What we saw past night was a seamless, effortless fusion of peak Maradona+Romário.
Lionel Messi
- Thread starter Scarecrow
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Love Maradona and his achievements. However there is no way he is better than Messi at football. It just is that blatant for me
I guess one might argue about their peaks and talent level, but career wise I'd agree.
I can understand the opposing argument but it would never convince me. Peak Messi broke Gerd Muller's goalscoring record for a year. It is crazy to think that Messi's current form is nothing on him at his peak, it's ridiculous
Cheers!
I think this is the best Messi. His previous versions were more explosive, he spent more time dribbling and just going for goal, which produced memorable moments and many records.
Now he creates and makes his team mates play. I think what he's doing now is more difficult, his decision making is perfect, his passing is perfect, he's amazing at free kicks, he's as accurate as ever, and he can still dribble through several players. I would say this is his best version yet and he keeps improving.
Now he creates and makes his team mates play. I think what he's doing now is more difficult, his decision making is perfect, his passing is perfect, he's amazing at free kicks, he's as accurate as ever, and he can still dribble through several players. I would say this is his best version yet and he keeps improving.
I would have to agree. A lot of people judge based on goals scored and dribbles completed; but mostly on goals scored. If Messi scores a hattrick, for example, the superlatives come out (and rightfully so), but then in another game if Messi assists 2 or 3 goals, those superlatives are somewhat less likely to come. We often don't process achievement rightly. Influence is influence. If you don't score but assist one, that's influence. If you don't assist but score one, that's influence. If you do both, again, influence. But then it gets more nuanced than that. Stats don't always complete an analysis of a players' influence. Messi also creates far more chances per game than anyone else in the game. Whether Messi gets an assist of not is wholly dependent upon the quality of his teammates finishing on that particular day. But what is not in dispute is that regardless of his teammates poise in front of goal, the chances are created by him, game in and game out, even in his poorest games.
Statistics do bear the evidence of his superiority all over the field, but sometimes an eye test is required to see the nuances which cannot be placed in a chart.
Which is why you cannot really judge a players greatness only on trophies, goals and stats. Obviously if you are a nr 9 striker you number of goals are important, but even a great striker like drogba wasn't that prolific.
With the greatest players, you just see them play and they look a class above everyone.
I really agree with this. The so called "eye-test". After all football is, above anything, entertainment. Surely the greatest ever, for yourself, is the one who entertains you the most.
At one point if Messi ever decides he's had enough of scoring goals, I could see him just seamlessly move to the midfield and simply become the best midfielder in football. It's still shocking to me that a player that is so lethal at scoring can also be one of the best play-makers on the planet. So rare to be truly elite at both.
Is it entertainment? Or is it a competitive sport people watch for entertainment?
Either way i agree that greatest of all time is purely subjective to each person. There is no measure that can ever be used to say who is the best in football. Its a team sport.
That's not fair though since Maradona spent his peak years at Napoli, not Barca who will continue to win tons of trophies when Messi is gone. Barca won 6 out of the 10 la liga titles of the 90s, for example.
Napoli have only 10 major trophies in their entire clubs history, 5 of those were under Maradona's 6 year spell.
The usual Maradona bashing comes out everytime Messi has a good game. Predictable.
When I said what I said, it's not a criticism on Maradona or bashing, only narrow minded people would see it like that. It remains to be seen if Barca will win trophies at the same regular rate after his retirement, I highly highly doubt it but so far their club careers aren't even close.
They're not close for a reason, he played for a club that have only won two league titles ever, both under him. Shearer's club career pales in comparison to Wayne Rooney's, is Rooney a better striker than Shearer because he won more trophies?
Barca have been winning bags of trophies since the Cruyff revolution. Real Madrid and Barca will continue post Messi to win 7/8 out of 10 la liga titles in any given decade, they have the most money and will continually attract the worlds best players.
One of the best sides this century was Rijkaard's Barca of 04-08, a team that didn't really consist much of Messi.
I hear all you say, I don't deny that context is important but Messi's achievement for Barca are better than Maradona's for his clubs.
Just like Maradona's achievement for Argentina is better than Messi's. No need to overcomplicate it.
However if we put trophies won aside and compare them just for the players they are, at their peak, I'd go with Messi, no brainer for me even if I completely accept that some will disagree with me and go with Maradona.
It's fine by me
On the contrary, to play in midfield position you need to engaged yourself in alot of things, Messi doesn't have the workrate to do so, he is more suit to free role in attack, like Riquelme maybe, to have the whole team build around him and covers him up, if he wants to be a pure midfielder.
On their absolute football peak, Maradona has more, that's what most people think anyway. But Messi has equal footballing and skills, better career, more consistent and much more goals, of course.
