Lionel Messi
- Thread starter cesc's_mullet
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That's a great comp and have to remember he's been less than 100% for 7 months in 2013 as well
He's been either playing with an injury or playing in first gear for almost the entirety of 2013, it's just unbelievable how he delivers every single time he steps on the pitch. I have a feeling 2014 will be much better for him.
Surely that's the best part?
Immense player. His ability to get out of tight spaces is jaw dropping. The consistency of his performances is something I have never seen from a player before. The sections for vision and passing, some of those passes were amazing, it seemed his teammates missed everytime.
p.s Ray Hudson is quality, were does he get this stuff from.
p.s Ray Hudson is quality, were does he get this stuff from.
Defences are better than the 50s/60s? No argument. Better than the 80s? Come on. In four consecutive seasons between '84-'88 the Serie A title winners never managed over 43 goals (in 34 games). In the last four seasons in La Liga Barcelona have managed an average of over 105 league goals per game. So essentially you're left with the conclusion that either Barcelona last season were three times as good as Sacchi's Milan side offensively or defences have become easier to breach.
And even if the defences were less organised in the 50s, so must have been the attacks.
Surely that's the best part?
Every single Messi video includes Hudson commentary, and he's just so grating to listen to... he's so easily excited that it loses all sense.
But the worst thing about that video was not Hudson, but to see how many brilliant assists Messi could have had... if only Cesc, Pedro and Alexis would score.
Impressive!
Little genius
There's no question about it, really. One has to keep in mind that the 80s (and going into the 90s for that matter) was a decade characterized by a generally defensive attitude: Being defensive, emphasizing keeping it tight rather than going freely forwards, was generally accepted. The term "parking the bus" didn't exist. Add to that a more lenient attitude towards vicious tackling, gamesmanship and dirty tricks - and it becomes evident that scoring fifty goals a season in a top European league was perfectly impossible back then. Van Basten would score roughly twenty for that great Milan side - and it was considered impressive.
The thing is, Hudson does this with any goal that he finds beauty in, regardless of team. He's like a kid in the booth but better than his one liners, for me, is how palpable his enthusiasm and glee is when Messi does something unreal - he's reacting like we would. Better still is how often he puts his broadcaster, Phil Schoen, to shame when he says something irritatingly stupid
The vid is great but merely echoes the obvious, he's obviously not 100%. And now, more than his fitness level, starting to become concerned with his body language - it's an unfamiliar sight, tbh
That's an excellent argument and hard to argue against. There were some seriously impressive defenders back in the 80s and early 90s, and if you look at the way Maradona was hacked down, time and time again, I think Messi would struggle to make those runs - he would literally be kicked down time and time again. I actually think that a player like Giggs would have been even better if he started out as a youngster today than in 93 or thereabouts. I doubt Maradona would be any worse either.
The problem is that he seems to find beauty in anything and everything, and can only comment on it by shouting and screaming. It's incredibly annoying, and he's always used for videos, so you can only avoid him by muting it entirely.
It's true, he's popular in those comp clips simply because it's almost always over the top. I enjoy him though as those moments only seem excessive because you're getting them condensed. In most matches he's quite even keeled throughout while his emotional outbursts always feel authentic, IMO
My take on it is it works against defenders and for attackers. Defending (and goalkeeping) is about not making mistakes: mistakes which are highlighted and analysed to a greater extent than ever before. Hence why there is a consensus that the top full-backs and centre-halves aren't as solid as they were a generation ago. Part of it is down to a reduction in defensive quality, part of it is down to greater scrutiny.
It works for attackers because we get to see every bit of brilliance they pull off, and in the highlights and internet age, it is immediately shared across the world. Ronaldinho was the first great Youtube player with his full repertoire of tricks captured and shared to a far greater extent than even the likes of Ronaldo and Zidane a few years earlier.
Neither the statistics nor the nature of the game in the 1980s bears that out at all. The typical average goals-per-game in mid-80s Serie A was 1.9-2.1. Modern day La Liga is around 2.7-2.9. That's 50% more goals. Even that great Milan side won Serie A scoring just 36 times all season. There are a few factors that contributed to that completely different environment:
- Better defenders. The likes of Baresi, Scirea, Vierchowod, Maldini, Bergomi, Passarella, Carboni, Gentille were all miles ahead of anything you'll find in a current La Liga back four.
- Two points for a win. A 0-0 draw was a decent result.
