10 - Lionel Messi - v3

[suckabov]

Can't believe some of the things I'm reading. He put in a bad performance in a game that happened to be the one that sent us out of the CL, there's no two opinions about that. But this talk about peaking early, about "not caring" or about being lazy is just over the top. Looking back at the game it was clearly a tactical issue that kept him out of the game. And as far as I know, statistically, 2014 has been better than any year in his career so far (at least it was until March).

 

[klc123]

I said them same. Doesn't mean he's finished for me. Just that 2011-2012 was the personal peak 100% and now he is maybe 85-90% and in 5 years time he might be 60% etc etc.

I get what your saying Luftstalag14

Leo Messi has peaked at the age of 26? To put that into perspective, Maradona's best playing days were when he was 24-31. He was 26 when he single handedly won the world cup (ironic huh?) but that was widely considered just the start of his dominance. You're reasoning is that Messi is peaking early because he started playing early? Maradona started playing professionally earlier.

Meanwhile players like Giggs are playing from the age of 18 in first team football all the way into their 40s, yet you are concerned that he is going to be on his way out of the team in a few years...Ok then.

If 38 goals in 39 games after having two injuries is a poor season, then I'd love to see your analysis of players like pedro and alves. Pedro too old also?

To dispel all of this rubbish, david villa is a different player at Atletico, obviously the way Tito was using him and playing the team was the problem and not Villa's ability.

Can't believe some of the things I'm reading. He had a bad match in a game that happened to be the one that sent us out of the CL, there's no two opinions about that. But this talk about peaking early, about "not caring" or about being lazy is just over the top. Looking back at the game it was clearly a tactical issue that kept him out of the game. And as far as I know, statistically, 2014 has been better than any year in his career so far (at least it was until March).

I hate it, we are going to lose our star players if we continue to treat them like crap. The only thing that went wrong yesterday was formation, selection and tactics. The only person to blame for that is Martino. I'm not calling for Martino to be sacked yet, yes he made the same mistake twice in the Atleti fixtures, but he still has time to redeem himself. If I see such direct football with one winger playing again though, I will not be upset to see him turfed out.

 

[Tazim]

only el salvador can save him

 

[JamDav1982]

Leo Messi has peaked at the age of 26? To put that into perspective, Maradona's best playing days were when he was 24-31. He was 26 when he single handedly won the world cup (ironic huh?) but that was widely considered just the start of his dominance. You're reasoning is that Messi is peaking early because he started playing early? Maradona started playing professionally earlier.

Meanwhile players like Giggs are playing from the age of 18 in first team football all the way into their 40s, yet you are concerned that he is going to be on his way out of the team in a few years...Ok then.

If 38 goals in 39 games after having two injuries is a poor season, then I'd love to see your analysis of players like pedro and alves. Pedro too old also?

To dispel all of this rubbish, david villa is a different player at Atletico, obviously the way Tito was using him and playing the team was the problem and not Villa's ability.



I hate it, we are going to lose our star players if we continue to treat them like crap. The only thing that went wrong yesterday was formation, selection and tactics. The only person to blame for that is Martino. I'm not calling for Martino to be sacked yet, yes he made the same mistake twice in the Atleti fixtures, but he still has time to redeem himself. If I see such direct football with one winger playing again though, I will not be upset to see him turfed out.

You are taking the ages the Maradona was when he won the league in Italy and assuming that was him at his best. I have read quotes from Maradona that the best he ever felt as a player was actually the beginning of his career in Argentina.

Also Maradona never won anything 'single handedly' that is a total myth.

You can use stats to try and prove Messi is as good as ever but in reality stats dont tell the whole picture. Using stats Cesc is arguably the best midfielder in the world.

What makes Messi different from the likes of Ronaldo and his stats are that Messi is about so much more, he can do evrything. His general all round play has been poorer this season in particular against the better teams. Infact I would say Ronaldo has been a bigger all round threat on top of stats than Messi has.

 

[klc123]

You are taking the ages the Maradona was when he won the league in Italy and assuming that was him at his best. I have read quotes from Maradona that the best he ever felt as a player was actually the beginning of his career in Argentina.

Also Maradona never won anything 'single handedly' that is a total myth.

You can use stats to try and prove Messi is as good as ever but in reality stats dont tell the whole picture. Using stats Cesc is arguably the best midfielder in the world.

What makes Messi different from the likes of Ronaldo and his stats are that Messi is about so much more, he can do evrything. His general all round play has been poorer this season in particular against the better teams. Infact I would say Ronaldo has been a bigger all round threat on top of stats than Messi has.

