He’s 24 and won the Champion’s League twice and world player of the year 3 times in a row. He’s going to demolish the La Liga goal scoring record and the Champion’s league record. He just scored 5 goals in a Champion’s League/European Cup for the first time in 40 years. He doesn’t only score, but assists as much as anyone.
If he isn’t already, do you think that’s how he’ll be considered at the end of his career? Will he need to win a World Cup?
I think he will be, and it won’t matter if he wins a World Cup or not.
I don’t think he needs to win a World Cup, but I think he has to be a lot better in one, at least. It’s so hard to separate his accomplishments from the scoring laboratory that is Barcelona. I don’t know how anybody can conclude that Ronaldo wouldn’t score as much as Messi does in the same environment, for instance. From what I’ve seen of Messi internationally, it isn’t like he pulls Argentina up three levels and they still don’t quite have the firepower of (his teammates) the Spanish team. He just isn’t the same player.
I almost believe the assists work against Messi, even though a lot of them are genius-level plays, because they show what a machine he’s a part of. They create scoring chances like it’s a basketball game. He’s obviously incredibly great, but the conditions are so favorable for him to score goals that I’d have a really hard time placing him at the top just based on those goals.
Also, this is admittedly trivial, but it bugs me that he doesn’t really use his right foot. He doesn’t seem like he ever needs to, but I don’t know, it seems like a limitation.
I don’t know if his performance in the Cup was all his fault. It seems like all his team ever did was pass to him, and the other teams knew that, so they put a heavy guard around him. It’s more of a coaching problem.
Ronaldo has 96 goals in only 88 La Liga appearances!!! Messi has 147 goals in 201 La Liga appearances.
If Ronaldo maintains that form, it will be he who demolishes any La Liga record going, rather than Messi (though obviously Messi will be a close second.)
Personally I think Ronaldo and Messi are in the same boat. They are both destroying the club scene, but it is whomever of the two dominates a World cup that will be remembered as the greatest.
I’ll say right away that I’m biased toward Ronaldo (the skinny one).
There are 2 arguments that work against Messi. One is, as Jimmy mentioned, Barca have become a factory. Couldn’t just about anyone look amazing when Xavi and Iniesta (and now Fabregas) are feeding him the ball? Two, why hasn’t he lifted Argentina to greatness like Maradona did?
To the first point, yes, anyone will look amazing with those 2 players behind him. When 3 of the 4 best players in the world are in the same team, that makes the dropoff to 5th even more pronounced, doesn’t it? But the international argument is harder to make. In the 2010 World Cup, Messi had been playing non-stop for about 3 years (full seasons in '07/08 through '09/10, 2008 Olympics, 2009 season ran late, 2009 World Club Cup, etc), so he was probably a bit burned out. Plus, in 2010, he had Maradona as manager. Maradona bizarrely decided to overlook two key players from treble-winning Inter Milan (Zanetti and Cambiasso) in favor of two players (Jonas and Coloccini) from Newcastle, which was in England’s 2nd division. Maradona didn’t do Messi any favors there. Also, I keep hoping Ronaldo can lift Portugal to glory, but if Messi doesn’t get a pass for this, than Ronaldo shouldn’t, either. It’s hard for one player to lift a whole team for a full tournament. Between the WC and the Euros, my guess is that the last person to do it was possibly Marco van Basten in '88 for Holland, but probably Maradona for Argentina in '86.
All this is to say that, 1) I don’t know, since I never saw Pele or Maradona, and 2) I would rather watch Ronaldo and I’d rather have him back at Manchester United than bringing in Messi. But if Messi continues what he’s doing, I’ll hold my hand up and say he’s probably the best ever.
Well, that depends what the “international argument” is. I don’t think it’s a good way to argue that Ronaldo’s better than Messi (although I think Ronaldo’s ability to score in different ways and from different positions and the fact that he’s done it in different leagues is).
But best ever means you have to be better than Pele, Zidane, and, you know, everyone. And I think the international record is only fair game in that comparison. There’s a lot of ground between what Messi’s done internationally and singlehandedly lifting his nation to a World Cup.
For anyone ‘after Maradona’ he really is the best we have ever seen. He needs to show it in a different setting to really cement his place in the history books though. He doesn’t need to win a world cup (Cruyff never did), but he has to set one alight (2014 Brasil seems prudent).
The big difference with Ronaldo is that Messi seems to enjoy his football and that he is a team player. Bar some Real fans everyone likes Messi…bar some Real fans everyone is waiting for Ronaldo to break his leg.
Messi started in La Liga at a much younger age than Ronaldo, so I don’t think it’s fair to compare their overall rate in La Liga, might as well take a look at Ronaldo at Sporting. In the last three years they’re much closer, although Ronaldo still comes out ahead.
Zlatan and Eto’o both didn’t look as good as Messi with Barca, and they’re both fantastic elsewhere. That’s some evidence that you couldn’t swap a ton of people in with Messi and get similar results. I agree that having Xavi and Iniesta behind him has done great things for his career though.
He needs a very good (personally) World Cup. Maybe not win it, but he has to be great at the big one. In’86 it was Maradona and 10 guys, evryone else was replacable (maybe Valdano not).
Pele in '70 managed to shine while surrounded by wolrd-class players.
Best since Maradona definitely and yesterday it was ridiculous. It’s not only that Xavi, Iniesta, and Fábregas feed him the ball (or score when they can) is that there’s Pedro o Villa or Sanchez who could get the ball and score and defender have to accont for that.
Ronaldo is more of a straightforward player, go and score, Messi has more “visual” magic.
The answer to this is almost certainly Maradona in 86 and it otherwise has not been done (certainly not in the modern era). Van Basten had Rijkaard and Gullit playing with him (as well as Ronald Koeman, Wim Kieft and Jan Wouters from a tier below talent wise - and Wouters talents were generally not creative either, more of a destroyer). Van Basten scored a lot of goals but someone had to supply the bullets. Maradona in 86 willed Argentina to win almost entirely by himself, providing most the assists, got Argentina passed England single handedly (pun intentional) and dominated proceedings to such an extent that all the rest of his team-mates had acres of space.
Everyone else who supposedly won an international tournament by himself had players of somewhat comparable quality on the field who also would need to have been dealt with. In 86, Maradona was so much better than the rest of the Argentine squad, he commanded all the attention from the opposition and opened the game up for the rest of his team-mates.
To an extent, I think this is why Messi needs to do it on an international level. He’s obviously a wonderful player but he is also surrounded by players who you must deal with or you’re going to get beaten by them instead of Messi. For Argentina, he is the figure head and the surrounding players, whilst good, are not quite up there with some of the guys on his Barca team.
If he rules Brazil 2014 and they win the World Cup, I think Messi vaults into the top 2 with Maradona.
Let’s be honest: Pelé or even Maradona had it easier. Footballers back then smoked and drank all night and most of the professionals back then wouldn’t be fit enough for the pace of current amateur football. There, I said it.
True, but also top players got fouled a lot.
It was awful watching Pele getting repeatedly kicked in World Cups, with referees doing absolutely nothing about it.
If you ever find yourself talking soccer with a Spaniard there’s going to be confusion with that nickname: here, Real is the Real Sociedad de San Sebastián. The meringues are Madrid.