- Lax refereeing. First challenge was a freebie and was usually intended to reduce the opposition's main man. Today's threshold for a red card would barely warrant a yellow then. Hence why the likes of Van Basten and Maradona spent much of the best years of their careers limping, injured or prematurely retired.
Every single Messi video includes Hudson commentary, and he's just so grating to listen to... he's so easily excited that it loses all sense.
But the worst thing about that video was not Hudson, but to see how many brilliant assists Messi could have had... if only Cesc, Pedro and Alexis would score.
It's ridiculous, but I like it. I watch La Liga in arabic, though, so it's only YouTube where I hear Ray Hudson. Perhaps if I had to listen to him every single week, my opinion would change. The sad thing is, you don't even need that video to see how many sitters they squander. Watch any Barcelona game, and Messi will put 10 chances - in rather beautiful fashion - on a plate for Pedro or Alexis, and not one will be scored. If Messi was at Madrid, he'd have 200 assists a season.
The sad thing is, you don't even need that video to see how many sitters they squander. Watch any Barcelona game, and Messi will put 10 chances - in rather beautiful fashion - on a plate for Pedro or Alexis, and not one will be scored. If Messi was at Madrid, he'd have 200 assists a season.
Indeed, imagine if Messi had been at Real Madrid, the likes of Benzema and Higuain might have buried more than half of those sitters and Real might have won the league a few more times. I get the feeling that Real Madrid really did miss the boat when he was younger. If they only knew then what they know now...what could have been.
Agreed, but I have the feeling he wouldn't have developed into the player he is today outside of Barca's system (which is basically built entirely around him). That said, had he went to Madrid as a child and became the best in the world there, we could be saying the same about him and Barca, so I guess you never know. Plus, with his talent, we cannot put a limit or what he can or cannot do regardless of where he plays. One thing is for sure, though - Messi would have double the amount of assists he has right now if it weren't for Alexis!
Indeed, if you were playing in a good local football team, the best thing you could hope is a decent cross so that it can be buried. He has done that probably a thousand times already, perhaps a bit less, but I think he might have around as many goals as assists. Imagine, 320+ goals and 250+ assists.
Eventually they will start analysing assists and rating them regardless if its a goal or not and this will produce a clearer picture on creative players. As if a player passes the ball 5 yards to another player and he scores a wonder goal from 40 yds the other player still gets an assist in the current system.
He needs to step up his game big time if he wants to have a chance of winning the Ballon d'Or.
I don't know when the voting happens but with him not being in top form the people who vote might look to vote elsewhere.
Messi played with Eto'o, Henry, Ibrahimovic and Villa in his career and now he again has another great finisher in Neymar in his team. He surely didn't have a lack of quality attacking players in his team, just because in one transitional year Alexis and Pedro were underperforming and Villa struggled with injuries. Maybe in a parallel universe, Messi and Ronaldo would play together, and both scored 100 goals each season while Messi also assists 70% of Ronaldo's goal. In this universe, Messi really didn't need to deal with bad finishing by his team mates for large parts of his career so far, he basically played with at least one of the standout strikers of this generation all the time.
Messi seems to coast the majority of the time to me, he is that good. He only needs 4 or 5 moments in a game and he can end up with a goal or two and an assist. The Spanish game is to easy for him and at Barca's peak even the Champion's league was a joke to him. Now he still scores with ease put his overall contribution has waned. If he is sad or whatever the case may be I hope it is not because he is not scoring.
Comparing this Messi to the Messi or 09/10 there is a big difference. He seems to have lost that burst. He has played so much football over the last 5 years and I hope these injuries are not starting to catch up to him. He is only 26 that's another 4-5 years at least as a top top player.
Comparing this Messi to the Messi or 09/10 there is a big difference. He seems to have lost that burst. He has played so much football over the last 5 years and I hope these injuries are not starting to catch up to him. He is only 26 that's another 4-5 years at least as a top top player.
Addidas were apparently ready to pay half of his minimum fee release clause for him to go to one of their three elite clubs- Real, Bayern or Chelsea.
"The horror! The horror!"
He recently had a bit of a revival against Celta (well, in the 2nd half anyway, his 1st half was dreadfully lethargic), ending up with enough chances created on his own to get a hat-trick of goals and assists each (only just the 1 assist in the end). His 2012/13 season was in that sense a lot more impressive than 2011/12, featuring far more impressive performances in the league and a few incredible CL knock-out games (Milan, PSG), but both pale in comparison to the period 2008-11 indeed. In fact the way he's played for Argentina over the past two seasons was far more reminiscent of that time as well.
