Does anyone consider Gerd Muller a better player than Johan Cruyff?
Messi v Ronaldo | Contains double your daily salt allowance
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Messi is destroying Celta Vigo while walking up the pitch.
Absolutely insane
Absolutely insane
He was the best in the world last year and he's continued where he left off this season as well. Just so far and above anyone else right now including your KDBs and Neymars.
Poor Ronaldo, so unlucky to play in the same era with Messi.
No, it's Celta that's horrible, not Messi being good. Ronaldo(and Madrid) just did the same to Celta on weekend. Oh wait.
Ronaldo's fans
As crazy as it sounds, if they played today i wouldn't be surprised if Muller ended up with more individual awards based just on his ridiculous scoring records. Once upon a time criteria was obviously different.
I think he would have won about 5 Ballon D'Ors based on current standards and with good marketing/publicity.
1974
Müller wins the WC, is his team's top goalscorer and scores the winning goal in the final and quasi-semifinal (it was technically a second stage group game)
Wins the CL and is the top scorer
Wins the League and is the top scorer
Finishes 7th in Ballon D'Or voting
This isn't a slight against CR, just an observation I made after looking at past winners/votings.
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But still probably not, Suarez had monster numbers in 2016 and Neymar was ahead of him in The Best, despite scoring almost 30 goals less.
If Müller played with Beckenbauer today, and the media had their focus on the Kaiser he'd probaly run with the trophies as Müller was forgotten, individual trophies have disregarded guys like Modric for years, when he should be in the same tier of importance for Real Madrid as Xavi was for Barcelona.
But for the press, they could sell Xavi or Iniesta as crucial to Leo's performances, diminishing his role to Ronaldo levels (just goalscoring), they're not interested in selling that Modric is a key part in Ronaldo winning titles because the GOAT rivalry comes before everything else.
I love Ronaldo but there’s no competition. Messi is the greatest ever.
Two goals today and yet his assist was the highlight of the game. It’ll be a sad day when he retires.
How anyone can watch all the insane things Messi does and still think Ronaldo is better is beyond me. Messi is so good he makes players like Neymar and Pogba look ordinary. We'll be lucky to ever see another player as good as Messi in our life time.
Anyone making a Ronaldo-Muller comparison shouldn't even talk about football in the first place. Cristiano Ronaldo, the poacher with over 200 career assists and more goals from outside of the box than any other player anyone here has seen play football. The only player in the history of the game who can simultaneously do nothing else but score while creating more chances than anyone on his team. But I guess chances created don't count if they're not pretty through balls.
It's just the usual now though. As we say here, the dogs bark and the caravan goes by. Maybe not a great use of a saying since even dogs would have learned to stop barking by now and I suspect they're not quite as good at rewriting history either.
Modric doesn't get the same recognition as Xavi because Xavi was clearly a better player and he was busy leading his national team to all sorts of success with excellent performance after excellent performance on the big stage while Modric finished the Euros crying after being completely dominated by Adrien Silva. But yeah, the media loves Cristiano Ronaldo and doesn't praise Modric to Xavi standards to make him look better. The players and coaches worldwide are also in on this conspiracy to make Ronaldo look good, that's why they vote him for awards. Or maybe they value the impact of a player in the biggest moments on the biggest competitions over who is the one with more talent with the ball at their feet and can make great passes in a Copa Del Rey quarterfinal.
It's just the usual now though. As we say here, the dogs bark and the caravan goes by. Maybe not a great use of a saying since even dogs would have learned to stop barking by now and I suspect they're not quite as good at rewriting history either.
Modric doesn't get the same recognition as Xavi because Xavi was clearly a better player and he was busy leading his national team to all sorts of success with excellent performance after excellent performance on the big stage while Modric finished the Euros crying after being completely dominated by Adrien Silva. But yeah, the media loves Cristiano Ronaldo and doesn't praise Modric to Xavi standards to make him look better. The players and coaches worldwide are also in on this conspiracy to make Ronaldo look good, that's why they vote him for awards. Or maybe they value the impact of a player in the biggest moments on the biggest competitions over who is the one with more talent with the ball at their feet and can make great passes in a Copa Del Rey quarterfinal.
Messi has shown up on far bigger moments than Ronaldo has. There’s a reason a majority of Ronaldo’s career he’s been seen as a flat track bully. He was great last year in CL, but let’s face it you compare the average Messi performance in a final to the average Ronaldo performance in a final and I’d take Messi every time.
