.
That's what separates him from everyone else, IMHO - lethality. Amazing touch & control with a left foot that always seems to find the space. You can see he's not 100%, Leo, atm but I believe part of that stems from trying to get others, particularly Neymar, more involved this season. Pacing himself, if you will
Awfully unexciting to watch isn't he?
Probably for the best as well because last season when Messi wasn't around or not on game you look very poor. Key for Barca if they want to keep up their dominance the likes of Neymar and Fabregas really thrive for your team
How is your favourite player Cesc doing?
Hear he has looked a lot better this year for your lot.Yeah i agree. You look at Rooney's stats for us and you kind of just think "ok/meh"
Even if a striker hits 30 goals a season now, you're like 'Oh, ok, he did alright.'
For some reason even though Messi is obviously superior in pretty much every aspect I prefer RvP's technique and style of play.
You may need to explain this a bit unless the post is intentionally left where it is to let people go bananas. If you say that for United's style of play you prefer RvP there might be case in point, otherwise it doesn't make sense to say, "I prefer a comparitively lesser player overall just like that"
Well my two favourite RvP goals I don't think Messi could have scored, or if he did he wouldn't have looked as good:
We're so used to seeing Messi bang in hat tricks it doesn't have any impact anymore.
Even when the fecker has a poor first touch, the ball still sticks to him like glue.
Nonsense, he could score both of these goals, people seriously underestimate the variety that Messi offers.
Yet to see evidence of that, but no chance it would have looked as sexy as RvP's though.
feck me.
It's like preferring Kirsten Dunst to Marilyn Monroe because her teeth might be a slight brighter shader of white.
It's like preferring Kirsten Dunst to Marilyn Monroe because her teeth might be a slight brighter shader of white.
So because Messi's the best player in the world that must make him automatically everyone's favourite player to watch? Bollocks.
Maybe Messi could score them (maybe, I don't think so) he wouldn't. He'd bring it down and curl it or cut back past the defender and open up the space for a shot. It isn't his game.
RVP is more about volley's than Messi
RVP is more about volley's than Messi
I get where Shaggy is coming from, Messi is better than Iniesta, but I much prefer the way Iniesta plays. Ronaldo is a much better player than he used to be, but I preferred watching that "one trick show pony" all those years ago than the machine he's turned into, yes he was ridiculously frustrating, but he was far more exciting back then. The same can be said for Rooney.
Great free-kick. He's been threatening to thump one of them across the keeper for a wee while.
Hyperbole much? Poor? You should borrow a dictionary sometime
How is your favourite player Cesc doing?
Cesc's problem isn't that he's poor or that he starts out a season poorly, it's anything past December which Gooner nation probably are familiar with. For the record, he's had a terrific start to the season, again, but was absolutely useless last night which happened a lot over the last 2 seasons with the club.
It's always been like that in here. Similarly you had to be excited by Barca when they ruled the world, if not it meant you had no soul. Or Spain NT. I will never understand that.
That said Messi's technique is simply immaculate, more so than Ronaldo's I'd say. Those two are ridiculous. Neither of them had a particularly good game this week yet they both ended up with hat-tricks.
Compared to your usual standards Barca look very ordinary when Messi didn't play last season or when he isn't on form.
Barca have largely lost the air of invincibility so distinct for them during Guardiola's days when you just knew they were going to stroll past anyone and currently Messi is what separates them from a host of very good European clubs who can't quite reach the same level yet, is what JazzG has been trying to get across IMO.
Oh come on. It's not hyperbole in the slightest to say that Barcelona were extremely poor in the second leg against PSG; that is, until Messi came on. And then there was the semi-final... where he was a shadow of himself in the first leg, clearly unfit and didn't even play the second leg - and Barca failed to create a single chance without him.
I appreciate that they can still hammer Levante and Osasuna but that's beside the point.
It sounds like hyperbole but Jazz has a point. Barca Messi-less (or with him being subdued) were painful to watch towards the end of last season. Not poor, but certainly much worse than you would have liked to play without your best player.
Exactly! Great post and well put.
I too think that RVP has some finishes that almost noone else could do - I talked to a Liverpool mate of mine (!) yesterday, and he said that only RVP is able to finish his goal against Leverkusen, and I think he might just be right. It doesn't make him a better player or a better finisher than Ronaldo or Messi, but he does still have some qualities that the others don't.
If I tell you I think Valencia has better top speed than Messi, does that mean that I'm an idiot, or that Valencia is indeed faster? If I think Micah Richards would take Ronaldo in a shoulder duel, is that too much also? They're both still inferior players.
Poor? I hear all the time about how Barcelona fans can be spoiled by the club's success to rubbish play that isn't superlative like it can be but poor? It's poor that some fans have a failure of imagination nevermind vocabulary. Barcelona haven't played poor since the turn of the millenium
Doesn't change my point that Jazz needs a dictionary, certainly wasn't poor. Moreover, the biggest difference from the early Pep era isn't just about the hunger that is always going to be greater before you win everything than after you've won everything but the defenses they faced. Almost everyone now plays Barcelona the same way - they know they can't nick the ball off them and that they'll be dominated by possession. Even if we could time machine back to early Pep days, they'd face similar difficulties that they do today with the parked buses, cynical fouling and soaking up pressure with 2 blocks of 4 until they can release a counter.
Doesn't change my point that Jazz needs a dictionary, certainly wasn't poor. Moreover, the biggest difference from the early Pep era isn't just about the hunger that is always going to be greater before you win everything than after you've won everything but the defenses they faced. Almost everyone now plays Barcelona the same way - they know they can't nick the ball off them and that they'll be dominated by possession. Even if we could time machine back to early Pep days, they'd face similar difficulties that they do today with the parked buses, cynical fouling and soaking up pressure with 2 blocks of 4 until they can release a counter.
If by definition of poor Barca you understand a Stoke-like team, then yes, it's bad choice of words. Looking at the squad's potential all over the pitch and it's pedigree, then you have to agree you lot played poorly. I've heard our fans labeling our play poor at times when we won the league. You got to accept standards that come with such a great set of players, no shame in that. I bet your players themselves would say they were poor in that period last season.
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