Just look at a classic performance of those days, that sequence between 5:33 and 5:48, to me, is more impressive than most of the goals he's scored over the last two seasons.
Yes he did well in those knockout games you mentioned and even in a few games I remember Barca losing then Messi would score a couple or create a few singlehandedly. In that sense his influence has never been greater but now I like their balance more. The effect he had when he came on against PSG was amazing, but also worrying at the time. It was like the others didn't think they could win without him. I love Iniesta as a player but at times he should take more of the burden this should be his midfield now Xavi has passed his peak. He can't be Xavi 2.0 but he should put his own twist on it.
No goals in 4 games and it's a crisis? feck me, I like that kind of crisis. Come and play for us Lionel.
It's not the goals or lack thereof
Messi does look "not himself". I think the injury may have affected his confidence.. He's now a bit slower, and more hesitant. Messi never used to think when he dribbles or passes or runs.. Now he seems to be thinking when he's playing, not playing in his natural way.
Anyway, he bagged two goals tonight, but he's far from the Messi we know.. If he doesn't recover, I don't think there is a chance he's winning the Ballon d'Or next year..
He needs to work on his fitness as well..
Anyway, he bagged two goals tonight, but he's far from the Messi we know.. If he doesn't recover, I don't think there is a chance he's winning the Ballon d'Or next year..
He needs to work on his fitness as well..
Yeah he seems sluggish and his body language is not good at all. It is slightly worrying.
Really? The second goal was vintage Messi.
Lionel Messi in crisis: still brilliant, just not as brilliant as before
As Barcelona prepare to face Milan in the Champions League, the Argentinian star is falling short of his own high standards
Lionel Messi has not scored in four matches, which is the Barcelona talisman's worst run for two and a half years. Photograph: Quique Garcia/AFP/Getty Images
Lionel Messi has scored eight times in nine starts in the league, he has provided four assists and the Barcelona team he leads sit at the top of the table having won 11 and drawn one of their 12 games. It is their best ever start to a league campaign and a fortnight ago they defeated rivals Real Madrid, who now trail by six points. They also won the Spanish Super Copa and in the Champions League Messi has scored four times in two matches and Barcelona lead Group H. No wonder they're so worried
about him. Right now, Messi is rubbish. The four-times Ballon d'Or winner is in crisis.
Some crisis. If this is a crisis, it is the kind that most players would love. But Messi is not most players. He made the extraordinary ordinary; now, a victim of the expectations he created, the four-times Ballon d'Or winner is making the very good look, well, not very good. "He set the bar so high that when he doesn't score it feels like it's a problem," says the Barcelona coach, Gerardo "Tata" Martino. "But it's not a problem." The obvious question arises: isn't it? Because if Martino says he is not worried, others are. And not entirely without reason.
Messi hasn't scored in four games. Nothing, you may think. But for the Argentinian, it is the worst run he has endured in two and a half years. Seventeen games into Barcelona's season, he has scored 12 times. At the same point last year it was 21; the year before that it was 20 and the year before that 22. Twelve the year before that, and you have to go back five years to find a season that has started with fewer goals than this one.
Again, there's that bar, set ridiculously high. In the last four seasons Messi has scored a frankly ludicrous amount of goals: 60, 60, 53 and 47. In the calendar year 2012, he scored 91 goals for club and country; with a month and a half left of 2013 he is on 42. That's 42 in 43 games. Still astonishing, just slightly less astonishing. Cristiano Ronaldo, the man against whom he is inevitably compared, has scored 59 in 51.
There's something about Messi, something that's not quite right. Not quite Messi. He appears a fraction slower; he does not react so swiftly or run so quickly. He appears a little distant, not himself; it is legitimate to ask if he fits quite so well in Martino's slightly more direct system, if he will still play such a central role. He didn't score in the clásico, for example, but it was not just that he didn't score that struck spectators. He touched the ball 65 times, according to Sport's analysis; at his best that figure would be closer to 90. Quite simply, he didn't influence the game.