You have to be delusional to think Ronaldo is better. It’s no surprise that when his midfield suffers Ronaldo is an absolute ghost. He completely depends on the service of others while others depend on the service of Messi. Ronaldo needs his teammates to make him look good while Messi is there to service his teammates when he can. It’s night and day.
Ronaldo creating more chances than anyone else in Real Madrid? I'm fairly certain it is not the case, not for the last 3-4 seasons anyway. Do you have some data to back it up perhaps?
12 vs 18 assists in the 16/17 season. You woulnd't say there's much incredible difference between them in terms of numbers, as almost every Ronaldo fan does.
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
12 vs 18 assists in the 16/17 season. You woulnd't say there's much incredible difference between them in terms of numbers, as almost every Ronaldo fan does.
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
It is.
There's no argument for Ronaldo being a better footballer.
It's insane that people can watch both play and come away thinking Ronaldo is better to me.
Messi is in a different tier entirely. He's up there with Pele, Maradona, etc. Ronaldo is in the tier below.
It's insane that people can watch both play and come away thinking Ronaldo is better to me.
Messi is in a different tier entirely. He's up there with Pele, Maradona, etc. Ronaldo is in the tier below.
12 vs 18 assists in the 16/17 season. You woulnd't say there's much incredible difference between them in terms of numbers, as almost every Ronaldo fan does.
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
Lol at Ronaldo's assists 2,5,6, 9 and 11.
Like all the finals he's lost with Argentina? There's a lot of very sweeping statements in your post and little substance. Ronaldo a flat track bully? He was great in the CL final for us, which imo is where he was at his playing peak (in terms of being both a winger and goal-scorer, vs just the goal scorer he is now). And he was great in most of the knock-out ties in the CL last season.
I know a lot of people will jump on the 'Messi is 100% better, just watch the latest game / this season', just like people said Ronaldo was up there after his great end to last season. The reality is it's a mix. Messi's a great all-round footballer, but too many relegate Ronaldo to being just a goal scorer. They forget his career at United where he was essentially a winger for most of it and just how creative he was for us. He didn't start playing football in 2009. He's not that footballer anymore so imo at current levels Messi is better, but you can't suddenly forget how good Ronaldo was a winger / wide forward too.
If you watch them both play it shouldn't even be a debate at this stage. you can argue about careers, who won more popularity contests and have preference for one or the other but Messi is an alien, he's playing a different game to everyone else. I've watched Messi since his debut all those years ago and he still manages to amaze me.
12 vs 18 assists in the 16/17 season. You woulnd't say there's much incredible difference between them in terms of numbers, as almost every Ronaldo fan does.
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
It's rather 7 vs 17 or something
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The way Ronaldo is going he shouldn't even make the top 20 when it comes to voting time
Here comes my standard post: Müller wasn't a poacher, and his career assist rate (apg) should be similar to Ronaldo's (there are no complete records I know of).
By which I don't really want to dive into this thread's discussion. It's just not needed to paint a wrong picture of Müller for defending one's stance on Ronaldo.
A lot of Ronaldo fans think this is an insult, but it clearly isn’t. Ronaldo is a top 10 great, but he lacks the close control and creativity of Messi or Maradona. That’s why most people will never consider him the GOAT no matter how many goals he scores or personal awards he wins.
I’m not even remotely moved by that performance or pass. Says it all really
Xavi led Spain's finest generation of players ever, Modric played for Croatia with Rakitic, Perisic and Mandzukic, little else beyond that.
When we talk about Leo vs Cris, you usually say that it's not the same playing for Portugal than Argentina, so the argument that Modric isn't Xavi because he failed to do something with Croatia is one of the most biased things I've read lately around here.
As for Müller's assists, at club level (and only in Europe) Transfermarkt gives Müller 106 assist in a 541 games/48k minutes career, and Ronaldo 189 in 711 games/58k minutes, their ratio Minutes@assist career is 458 for Müller and 309 for Cristiano, with:
Not a single assist for Müller in Cup (hard to believe in 56 games, probably not tracked)
Not counting his US games (he got 25 assists in 54 games for Fort Lauerdale)
If we assume Müller could replicate his career numbers of minutes/assist in cup to his league levels:
Bundesliga: 104 in 38.157, 366 minutes@assist
Cup: 5.209 minutes so ~14 assists.
