Ok but that's the league he plays in
Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Yeah, and its a bad one.
That's the league he plays in. And Messi did score and assist in the CL when he was in it. But City are a better team than PSG. They had Mahrez on the bench last night and Foden wasn't even in the squad, is he injured?
If you say so
Except against Bayern, where he had zero goal contributions in 2 games.
Yes, PSG are worse than City, but Messi did not exactly elevate PSG in the big games(though neither did Mbappe) to put it mildly.
Last edited:
Yeh there was one game he didn’t score against us this season. What an achievement.
But he did score a hattrick in 6-3 win against us back in October though. Shaw did play that game from the bench too. Let’s not pretend it didn’t happened.
PL + CL or the treble are the only conditions I think Haaland could win the Balon dor
The point is he's not unstoppable and people need to stop deifying him.
I agree with this but also, even then it's not a given he is the best player in his position currently in the world. He is the best goal scorer on the planet, I think we can all agree on that - if that is all you value from a striker then yes you could argue he is the best however, in the modern game there are other aspects of forward play that are also very valuable and in some of these aspects he is not the best - things like the ability to hold up the ball and create chances for others - there are other strikers better at this than him who also can put up very good goal scoring numbers (though not as good as his) so it again just comes down to what you value most in a certain position - no player is perfect of course and all have their strengths and weaknesses. His goal scoring ability is second to none for sure though.
Theres a bit of politics involved in the Ballon D'Or. Leo Messi will win that trophy on the back of the WC win. Its the afterglow of the culmination of the biggest fairytale story in football.
Any other year and Haaland would win it convincingly if City goes all the way to the CL trophy
What Mbappé or Messi do in Ligue 1 or what Haaland does in the PL is mostly irrelevant. It's based on the CL and PSG were a massive letdown there. However, Messi's World Cup was so good and Haaland wasn't even in the World Cup, World Cup > entire club season, so could understand if Messi still won it.
Some people are giving Haaland the treble already, they could also win nothing. They are 6 points behind and lost to Real Madrid last year. We've beaten City this year.
Some people are giving Haaland the treble already, they could also win nothing. They are 6 points behind and lost to Real Madrid last year. We've beaten City this year.
Yes, but not really, they have a game in hand, peaking at the right time, also has Arsenal at home.
You make it sound like they are a distance behind, when really, City has it all in their hands now, but of course its going to be a close race, could go either way.
He'd have a very strong argument but it wouldn't be a farce if he didn't win it. The World Cup is the most important trophy in football. And he won the Golden Ball, scored the second most goals and had the most assists in the tournament. If Haaland won the PL and CL double it would be a guy with a league title and the CL and the most goals in Europe v a guy with a World Cup and a league title and the most goal contributions in Europe. You can quibble about the strength of the PL but that's essentially what it boils down to. I don't see anything farcical there.
Yeah, you keep saying that, but ligue 1 is not good, its not debatable, its just isn't a top league.
It will be a close race but Arsenal are still ahead. Yes if City win all their games then they will be champions but Arsenal are still actually ahead at present and can afford to get a draw at City and win the title (assuming they both win all their games which is unlikely). Plus City are still only in the quarter finals of the CL (the Bayern tie looks done and dusted but you never know) with a few strong teams standing in their way and even in the Cup it's far from a foregone conclusion. There's a lot of work for them still to do.
It's a top 5 league
Certainly not. As much as I love him, he's not in contention now.
Relatively speaking, he is indeed the most unstoppable player in Europe this season.
Who is the last player to win the Ballon d'Or based on league performance?
So then you are left with the CL thats competative and that everyone can
Yeah. But Messi and Mbappes hold up, chance creation and step overs isnt working lately in the CL, second year in a row they go out right after group stages. If PSG was scoring alot in the big games i would se where you are coming from. But right now Haaland is just giving every defender nightmares.
PSG has ambition of winning the CL.
Then they need goals. They dont score enugh on the big occasions lately. To win you need goals.