Neymar, the club's summer signing, did. The Brazilian scored one and helped create the other in a 2-1 win. Returning to the right for the first time since Pep Guardiola made a "false No9" of him, distanced from the play, Messi, by contrast, had just one shot on target. He is, said a recent headline in Marca, "playing as a false Messi". The cover of Sport declared: "Objective: get Messi back."
The first step is getting him fit. Messi has suffered three minor injuries already this season and equally worrying is the sensation that this is a continuation of last season, when he came back early from injury to lead Barcelona's defeat of Paris Saint-Germain. Even injured, he had changed everything that night. "He's the best in the world, simple as that," David Beckham said. But Messi was still not right, he couldn't sprint, and the semi-final was a different matter. Messi played but he, like his team-mates, was absent. Barcelona lost 4-0 in Munich.
A player who had largely avoided injuries under Guardiola, re-encountered them and has not thrown them off yet. His first of this new era came during a pre-season that the players considered a shambles. On the opening day of the season, Martino took Messi off after 70 minutes and said he would so again, all the better to protect him. "I'll be careful not to take him off five times in a row," he conceded. Taking Messi off appeared prudent, and he has done so four times, but twice more he suffered muscular injuries, against Atlético and Almería.
Minor issues, but cause for concern. For Messi, especially. Were those injuries now on his mind? Is he holding back? So far this season Messi has missed three games. At this stage last year it was zero; the year before that it was zero and the year before that just one.
Messi returned on 19 October, having missed the last two games for Argentina, but doesn't appear to have reached full speed yet. Javier Mascherano suggested in an interview with El Gráfico that he might be "dosifying" his efforts, aware that the World Cup in Brazil awaits at the end of the season. "What I meant was that he has to think about not getting injured so that he can have more regularity of games," Mascherano explained when the comment caused a stir. "For us he is decisive. We always need him."
The city derby last Friday night brought to a close a week where Barcelona had played three league games in seven days. Messi looked tired; the game was sluggish and so was he. An impressive, dynamic performance in Vigo was overlooked; the two "derbies" either side of it captured the imagination more. "Games against Espanyol are always difficult but it's clear that I am not at 100% yet physically," Messi admitted. "I'm sure that as the games go by I will get back up to speed."
Barcelona next face Milan. It was against the Italians in the spring that Messi produced a superb display, arguably his most recent truly brilliant one, when he scored twice in the first half and led Barcelona to a 4-0 victory. There has been time to rest, to recover, to reset, since the Espanyol match. This clash comes as an obligation but as an opportunity too. "There's always a point in the season that Messi goes a few days without scoring. Maybe he does it to give you lot something to talk about," Dani Alves said at the pre-match press conference. Gerard Piqué added: "Leo will score sooner rather than later. I would love him to score two or three goals every game, but that's impossible."
"Relax," his father, Jorge, insisted. "He'll be back."
Thought he was excellent tonight, only one slight that he sometimes took a little too long on the ball when he was in a promising position to have a shot at goal. His dribbling and creativity were very much present, especially in the 2nd half when the game opened up. In the 1st half he had a couple of excellent passes which really should've resulted in goals (esp. that one that Neymar completely miscontrolled).
Couple of passes in the 1st half were so precise & full of pace that both Neymar & Alexis mishandled golden opportunities, that right there is an example of the gulf between those on the tier below Leo. He's still not 100%, for me, but it was a much more convincing performance than that lethargic one in the local derby. Looks to only be fitness now and very little sign of it being mental. Curious what happened there but better still, I hope it's behind him
He's getting too many injuries that's about 5 this calendar year and I believe he was rushed back from the fist one. I remember reading earlier the season the new coach saying he would rest him more and generally take more care of him. I agree with that. He doesn't need to play EVERY minute of EVERY game. A rest here and there is needed so he is fresh come end of the season. I think that Christmas break the European leagues get is really helpful.
I agree that he's been rushed back from injuries a little too often, so he barely gets a chance to recover properly before he's made to play the next game. He's certainly not at 100%, I think that's obvious to everyone, but maybe he's pacing himself for the WC next year? Definitely being outshone by Ronaldo at the moment. Or even Costa.
That I agree with, plus the fact that Costa being the best player in la liga at the moment, he has a challenge on his hands, but since he is a team player, only team trophies count and individual trophies are a bonus for him. I guess if he doesn't win the Ballon D'Or this season, I don't think he'll be too disappointed, because if he did dwell on the possible loss, it could affect him mentally and that will not aid him in his preparations for the World Cup.
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