• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Lionel Messi

This is part of the point of why I think he's the best ever.

The way Messi is lifting over keepers heads at the moment means you could have Shaq in goal and he still would't be able to save it. The ball from Alves for the record breaking goal wasn't anything that spectacular but once Messi controlled it there was never any doubt that he'd put it in the back of the net.

Maradona jinking his way past a load of slow English workhorses like Terry Butcher, Terry Fenwick and Peter Reid is hardly spectacular but he gets praised for scoring the best goal of all time for that. Messi's been doing that since he left primary school.

Granted having Xavi and Iniesta around helps but a lot of what Messi does is solo skill, meaning you can't let the quality of his team-mates overshadow him.

absolutely agree

and he seems to be now making a regular habit of lifting/chipping the ball over the keeper in situations when 99.9% of players would try to place the ball to the left or right past the keeper, or maybe thru his legs. Was it against sevilla this or last weekend when Messi was in the area on the left and he chipped the keeper and put the ball in the far right top corner. Just ridiculous ball mastery. He does it all the time now
 
Maradona and Pele played against far more physical opposition than Messi did. But that's it really. I still don't buy into the fact that they were on the same level as some of the modern players. Yes, they had to deal with defenders chopping them down, but the game has evolved for the better now. Even with the restrictions placed on defenders, those at the top of the game - your Kompanys, Vidics and Kings, still manage to win the ball off opposition players regularly and almost never get skinned by a tricky attacking player. That shows that the standard of defending is far far higher than it was in the 60s, 70s and 80s. You also need to look at the levels of fitness across the game now. In the 60s, 70s and 80s, there were big drinking and smoking cultures amongst top clubs in the game. Now? Most top players are completely tee-total. They have carefully designed diets. Has anyone recently watched a full length game from the 60s? By the end of the game the players are so tired they're practically playing at walking pace. Messi on the other hand is constantly on the move and always still has a burst of pace left in him in the 90th minute to win the game.

Another big advantage that Maradona and Pele had over Messi is that, while opposition players would have known about them through reputation or seeing them in action once or twice, they never had the opposition watching DVDs, studying their style of play, their movements, their strengths, weaknesses, analysing every little detail of their game to work out how to stop them. Everyone knows what Messi can do, they just can't stop him from doing it.

Since the big money came into football in the 90s, clubs, coaches and players have been forced to become more and more innovative in their approach. Standards of football have never been higher in terms of the average quality of players. Blackburn won the league in 1995 with Tim Sherwood as their captain and players like Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley as important first team stars. Players of that standard wouldn't get anywhere near a top side these days. Nor would Kenny Dalglish be able to manage a team to the title. Standards at the top level are way way beyond what they used to be, so to excel at the top level is a greater achievement than it's ever been.

Perhaps if you brought Pele and Maradona into the modern era they'd still be stars. But it's not fair to compare them to Messi because they're not proven at the same level. It would be like comparing Kris Boyd to Sergio Aguero because Boyd has won the SPL golden boot a few times and has scored a few goals in the MLS whereas Aguero has never won anything. The players who have been at the top over the last 10-15 years are the best of all time because they're the ones proven at the highest level.

For me, the best player of all time is either Messi or Zidane. I'm leaning towards Messi.
 
The whole concept of "winning trophies makes you a great player" is a bit flawed in my opinion. Shearer and Le Tiss are two of the finest players I've ever seen in the Premier League, and they have one PL title between them, yet Jonny Evans, John O'Shea and Wes Brown have multiple PL and cup trophies each.
 
further to SUIYHA's post - i don't totally agree with it as i don't think it is possible to make the distinction between greatest of all time over the history of football.

football has changed so much so you need to make the distinction based on a scale in the environment at the time.

Messi is certainly as influencial, in a top team, as Pele or Maradona, however so dar he hasnt made a mark on the World Cup in a decent team - he needs to be better at Int'l level for me - that is one thing Pele and Maradona did, they had both club and Int'l teams built around them
 
Reading this thread I didn't see any mention of George Best, according to Sir Matt Busby he was the best player at Manchester United in every position, that's got to count for something if you're talking greatest ever players.
 
Reading this thread I didn't see any mention of George Best, according to Sir Matt Busby he was the best player at Manchester United in every position, that's got to count for something if you're talking greatest ever players.

but didnt you know, George Best never won the World Cup with N Ireland ;)
 
The argument goes both ways as to technology, sure as argued above now teams have better fitness, more advance scouting reports so that means they know all about Messi and how to stop him (and still they don't). But in the old days they didn't have fancy boots, and had to thump balls as heavy as boulders, whilst caked in sweaty quilt-like jumpers. To do what Best and Maradona did on less-than-manicured pitches must be seen as quite the achievement.
 
The argument goes both ways as to technology, sure as argued above now teams have better fitness, more advance scouting reports so that means they know all about Messi and how to stop him (and still they don't). But in the old days they didn't have fancy boots, and had to thump balls as heavy as boulders, whilst caked in sweaty quilt-like jumpers. To do what Best and Maradona did on less-than-manicured pitches must be seen as quite the achievement.

Tht's why I don't think makeing comparisons between players from different periods of time can ever make sense. It's just like the age-old Federer argument in tennis
 
Reading this thread I didn't see any mention of George Best, according to Sir Matt Busby he was the best player at Manchester United in every position, that's got to count for something if you're talking greatest ever players.
I still don't think you can compare the likes of George Best to Lionel Messi. They played in completely different environments, and so must be judged against others that played in the same conditions, i.e. from the same era.

So for me, the two greatest players of the previous era were Zinedine Zidane and Paolo Maldini. The latter being one of the best in his position right up until the day he retired! Messi is obviously the outstanding candidate for the modern era, and will continue to do so until someone stops him!
 
Fernando Torres (3 in 36), Andy Carroll (5 in 31) and Luis Suarez (10 in 36) have scored as many goals in a combined 103 league matches as Lionel Messi has in his last 7.
 
I still don't think you can compare the likes of George Best to Lionel Messi. They played in completely different environments, and so must be judged against others that played in the same conditions, i.e. from the same era.

So for me, the two greatest players of the previous era were Zinedine Zidane and Paolo Maldini. The latter being one of the best in his position right up until the day he retired! Messi is obviously the outstanding candidate for the modern era, and will continue to do so until someone stops him!

Agreed, plus of course nostalgia plays a part, there's probably only a handfull of posters on this board who saw Stanley Matthews play (I'm not one of them) so we can only really compare like with like as you say, I was just lobbing my two penn'orth in once people started talking about the greatest player of all time.
 
Agreed, plus of course nostalgia plays a part, there's probably only a handfull of posters on this board who saw Stanley Matthews play (I'm not one of them) so we can only really compare like with like as you say, I was just lobbing my two penn'orth in once people started talking about the greatest player of all time.
For sure, I just feel that there are too many good footballers throughout history that have played in different conditions to actually warrant a 'greatest'.

Let's not forget the classic 'he's not the best until he performs at Stoke on a cold december night' argument! :eek:
 
67 is the current record. Muller.

Messi should score another 7 before the end of the season. Probably break the record against Real in the CL final. The Super Dooper Classico.
 
We should also mention the 31 assists he has...crazy stats

168idl1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Back