Sure they score alot in ligue1. But thats really not the trophy you want as a club player.
It doesn't matter because winning the PL alone is not enough to make a Ballon D'Or case for the most part.
So, which ones, and how? Is it better to be good at many things than to be extremely good at fewer things? Do skills count in the same way for players in different positions? Does a CB need to have great finishing ability? Is it critical for a striker to be a great tackler? Is it really about skills anyway, or is it about how much you impact games, how much of a difference you make?
Go and look at a list of the greatest players of all time. The qualities that they have, that is typically what determines how we judge the best player.
Usually it's a mix of the following
Pele
Messi
Maradona
Cruyff
C. Ronaldo
Ronaldo
DiStefano
Puskas
Zidane
Etc. The qualities that they have is what people generally look for when judging who is the best. Some prolific goalscorers there. But not really any who are prolific goalscorers and not much else. Of course if there isn't a player like that around then a Haaland can be the best player in the world. But the question is whether that is the case.
It's a good question. Has that ever happened?
Ronaldo in 2013 over Ribery?
So maybe, Haaland is a type of player we havent seen before? A "modern football player"
And wasnt this first about whos the best now?
Maybe its a good thing there is something new. You cant even compare it, we have no idea how they would be now. They where best at their eras. Now its the after Ronaldo Messi era.
But winning league one is?
Bayern are in disarray
45 goals so far. Mental season. More league goals than Chelsea ffs.
I am sure Messi back in 2012 has won Ballon D’or mostly down to his goals (besides being best player in the world). He didn’t even win the league or CL or anything major that year (except a domestic cup).
Well yes, because we're better, but you can't deny that the quality of opposition is drastically higher. PSG also have a different approach to their star players - Mbappe scored 5 against a 6th tier team this season, Haaland wouldn't even be risked against a National League North side.
He scored 73 goals that season which was completely insane. To put that in perspective: Haaland would have to score 28 goals in a maximum of 15 games remaining to match that. It's hard to overstate how much of freak season that was from Messi.
Chose to play there instead of going to Madrid. At the very least, that suggests he doesn't have the same drive to be the best.
For me Mbappe is closer to Neymar's mentality than to the mindset of the all-time greatest players, and if Mbappe stays at PSG he won't be remembered in that category.
Correct but what Haaland is doing now is also insane so......
Also what the minutes played in that comparison as that's the most valuable stat in comparing goal tallys.
So Messi was 73 in 5221 minutes
While Haaland is 45 in 3030 minutes.
I think those numbers are good enough for Haaland to be considered Balon Dor without team achievements.
Haaland has a better goal per minute ratio but Messi obviously had a better Goals + Assists per minute ratio.
The fact the Haaland goals numbers compete with peak Messi says it all. He should win this seasons Balon Dor
Last edited:
I was talking about Messi.
But Mbappe has more goals in the World Cup final (the biggest game in football by far) than literally any other player in history. And he probably won't stay at PSG for his entire career, he has plenty of time to go wherever he wants.
You didn't actually answer the question he asked
He did very well. But he wasn't the best player on the pitch in that particular game. That was Silva. For those who are confused about why the guy who scores the most goals is not always deemed the best player in the world. It's about performances, not just goals.
Well, that's one way of doing it at least. But then you have Ballon d'or winners who doesn't conform to that. Like Modric, or van Dijk. Also, the qualities associated with being the greatest of all time isn't necessarily the same thing as the ones needed to be the best one right now. Among other things, because there isn't always any player of that type who is at that level. And thirdly, you could probably have a pretty big argument about how that canonical, greatness-defining list should look anyway. Should Beckenbauer maybe be on it, for example? Or Lev Yashin? You could argue no, because they don't conform to the qualities the others have, but then you're left with a circular definition of greatness - they're the greatest because they're the right kind of player, and that's the right kind of player because they're the greatest.
Neither are having an overly good season and PSG got knocked out of the CL early again. On merit neither should be in the equation. If we're going by reputation then sure.