10 - Lionel Messi - v2

[Jaguar]

Messi: "Organizing series of summer charity games? I'm always delighted to be able to help. Each time they ask me, I'm available." #fcblive

Top man.

 

[misterplatin]

Sure, like any other player on this planet, Messi is fully capable of being shut down by others, especially when facing tough opponents. After all, he is only human, and that's what I like about him.

Actually, I've heard some Messi-critics accusing him of disappearing/becoming invisible in important games. Is there any truth to that? Does anybody have stats on Messi's performance against premium, CL level teams?

For all i know he still is the record holder for highest number of goals scored in CL knockout rounds .Also has scored a lot of goals in ElClasicos .

The problem is that people expect him to score in every match against every tactical system . Sometimes he can't find the net against a team like Hercules or Racing club but people only remember the CL or the big league matches because they are the only ones people have watched during the year .That is their sample space for Messi's season !

Speaking of shutting him down I think Bayern and Inter are the only high profile matches where you can say he got shut down by strong organization. Nesta or Varane shutting him down is a joke .
For example in the 4 matches against Milan in CL 11/12 he took 27 shots in total ,averaging even more than his laliga SPG average . Abbiati didn't let him score ,that is a valid conclusion though . And apart from striking he gave more than good performances ,yet people call Nesta shut him down
source : whoscored.com

 

[AURELIUS]

It's all started on Villa thread
Someone posted Villa pwned by Thiago Silva, then others reply Messi isnt, others add Messi is exception, others add Messi is out of this world, then I remind about Messi vs Bayern.
And here I am now, debate on about Messi's injury made him had a bad game vs Bayern.

Messi was not fully fit. The Bayern players themselves noticed it that his acceleration was not there. Messi is a talismanic figure. If he is not firing it does impact on the other members of the side who see him as the leader.

With Aguero, Higuain and di Maria no one has been able to shut him down on the international stage over the last 18 months.

 

[mixer]

Messi's son, Thiago, and his cousins

 

[CatalinR10]

Messi honorary citizen of Senegal .

 

[CesDel]

I remember Nesta shutting him down, when he was fully fit. Also Varane, more recently.

That's not entirely true though. Nesta made a great tackle on Messi but Messi had already destroyed Nesta(and the entire Milan defence) for Pedro's goal in the same game.

That's not to say that Messi can't be stopped..

 

[evilhita666]

Pepe has also been good at stopping Messi... However that just means that Pepe, Nesta and Varane had good games, not that Messi sucked...

 

[unknowngenius10]

I don't buy into all the Messi hype ( I don't think he's the best ever like many claim) but to be fair, messi has been the only threat in attack for barca for the last and the season before that. It's impossible for Messi not to be owned by defenders (Verane, Nesta, Ramos, Pepe) when he's pretty much on his own. If Messi had etoo and henry( at their best) beside him or at least some top forwards unlike Pedro or Sanchez, there is no way defenders would be able to concentrate on marking Messi all the time and therefore Messi would have more space and less pressure on him.
It doesn't help that only iniesta is an attacking midfielder whereas Xavi and Busquets have little to offer in attack.

 

[ThwiX]

I don't buy into all the Messi hype ( I don't think he's the best ever like many claim) but to be fair, messi has been the only threat in attack for barca for the last and the season before that. It's impossible for Messi not to be owned by defenders (Verane, Nesta, Ramos, Pepe) when he's pretty much on his own. If Messi had etoo and henry( at their best) beside him or at least some top forwards unlike Pedro or Sanchez, there is no way defenders would be able to concentrate on marking Messi all the time and therefore Messi would have more space and less pressure on him.
It doesn't help that only iniesta is an attacking midfielder whereas Xavi and Busquets have little to offer in attack.

What team do you support?

 

[raskolnikov]

There is no player in history that shows up in every big game. Peop focus to much on stats as well. Did he show up more in the last game where he scored against Madrid compared to 5-0?
Often I see players being invisible, scoring one goal out of nowhere yet get all the credit.

Still a very big game player of course and the best ever imo. But you will always have games where a defender does really welk similair to every defender getting owned every now and then ( great ones), the rest of the teams influence on this shouldnt be underrated of course, if they can put 4 guys on Messi and nulify him then the rest of the team is to blame for not taking advantage of it

 

[unknowngenius10]

What team do you support?

Barca , why?

 

[raskolnikov]

Can it still be called hype though? even if you dont consider him the best ever, (which is possible of course) doesnt mean he is hyped at this point, all credit is justified by his accomplishments, he isnt Neymar or hyped like Becks was.
Football fans sometimes have this "past legends are better no matter what" approach just like boxing fans, a lot of hear say.
To each his own though of course

 

[spark]

I don't buy into all the Messi hype ( I don't think he's the best ever like many claim) but to be fair, messi has been the only threat in attack for barca for the last and the season before that. It's impossible for Messi not to be owned by defenders (Verane, Nesta, Ramos, Pepe) when he's pretty much on his own. If Messi had etoo and henry( at their best) beside him or at least some top forwards unlike Pedro or Sanchez, there is no way defenders would be able to concentrate on marking Messi all the time and therefore Messi would have more space and less pressure on him.
It doesn't help that only iniesta is an attacking midfielder whereas Xavi and Busquets have little to offer in attack.

Messi hype . If this was 2006 or 2007 and he was still a young talent you could call it hype.We arent talking about Neymar. This is someone who has been at the top for 6 years. Improving performance and numbers every year. No hype here just facts.

 

[CatalinR10]

Great Ad

 

[unknowngenius10]

Can it still be called hype though? even if you dont consider him the best ever, (which is possible of course) doesnt mean he is hyped at this point, all credit is justified by his accomplishments, he isnt Neymar or hyped like Becks was.
Football fans sometimes have this "past legends are better no matter what" approach just like boxing fans, a lot of hear say.
To each his own though of course

To me, Messi is the best player today ( although Cristiano is not really that far) but there is too much hype surrounding the player. For instance, When Messi plays a bad game, ppl make excuses as to why he played a bad game, fanboys can never accept that Messi is not as good as they think or that he could actually have bad games. I remember ( i don't remember if those were the exact games but it was something like that) against Bayern Messi didn't do anything, then he played Against bilbao 3 days later and scored an amazing goal. People went from saying that messi was injured ( 3 days before) when he flopped against bayern to say he's the best ever cause he scored against bilbao. The hype comes from fans.