dalitis8
Banned
He did, but most people are ignorant.
Whoever wins it out of our M.I.X. is gonna be great.
I can only hope it is not Wesley(who has evaporated this year)
10 - Lionel Messi - v1
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He did, but most people are ignorant.
Whoever wins it out of our M.I.X. is gonna be great.
I can only hope it is not Wesley(who has evaporated this year)
T
tigerlily
Guest
Had tears in my eyes after reading that Messi was shortlisted for the Ballon. I was so afraid that he'd be displaced by Sneijder since this is WC year. I do think that Xavi will win, and deservedly so-- the WC puts him ahead of Leo and Iniesta was injured for some time. But Messi deserves the recognition (of being in the shortlist) for his brilliance (even in the WC!)
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Elite-BkD
New member
Had tears in my eyes after reading that Messi was shortlisted for the Ballon. I was so afraid that he'd be displaced by Sneijder since this is WC year. I do think that Xavi will win, and deservedly so-- the WC puts him ahead of Leo and Iniesta was injured for some time. But Messi deserves the recognition (of being in the shortlist) for his brilliance (even in the WC!)
Why would you possibly think that? Because his team won? The award isn't for the player who has the nicest trophy cabinet at the end of the year, it goes to the player who's made the most impressive individual contributions. Judging by only the World Cup, Messi is a distinctly better player than Xavi.
BarcaGirl
Active member
I don't know why people are saying Messi doesn't deserve to be in the top 3? There is no question about his performance for Barca since last season till now. As for the World Cup, he did pretty well too and has about 4 or 5 assists although he didn't score. It's similar to the 5-0 demolition of Real Madrid where Messi provided 2 wonderful assists but did not score. Did anyone question about Messi's performance that night?
Richard.H
Senior Member
I don't know anyone who said that Messi doesn't deserve to be in the top 3. If anything, it's Iniesta. Most people want the top three to be Xavi, Messi, and Sneijder and righteously so.
nebeer
Love is All
Yeah, I think I would have to agree with that. After Xavi and Messi, it should have been Wesley. As long as having a great World Cup is concerned, David Villa had a great one; so why would Iniesta be there ahead of him. I'm an Iniesta fan, but have to say that just one goal in the final doesn't cut it.
T
tigerlily
Guest
If I were voting I'd vote for Messi every time regardless of what kind of year it was. But when you look at Spain playing like Barcelona then it's not hard to realize that Xavi was the engine that ran the whole thing. Journalists during the WC even said that to stop Spain you have to stop Xavi. They make up a percentage of the voters, and who can say how much they have influenced the other voters. Xavi "running" both Barcelona and Spain points to a huge individual contribution. Not as mesmerizing as Messi but just as impressive.
It's too bad that Messi's phenomenal club form was only partly evident in the WC. Yes, he was still amazing, but there'll always be people who will look at the empty score sheet and conclude that he failed, how many of those get to vote? I say Messi's loss is Xavi's gain. He's been brilliant for years but it took the WC for people to start saying that maybe he deserves to be called the very best. In the end the Ballon d'Or is simply a popularity contest and the WC racks up heaps of points for those who are deemed to have shone in it.
Seriously? I agree that Messi is better than Xavi based on their whole careers, but are you seriously saying Messi was better than Xavi in the WC? Messi was bad against Greece, awful against Mexico, and utterly invisible against Germany. Messi wasn't even the best striker on his team (that would be Tevez). And I hope I don't see another person cite his "assists"; he had exactly one assist, and that was for the blatantly offside goal against Mexico. It's funny that you mention the Madrid game; Messi had more assists that one game than he had in the entire World Cup. (And people wonder why Messi is accused of not playing as well for Argentina as for Barcelona).
Oh, and since the first thing Messi's fans will point out as evidence of his greatness is his goal scoring record, it's only fair when people call him out for not scoring goals.
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dalitis8
Banned
NightWolf
New member
Just watched the Rubin match from yesterday and loved when the commentator, as Messi was introduced, went: "And this is a 23-year-old whose name is Lionel Messi." And the co-commentator said: "I believe he has a bit of ability." You just always forget that Messi is so young, he seems to have been around for ages.
gingerless
Active member
haha yeah, had a bit of a chuckle with that. i like the main commentator in that game
Elite-BkD
New member
Yes, I think if you carefully watch both players throughout the WC it's obvious that Xavi is outstanding and Messi is just something else. I'm guessing you did not watch carefully because you seem to think he was used as a striker. You could clearly tell that he's one of those rare players who has the very best of both worlds; a completely natural footballer and absolutely incredible physically. He has a brain like Xavi or Iniesta and physically he's as special as CR7 or so, though of course in a very different way because he's 5'7" as opposed to 6'1". His shortage of goals/assists had nothing to do with him choking/playing poorly or anything of that nature.
Did Messi have a bad first half against Madrid? No goals, no assists, so based only on the first half he wasn't blatantly un-fucking-believably talented?
That is absurd. People who only think Messi is good only because they've learned how many goals he scored have a very poor understanding and can be called out for not investing an adequate amount of time/effort to make a statement like 'Messi is the best' just the same as the people who would have you think that if you know Messi didn't score in a match, you know that he didn't play well in that match.
Pepe Silvia
Active member
That's it man, completely ignore those god-awful tactics in the big picture of Messi's worldcup. Your credibility goes way up that way. Have you seen any of his recent games under Batista? Did you wonder why he played so well?
Employing bad tactics with a great player is just as wasteful as taking a Ferrari off-roading.
Look at the heat maps in the World Cup section on ESPN Soccernet (or another website if you can find them). Compare Messi's position to the rest of his teammates, especially Higuain and Tevez; he went as far forwards as they did. By my estimation, he was playing in roughly the same areas he plays for Barcelona this year when he's in the center (with Pedro and Villa on the wings). Heck, compare Messi's heat maps to Diego Forlan, who often dropped deeper or wider. Not to mention that Messi took more shots per game than anyone other than Asamoah Gyan, with none of the shots from beyond 30 yards. Messi's typical position in the World Cup justifies calling him a striker.
I was talking about his performances in the World Cup. I wasn't saying that he'll never have good games for his national team; I was saying that he didn't play well in WC 2010. I cannot and will not judge players based on what they hypothetically could have done; no one can. When evaluating a player's performance in a given game/tournament, it's necessary to ignore the accomplishments of the player outside that game/tournament. Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are considered great players, and both had excellent seasons for their club teams leading up to the WC; that doesn't make their WC performances any better.
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