And we're being mean with "Der Bomber", as the Cup competition probably featured weaker teams from lower divisions, hence why his goal ratio exploded from 0.85 to 1.1 in Cup
So, if we held those Cup assists numbers true, Muller would get an assist every 405 minutes, and Ronaldo every 309, and their total ratio for Goals+Assists would be Müller scoring/assisting every 81 minutes and Ronaldo every 80 minutes, so I think its safe to assume their aportation for their clubs was almost the same.
Ant that's of course without counting their National Team stats, which would steer the balance more in favour to Müller with his absurd Goal per game ratio, also we don't have info on how many assists he got from international friendlies, but seeing that the only international competition that has trackings of that puts him on 3 assists in 13 games (World Cup), with Ronaldo having also 2 assists in 12 WC games...
Figures, if you look at the stats and numbers from both players, they end up intertwining in such coincidental ways, we might be tempted to believe that stats show A) Similar players or B) A huge concidence when we're talking about sample sizes with magnitudes in the hundreds and thousands.
Who knows, right?
That's absolute bullshit, it's what that is. Messi has not shown up in bigger moments than Ronaldo at all or even close to it. I have no idea why you think Ronaldo's been seen as a flat track bully for most of his career... and I don't know why you care specifically about finals either, a CL or WC semifinal is far bigger than a Copa Del Rey or CWC final.
It's so easy to score goals with this Madrid's midfield in behind that Benzema finished 2017 with 14 goals.
If Messi makes his teammates look better then what the feck happens in Argentina? Icardi, Higuain, Aguero, Dybala, etc. Who even is playing better than they normally do? Neymar left and he's playing better than ever, the spanish players showed they were still incredible without him and won 2 Euros and a WC in 4 years, etc.
It's always the same bullshit from back when he was playing next to freaking Rooney. Then it was Ozil and Di Maria were the ones making him better, they left and what the feck happened? It turns out that to create loads of chances you both need extraordinary passing and extraordinary movement. He's been partnered by the likes of Helder Postiga, Hugo Almeida, Eder, André Silva, Danny with a midfield of Moutinho, Meireles, Veloso, William, etc. and he's done more for Portugal than anyone here could have ever even imagined.
And here's my exact point:
12 vs 18 assists in the 16/17 season. You woulnd't say there's much incredible difference between them in terms of numbers, as almost every Ronaldo fan does.
Then you watch & analyze 'em
It's even funny
If it's not a pretty through ball, it doesn't count. If its a cross or an easy pass the Gods of football decide the goal isn't worth as much. If he deflects the ball at the first post on a corner for Ramos to score at the far post he got lucky, if Messi plays a through ball through the legs of 5 defenders for Suarez to score he's a genius. Same with goals too, if it's a tap in it doesn't count. Anyone could do that after all.
It's not an insult, it's just stupid. Why is close control and creativity the barometer for being the greatest? For all I care Peter Crouch could be the greatest as long as he had a greater impact and legacy than the others.
The second one
Come on don't be mean, he puts like 75% of the goal on Isco and Bale's foot
Edit: Best thing, I can recall those situations in PES where the 2nd one would cound as an assist and the broadcaster would go crazy yelling "What an assist by (pause to introduce name in pregenerated commentary) CRISTIAAANO RONALDOOO!"
I had this same debate months ago when people brought the stats saying that Neymar was better than Messi last season because he was creating more chances per game, no one though about checking that Ney's chances were basically him taking corners and crossing the ball mindlessly a couple times per game. Who needs to watch football when you can check stats?
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Did you read the post you quoted? The first suggests you didn't.
Ronaldos INTERNATIONAL final performances(not outcomes) vs Messis......wouldn't say theres a great deal in it to be fair, not have super highlights, though Messi's effortless talent shown through at times in the World Cup final.
Can we just drop this topic already? Every time one does something good, this thread bumps up. Sheesh
Is it wrong to think Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are better than both?
World Cups and all of that.
World Cups and all of that.
Giving WC as a reason to think that Ronaldinho - who flopped as a main man in '06 - is better seems very wrong.
Why not?
Their '16 & '17 & '72-'74 years are really similar on paper accomplishment wise.
Considering the absolute atrocity that WC 2002 was in fairness, i'd be tempted to add Ronaldo to that list. I think that German team would have a hard time getting past the world cup group stage today, yet they made the final.
I always thought Rivaldo was their actual standout player during that tournament, but obviously due to Ronaldo returning from multiple career threatening injuries, he was going to be the star of the tournament by default.
The problem with Ronaldinho is when we talk about career length to say who's the best, peak Ronaldinho has a decent claim against almost anyone for best player ever but his peak was so short...