No, I took those ages because most people who know anything about football regarded his best football to come from when he was playing in italy. Titles have nothing to do with it.
Maradona may think he was at his best when he was younger and could walk through rubbish teams in argentina, but most pundits will tell you that he was unstoppable in napoli, which at the time was considered the best league in the world.

Ok, so argentina would have won the world cup without Maradona in 1986? Napoli started to win all their titles because of chance when Maradona arrived? Maybe single handed was a rash thing to say, but you can't deny that he was the most important player in those teams.

I'm not using stats to prove Messi is as good as ever, but I would be more concerned if he has still only just got into double figures for the season. He may not be playing his best, but at least he is still getting the business done. His lack of form can be accredited to many things:
1. He has had a lot of injuries this year.
2. Everyone in the team is playing poorly recently, accredit that to what you want, but I would put it down to bad tactics. These players are excellent in their international sides, so something is clearly the problem.
3. Regardless of what you guys think is right or wrong, he will still have his eye on the world cup, and he won't want to get injured so close to it.

 

[JamDav1982]

No, I took those ages because most people who know anything about football regarded his best football to come from when he was playing in italy. Titles have nothing to do with it.
Maradona may think he was at his best when he was younger and could walk through rubbish teams in argentina, but most pundits will tell you that he was unstoppable in napoli, which at the time was considered the best league in the world.

Ok, so argentina would have won the world cup without Maradona in 1986? Napoli started to win all their titles because of chance when Maradona arrived? Maybe single handed was a rash thing to say, but you can't deny that he was the most important player in those teams.

I'm not using stats to prove Messi is as good as ever, but I would be more concerned if he has still only just got into double figures for the season. He may not be playing his best, but at least he is still getting the business done. His lack of form can be accredited to many things:
1. He has had a lot of injuries this year.
2. Everyone in the team is playing poorly recently, accredit that to what you want, but I would put it down to bad tactics. These players are excellent in their international sides, so something is clearly the problem.
3. Regardless of what you guys think is right or wrong, he will still have his eye on the world cup, and he won't want to get injured so close to it.

Most people but not the man himself?

Maradona was regarded as probably the best player in the world when he left for Barcelona by the time he got to the World Cup in 1986 he himself admits he had not being playing all that well and was considered below the likes of Platini, Zico etc.

Also in his time in Italy Maradona started to lose his desire and hunger to play every week and would go out partying and miss training when he felt like it. He went through spells of being comitted to losing interest in behaving as a pro footballer should.

Would Argentina have won world cup without Maradona - probably not but they had a very good side at the time. Maradona was their best player but he did not do things single handedly.

As for Napoli - when Maradona arrived they became one of the biggest spenders in Italy and the team that won the leagues in 1987 and 1990 were totally rebuilt from the team they had before Napoli joined. They signed Brazilian and Italian intls to compliment Maradona and had one of the strongest squads in league.

Dont just churn out the same old myths go out and research it.

 

[hellsangel1]

Most people but not the man himself?

Maradona was regarded as probably the best player in the world when he left for Barcelona by the time he got to the World Cup in 1986 he himself admits he had not being playing all that well and was considered below the likes of Platini, Zico etc.

Also in his time in Italy Maradona started to lose his desire and hunger to play every week and would go out partying and miss training when he felt like it. He went through spells of being comitted to losing interest in behaving as a pro footballer should.

Would Argentina have won world cup without Maradona - probably not but they had a very good side at the time. Maradona was their best player but he did not do things single handedly.

As for Napoli - when Maradona arrived they became one of the biggest spenders in Italy and the team that won the leagues in 1987 and 1990 were totally rebuilt from the team they had before Napoli joined. They signed Brazilian and Italian intls to compliment Maradona and had one of the strongest squads in league.

Dont just churn out the same old myths go out and research it.

'Argentina having a good side at the time'......LMAO!!!

 

[JamDav1982]

'Argentina having a good side at the time'......LMAO!!!

They did, the majority of their players came from the Argentina teams that were dominating South American football at the time.

They had players like Valdano at Madrid, Ruggeri, Giusti, Burachaga.

It was a very solid side defensively that had three good attacking players.

 

[Zincubus]

Messi ran less than 4 miles in last nights match even Koko ran 8 miles and he spent most of the night pressing and closing down our players

 

[hellsangel1]

I never said having small players was part of the philosophy, but deciding the only way we can score goals against teams who don't collapse as soon as we get the ball is by hoofing it into the box for a big CF to head is ludicrous. During the Guardiola era, there were relatively few times when we failed to break down teams packing the box. In 10/11 season, we were unstoppable, because our wide attacking players were in absolutely sensational form and often got in behind the oppositions back four. Seeing Villa and Pedro threaded through to run on and score a one on one became a trademark barca goal.

