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World Cup 2018 Group D (Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria)

jts1882 said:
You have to ask how great he is. A wonderful player when playing with the best club team of the era, one good enough to be the core of a World Cup winning team. But when he is required to lead a team he can't do it. He is the icing on the cake, rather than the main meal.

In contrast, look at Ronaldo, Modric, and Eriksen. They lift their teams, rather than inhibit them.
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Seriously?
Have you seen the lad play at all? :p By a fudging country mile the best footballer ever to have graced a pitch. The fact that his team mates are useless not really his fault. You simply need team mates to play good football!
 
Rorschach said:
Come back to Spurs please
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If only, folks can go on about Bale coming back but Modric is the one who would take us higher.

jts1882 said:
You have to ask how great he is. A wonderful player when playing with the best club team of the era, one good enough to be the core of a World Cup winning team. But when he is required to lead a team he can't do it. He is the icing on the cake, rather than the main meal.

In contrast, look at Ronaldo, Modric, and Eriksen. They lift their teams, rather than inhibit them.

.
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Messi is a great player but watching this W/C i have come to the conclusion that Ronaldo is the one that lifts teams to perform higher then their parts. Messi in the Barcelona team looks the man but rarely does the same for Argentina, Porugal are not as good individuley as Argentina but Ronaldo lifts them to achieve more.
 
Daisuk said:
Seriously?
Have you seen the lad play at all? :p By a fudging country mile the best footballer ever to have graced a pitch. The fact that his team mates are useless not really his fault. You simply need team mates to play good football!
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Most talented, yes. But seemingly unable to drag a performance out of his team the way some of the other top players in the world can.
 
parklane1 said:
Messi is a great player but watching this W/C i have come to the conclusion that Ronaldo is the one that lifts teams to perform higher then their parts. Messi in the Barcelona team looks the man but rarely does the same for Argentina, Porugal are not as good individuley as Argentina but Ronaldo lifts them to achieve more.
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The coach had setup his team to feed Messi. That was his main tactic as far as I could see, and Croatia just crowded Messi out and negated their attacking intent. They looked better when Dybala came on as it gave them something else to think about. The coach should have been looking to take the focus off Messi rather than dumping it all on him. I also thought Aguero going off for Higuain was another blunder. Aguero is good at getting a shot off in a tight space, and space was tight.

As well as Croatia played Cabellero affacted the match more that any onther player on the pitch IMO. I thought he should have saved Modrics shot too.
 
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Despite those around them not being at the same level as their regular club teammates, the likes of Eriksen, Modric and Ronaldo are still putting the performances in, Messi hasn’t looked anything like his normal self, he played like he’s carrying an injury, the pace, the control, the direction change, nothing was there.
 
scaramanga said:
Most talented, yes. But seemingly unable to drag a performance out of his team the way some of the other top players in the world can.
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Yeah, maybe. He certainly dragged them to the world Cup final last time out, as well as the copa America final. Had higuain been a half decent finisher, he might have won both of them by now. It's the Spurs argument all over for me, "they haven't won anything, so they're brick", "Messi hasn't won the world Cup and doesn't drag his brick team along, so how good is he really". I'm not buying it. Argentina as a team isn't good this year, but it's arguably not messi's fault.
 
galeforce said:
Despite those around them not being at the same level as their regular club teammates, the likes of Eriksen, Modric and Ronaldo are still putting the performances in, Messi hasn’t looked anything like his normal self, he played like he’s carrying an injury, the pace, the control, the direction change, nothing was there.
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To be fair, other than the goal, Eriksen was pretty anonymous today. Australia did the same thing to him that Croatia did to Messi. It's just that Denmark was playing Australia so they didn't get punished, whereas Argentina were facing a Croatia with many star players. Bit of difference in class between the two sides.
 
alekaras said:
To be fair, other than the goal, Eriksen was pretty anonymous today. Australia did the same thing to him that Croatia did to Messi. It's just that Denmark was playing Australia so they didn't get punished, whereas Argentina were facing a Croatia with many star players. Bit of difference in class between the two sides.
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I take your point, but he still played like he does for us, we’ve seen him flit in and out of games too, it wasn’t an alien performance.
 
galeforce said:
I take your point, but he still played like he does for us, we’ve seen him flit in and out of games too, it wasn’t an alien performance.
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Yeah, but it was the kind of performance that, if he hadn't scored a goal, we'd be all over him.
 
Daisuk said:
Seriously?
Have you seen the lad play at all? :p By a fudging country mile the best footballer ever to have graced a pitch. The fact that his team mates are useless not really his fault. You simply need team mates to play good football!
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Yes, I've seen him play for club and country. One of the most talented players of all time and capable of sublime performances when everything is aligned. But what does it say if he can only produce these great performances when in the Barcelona team? The other Argentina players are hardly no-hopers. How many of them won champions medals with their clubs this season?

This is the player that many consider the greatest of all-time and it is this consideration that gets Messi a critical evaluation. His competitors for this honour have won world cups, especially the one that he will be compared with most.

P.S. Argentina still have a fairly good chance of qualifying so Messi could still get his opportunity.
 
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And talking of the one, it's best not to gloat:

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Being an Argentina fan, really annoyed with Argentina getting thrashed by Croatia but not really surprised. This Argentina team is surely one of the worst in the World Cup history. Croatia didn't really play well as Argentina were poor and made it easy for them. The stupid blunder by the Argentine goalie when he gifted the first goal made it worse for them. I think Argentina badly missed a passionate and hard working player like Lamela. Modric had all the time in the world to aim and score the long range second goal. I think Lamela would have stopped Modric from having that shot. Annoyingly, Messi simply went missing for the whole match. With this defeat, Argentina are virtually out of the WC. Can see Iceland winning their matches against Nigeria and Croatia making them beyond Argentina's reach.

It was a real privilege to watch the great Maradona in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups but watching Messi in the last 4 World Cups have been a topsy turvy mental torture ! For the records, Maradona single handedly led a mediocre Argentina team to win the WC in 1986 and reach the Final in 1990. In contrast, Messi failed to inspire a Argentina team with many star players for the last 4 World Cups. Remember, Messi scored 1 goal in 2006, failed to score in 2010, scored 4 goals in 2014 and now has failed to score any goals. In fact, Messi's missed penalty against Iceland is proving to be costly for Argentina. Messi has proven yet again that he is just a poor man's Maradona and not fit to tie Maradona's boot laces. Messi simply lacks the passion and hard work of Maradona !
 
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