Ronaldo has a similar problem, longer career but tons of injuries, still everyone keeps bringing international trophies to bring down Messi vs Maradona and Cristiano now, if we talk about international level, Ronaldo was a monster at WC level, specially in 2002, and he totally could deserve being in the comparison.
Everyone is so interested in steering the arguments to their ground that it's hard to say right now what are we judging, if we talk about international + club level, skill, scoring, career longevity and titles no one comes close to Messi, he's the one that ticks most boxes (International finals, scoring records, scoring ratio, club titles and career length), a WC is the only thing he lacks to be the indisputed king, and that's were everyone has a excuse to use against him.
LeBron was in a similar spot back in 2010, haters basically said "he's so good but not a title", once he won one (and specially after losing vs Dallas) it basically broke his shackles about being regarded the best player in the league, not many dared to compare him to Kobe after that.
So now getting to the finals is a bigger achievement than winning the damn thing?
Ronaldo and Pepe were Portugals main players during the whole tournament. They wouldn't have even made the finals without Ronaldo. If football is such a team game then how about we discredit Messi for all his achievements during the pep/xavi/iniesta era and say it's a team game. He wasn't responsible?
Yeah Ronaldo "won" Portugal the Euros whereas Messi got Argentina to the final. In reality, both players only got their teams to the final. Ronaldo didn't play that final so he can't get credit for winning a final. To me Portugal winning that final shows that they were a decent outfit even without Ronaldo. Also, Nani was just as good for Portugal in the Euros.
50/50 with Rivaldo in 02', but Ronaldo scored twice in the final, that edges everything, like happened with Zidane in 98'
I always like to mention Villa in these situations tho, he bailed Spain 4 times in 2010 (Chile, Honduras, Portugal in R16 and Paraguay in QF), 5 goals and an assist of the total 8 goals Spain scored... and finished 8th in the Ballon d'Or. If Messi or Ronaldo did something similar everyone would be talking about the greatest display on a WC ever, football is unfair like that
Muller was more than just a poacher to be fair. He averaged an assist every four games in the Bundesliga as well, exactly the same ratio as Ronaldo funnily enough.
I dunno if i'm the one with the wrong perception, but it seems to me people here have a completely skewed, wrong idea of what makes a poacher. You'd think it was some kind of insult...
No, the most biased thing you've read around here is that the media has not praised Modric as much as Xavi because they want to make Ronaldo look good. It's not just biased, it's insane and a product of how far Barcelona fans go with their propaganda on this subject, especially compared with Madrid fans who mostly don't really give a shit.
I don't blame Modric for not winning 2 Euros and a WC, my point was that he has performed nowhere near the standard Xavi has internationally (and not as good for his club either imo) which is why they're not equals and the media doesn't treat them the same. Not because of an hidden agenda.
C) Not similar players with similar stats? So much work and then a completely nonsensical conclusion. That's terrible logic. Since when do 2 players having similar stats means they were similar players?
The magnitude being in the hundreds and thousands actually makes the stat worse, not better.
The problem with using goals or goals+assists per game or minutes with Cristiano Ronaldo is very simple and I've explained you this before but I'll do it again. The problem with stats in this sport (or sports in general) is you can use them to say whatever the hell you want when you don't treat them objectively and take them out of context.
Player A out of his prime in 5 years has scored 100 goals in 200 games (0.50 goals per game).
Player B out of his prime in 5 years has scored 150 goals in 280 games (0.54 goals per game).
Player A in his prime in 10 years has scored 700 goals in 700 games (1 goal per game).
Player B in his prime in 10 years has scored 580 goals in 560 games (1.04 goals per game).
Career stats:
Player A scored 800 goals in 900 games (0.89 goals per game)
Player B scored 730 goals in 840 games (0.87 goals per game)
Player B has been the better goalscorer throughout their careers but if you look at their career stats you'd reach a different conclusion. Career stats are not a good way of looking at things despite being very easy to check wikipedia for them. Ronaldo played an enormous amount of games as a youngster that skews his stats. With assists there's an even bigger possiblity of this exact thing happening since assists per game are lower than goals per game. To make a proper analysis of their stats you'd need a lot more information that that.
All of this to simply say Cristiano Ronaldo and Gerd Muller were completely different players and that I wasn't insulting Muller or calling him just a poacher, I'd have him just outside of my top 10 players of all time. The fact that it's a comparison made again and again to try and discredit Ronaldo as was done above is laughable.
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