I´ll start here, because I pretty much aggre with this part.
If someone else did everything he does outside his dribbles, it would 've been recognised but since its messi, one always associate dribbles with him. His dribbling is so spectacular everything else he does despite its quality gets overlooked.
U seriously can't expect a getafe from him every match. Thts ridiculous. And to be fair to him, he did execute a few successful dribbles while the others suffered due to a variety of reasons - some his own fault, the others being crowded out in the final third owing to either lack of options or bad positioning of his teammates upfront.
Lets for example say that Messi was unknown before the world cup. We´d probably look at him thinking "damn, he shows promise, and only 23 yers old". I definatly would. But in the light of "best player in the world" with some people hinting at "best ever", it just wasnt good enough. He was not
close to be the player of the tournament or anything, and he didnt score - despite having the chanses to do so.
I dont 've to chck some stupid stats to disagree on the very stationary part. You probably mean Zlatan, certainly not messi.
Read the rest but highlighted this because I think it is interesting - because the Zlatan comparrison is what made me realize he was pretty stationary (
very might have been too much).
Some game, maybe one of the Inter games, the Zlatan thread got wild because people thought he was so damn lazy, and then where shown stats where Zlatan run less than Valdes to really light it on fire.
Turns out it was a very fabricated view; Zlatan was subbed in 60´ or something. Some other people looked into it, and it turns, should he have played the whole game at the same tempo, he´d have run
more than Messi.
I thought that sounded extreme, but more sources said the same thing, and instead I started watching Messi, and yeah - he is very stationary when the ball is not his, or just have been, or is very close.
What I saw in the Germany game, I´ve definatly seen before.
This is not to say its a bad thing though. Cant really tell - im not good enough at fotball to really know. He is super explosive
with the ball, and maybe that woudnt be as effective if he ran like his butt was on fire when he didnt have it (if nothing else, he´d be tired).
What it does say however, is he is less than spectaculair without the ball surounding him, so when those explosive runs and dribblings are not there, is like he is not there (Curious note: seriously, I missed first half of one of the games, think it was the 1/8, and in second half I asked two of my friends how Messi had performed. They answered they hadnt seen him for 20 mins, and thought he was subbed or something. I looked and looked but didnt see him either. 20 or 30 minutes later, though, the commentators started to say the same thing "where is messi..?". Turns out, though, he was on the field.)
As for playmaking, no one suggested hes godlike to begin with. Hes no Xavi but hes still quality. Hes been playing further up the pitch under Pep which limits this aspect of his game, but prior to that his playmaking skills was more on display. He has good passing range, vision and can suprise the defenses with quality through balls and defense splitting passes from midfield. As can be seen in this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTIEpqMwCbk
Again, he is still "good". He is just no "god", or "messi", or "best ever", or anything close to that as pure playmaker in my world.
Now for his performance at this WC. One needs to factor the role he played for his team and tht was of a central playmaker. He had to shoulder all the creative burden and tht in a disorganised and tactless Argentina, much thanks to Maradona. Plus, him acting as a lone creative threat for his team meant it was easier to close him down. Regardless, he started a lot of the attacks and played a part in most Argentine goals. You can't be creating and finishing at the same time. How many goals has Xavi scored so far? Leo came close to scoring on a few of occasions but was unlucky. But tht instead helped his teammates to score. How much of a difference does it make had he been lucky on a couple of accasions wherein the ball had gone in instead of hitting the post. His role was to make the team play and win and he did that. Whether it was by his own goals or his teammates via his creation, its irrelevant.
He was given a specific role and he executed it to his best. A job well done in my book.
Here our views are really different. I simply think this WC was a real failiure for Messi.
He was put under a huge amount of pressure, more pressure than any other player there (the new Maradona and what not), but that still dont take away the fact that he didnt deliver under the pressure - he didnt do a Maradona and he was never even close of doing it either.
Is it unfair? Maybe. The same way it was unfair of people to scream "best player ever!" after the Arsenal performance, and the same way it was unfair to put a 23 year old in the role of saviour to begin with. Messi would have to carry Argentina on his shoulders for the WC win to really impress under the circumstances, and maybe he´d get away with beeing like runner up after Villa or something for best player of the tournament. But zero goals and zero performance when the competition got really tough? No, that just cant be what people expected. However, unlike guys like Rooney or Ronaldo, people dont hate him. The feelings are probably more of sympathy than anything else.