I totally can't agree with that. If entertainment is the only measure for greatness, then Ronaldinho will probably be the greatest ever, and Denilson will be greater player than Shearer.
A 35 year old Scholes or 35 year old Pirlo can’t run or tackle to save their lives, still ran the show. In Scholes’s case, in a midfield 2.
Messi being press resistant as he is would be completely fine from a deep position, especially a younger version. You need someone doing the dog’s work regardless.
Messi has great workrate or rather had, but he's definitely conserving himself these days. No spring chicken.
I think impact sub, league downgrade or a Riquelme role like you said works.
I don't agree but I see where you're coming from. There is a good case to be made for sure.
Ronaldinho had great entertainment value but Denilson ? The man was a step over machine and that's it. He was very limited in his skill set.
Yes but Shearer is quite boring, other than his goals. At least Denilson looks more exciting, with his pace and dribbling.
Are there any Barca fans on the caf who could do a ranking of every season he's been a regular? I'd do one myself but I don't watch him every game, and I've learned from a bit of reading around that seasons I would have considered less impressive, such as 2012/13 and 2016/17, are considered by Barca fans to be among his best ever.
He's just fantastic. I dreading the thought of our defenders facing him. He will rip us apart.
100%. You wouldn't even see him sometimes. Also I don't think I've seen someone go from standing still to such top speed with the ball so quick. His signature move was so deadly because of this (perhaps United fans remember when he did it on Nani/Scholes).
Can't wait to see him playing at Old Trafford. He never got to play here during his "peak" years, but he'll be coming next month in the best form he's been in since then.
If Ronaldinho kept us his peak for 10 years like Messi, he probably would be rated up there.
I don't know. Maradonna probably had better flair, leadership and entertainment, but Peak Messi nearly scored 100 goals in a calendar year and won all the biggest trophies.
He’s never really struck me as the management type either. I think a coaching role at Barcelona is likely. Seeing how the Argentina FA seems to run, I’m sure he’ll rock up as the Argentina manager at some point as well.
18/19
17/18
14/15
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09/10
10/11
08/09
11/12
12/13
15/16
16/17
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13/14
07/08
06/07
05/06
This is off the top of my head. It's difficult to do this because he's the best and thus has the ability to do anything on the pitch to perfection. And so as he changes his role and style of play, you can prefer one season over the other depending on whether he dribbled more due to his explosiveness or passed/assisted more due to his changed role in the team.
For me the current Messi is the best Messi. Whatever he does has been brought to perfection. Passing, vision, accuracy, free kicks, everything. I think he improves himself constantly and I'd take this version over any other. He's a bit less explosive due to age, but he more than makes up for it by dropping deeper and just influencing every team-mate on the pitch. He's an all-encompassing presence at the moment and I prefer it when a player creates, carries the team and makes others play.
I divided his career into three parts. The seasons where he was least impressive are the seasons where he suffered most from injuries and was sidelined for longer spells 05-08, while in 13/14 he seemed to have slowed down a bit and lost shape. His best seasons for me are the last two (when he is the end-all-be-all for us in every way and does pretty much everything brilliantly) plus the 14/15 Treble season where he also had iconic moments like against Bayern and Athletic, that season was special. Then there are all the other seasons which have been sublime and you can basically change the order, like I said, I did this off the top of my head. He's had seasons where he produced many youtube clips, he had seasons where he was scoring insanely, he had seasons where he dribbled the most etc etc. Basically, I don't care which order they are in because he is not your usual player with a certain set of skills so you can rate his seasons based on how sharp those skills were at a certain point. With him it's different because he has so many of them and executes everything so brilliantly that you can pick any season (for instance, because he scored a record number of goals) and someone will say that some other season was better because he guided the team to a Treble, or a different season altogether because he was incredibly creative and took charge of the team.
So to sum up, Messi in his first few seasons was injured too long for those seasons to stack up positively against the rest of his career, while his last few years have been him coming of age, refining his skills, becoming better in everything that doesn't depend on explosiveness and bursts of pace. He's never played as intelligently and with such vision and presence as he does today. Last season was more or less the same.
Well, Messi entertains me more than Ronaldinho did. It's still subjective. And obviously having 1 or 2 entertaining season is not as good as being at the top level of football, far above anyone else, for 10 years.
I am sure, in terms of entertainment, Ronaldinho has more then 1 or 2 season, and was also far more entertaining than any players I've watched. Afterall, I was watching football all the time during that era.
Can't agree with that. He's clearly off his peak (that explosiveness, speed on the dribble etc), albeit he's still playing at an amazing level.
even that game he was the best player on the pitch. scholes will have had nightmares if he never scored. you could feel the anxiety of the crowd when he starting dribbling at lightening speed.
