10 - Lionel Messi - v3
- Thread starter Barcaman
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Flavia
Guest
I have no problem believing people wanted him fired. We looked pretty bad back then. That doesn´t mean that Lucho was a bad coach back then and then suddenly learned the trade, but likely because of a number of factors, he is making the right desitions now, and now it pays off. A lot of us were unhappy with some of the desitions he made earlier, but when even the "good" substitutions don´t work out I can only imagine how much harder the job becomes, and perhaps this caused some of the weird calls he made earlier. It´s not that doubting him back then was completely uncalled for, but fortunately he has proved us wrong. Hopefully that trend will continue!
skn02
New member
Honestly, his rotation is a big reason for our key players to be so fresh and in form throughout the season. Look at Real Madrid, the team with little to no rotation, and look at their players fitness compared to ours, not even close. I would love him to continue doing that, not having a continued line up until after xmas break, that seems like a recipe of success if the team is deep enough to do that.
Kohe321
New member
Really blending in with the crowd there
Messi watching basketball thinking "yeah I could probably dunk..."
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cbfpaulinho4
Guest
WC is the greatest prize. anyone disputing is a fool.
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Flavia
Guest
It might be the greatest trophy, but it's not a measure to talent.
Kerrybai
New member
It is indeed the greatest prize but in past eras it was by far the greatest prize while now club honours have gotten very important too, for example the quality of football in the CL is now much higher than the World Cup. If Messi can add another couple of CL's and a dozen or so other titles with 1-2 more Ballon Dor's than I think even his greatest doubters will look past his non existent world cup.
In the end though trophies in football do not measure the talent of an individual.
KingMessi
SiempreBlaugrana
Or they'll say Messi didn't pull a Maradona in carrying the team to the title, even though that is Maradona's "one man show" is a myth (he had players like Valdano scoring 4 in the tournament).
Stric
New member
Well said. Those who see him for what he really is will have no problem recognizing his place in history. Those who want to diminish him will do so regardless of what trophies he's won.
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Flavia
Guest
Tevez is not amused.
@WashWizards 14 min
#Legend The one and only Lionel Messi our special guest for #WizPacers
lessthanjake
New member
Something being the greatest prize is different than something being the greatest measure of a player's talent.
Usually, those two things would go hand-in-hand. The best way to measure a player's talent is in competitions with the highest level of play. And the competition with the highest level of play is almost always the greatest prize.
But in football this does not hold anymore. The World Cup used to have the highest level of play. Combined with the fact that it is country vs. country, it became the greatest prize in football. It remains the greatest prize as a historical anachronism and because of the fact that people will always care more about country than about club. But it does not exhibit the highest level of play anymore. Rather, the highest level of play is clearly in the Champions League.
So while people may care about the World Cup more, the Champions League is clearly a better measure of a player's quality.
And that is not even mentioning the other huge problems with using the World Cup as a measuring stick. First off, a tournament involving only a handful of matches for each player every 4 years has such a tiny sample size of matches that it is virtually impossible to glean anything from it. Secondly, players cannot control what country they are from, and different countries have wildly different quality teams, so players' success in the World Cup is HEAVILY affected by exogenous factors.
Decades ago, those problems could be overlooked because the World Cup was still, by far, the highest level of play that existed (and also the only thing widely televised). But now it really seems silly to me to use the World Cup as a dispositive factor in judging a player. It actually boils down to a handful of games every 4 years that are played at an inferior level.
Ultimately, I think the World Cup's biggest use now is in judging a player's "clutch" factor. Did they repeatedly step up in a tournament that people really care about (i.e. Klose)? Did they repeatedly choke? These things could alter one's view of a player. And I think one could sort of argue that Messi has choked in the World Cup. At the very least, he hasn't shown his best. Of course, he also made multiple game-winning goals this last time around, got his team to the finals, and was one of the tournament's better players. So, personally, I wouldn't say the dip in quality is stark enough to label him a choker due to his limited sample size of WC performances. This is especially true when one factors in the fact that he has been an affirmatively clutch player in big matches for his club.
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