Let me make a distinction. I have nothing against Barca crossing the ball at all, in fact I encourage it against teams who are packing the box and difficult to break down through passing. However, I don't want to see looping crosses into the general direction of Messi and Neymar, praying by some miracle that we score from it. We are more likely to score by doing nothing and passing the ball around the box over and over with no penetration than we are to score by lofted balls into the middle, that isn't going to change by buying a big Centre forward either.

The type of crosses I want to see are the ones we used to make, when dani alves would storm forwards and then ping the ball across the goal, low and with plenty of pace, to either give the opposite wide man a tap in or messi a shot on goal. We used to score many goals like this, now we very rarely do. You are saying Guardiola's bayern put lots of crosses in, but the reality is that this season they actually put less crosses into the box than us. Look it up on fourfourtwo statzone app. Even games where they cross it more than normal, they do less than what we done yesterday. The type of crosses Bayern generally put in are low hard ones, similar to how we used to utilize them when Guardiola was at Barca. How ironic, we are dying for a tall center forward to head the ball, Bayern munich have many players who can head the ball but they don't even attempt anywhere near as many lofted crosses as we do.

Obviously refreshments are going to have to be made to the squad, but to suggest that iniesta and xavi are no longer good enough to play possession football is strange considering they will probably win the world cup by doing it perfectly this summer.

Our luck ran out against Chelsea in Guardiola's last year because we had injuries across the team, and also both David Villa and Pedro were injured all season with no suitable replacements...

I will restate my main point, we pose more of a threat playing true tiki-taka, which we haven't properly played for two years, than we do by doing what we done yesterday thumping the ball into the box and playing direct like we have all season. Possession isn't a good indicator, the best indicator is that over half our passes were forwards, whereas Bayern have far more square and backwards passes than us.





Last year we didn't play tiki-taka, for the last 2 years we haven't. The problems we have now started last year, IE last of width, full backs not getting forward, not running in behind defenders on the flanks, not using low hard crosses instead of looping aerial crosses. When we played true tiki-taka football with our strongest squad, no team stopped us, bus parked or not, and the last time that happened was 10/11.

You can say that I'm living in the past all you want, but the reality is that we are out of the CL when trying to play direct football, and could very easily have a trophy-less season, where as Bayern could win the treble.

Edit:
As for getting run over in the midfield, that is bound to happen when we constantly throw the ball away to top teams. Yet you guys are advocating us to do it more, by getting a tall striker and using even more crosses?

Nobody is saying that hoofing into the box for a tall CF is the ONLY way to score against teams that collapse. There is a reason they collapse down the middle and that is because they are happy for us to cross into the box knowing fully well that we are not a threat to score from headers or from wide areas . We need to open up our attacking options instead of just trying to attack from a certain part of the pitch which is surrounded by a sea of defenders. What I'm speaking about is the need to add variety to the final third and having a threat in the box and that is not only provided by having a tall CF. What I talked about was increasing the height of our frontline and you can do that by adding a wing player like Thomas Muller who can occasionally play down the middle but is always a threat from crosses due to his aerial ability like Cristiano is even though he's not a CF.

Also, you're once again incorrect in saying that we haven't played tiki-taka in the last 2 years. Obviously Tata has brought in his own philiosophy which doesn't suit the current players but we were playing tiki-taka under Tito who was assistant to Guardiola and raised up in the La Masia philosophy but as the season wore on and the competition got tougher we weren't able to penetrate against the more elite teams who were organized defensively and did a better job closing down. Tito's attacking philosophy was by and large a continuation of the Barca philosophy.

And you say that we constantly throw the ball away to top teams but we actually did have 71% possession against Atleti, sometimes you have to take risks if you want to score even at the cost of losing possession and we HAD to score at the Vicente Calderon. Yes, we have been crossing more this season and that is stupid but against Atleti we did it more in the second half as we kept losing the ball when we tried to go down the middle. At times those crosses were a sign of desperation because we couldn't pass our way through their tight defense.

And yes, Spain might still win the World Cup but the quality of the elite teams in the CL is much higher than the quality of teams that Spain (who will have Diego Costa) will face
at the international level. There is no international team with the quality of Bayern Munich or Real Madrid that Spain has to face at the international level. Germany don't have two amazing world class wingers like Robben or Ribery etc. and Mandzukic is a better CF than Gomez.

The arrogance and inflexibility of Barca has proven to be their downfall as their game has just stagnated. I've said from day 1 that playing Masch as CB was stupid but Barca never seemed to learn. You can keep dreaming about the 'true tiki-taka' of 2 or 3 years ago but those days are over. The fact that Barca haven't been able to evolve and make a proper or better transition to a post-Xavi era is one of the reasons why they are stuck where they are. That obviously doesn't mean a completely radical overhaul and hoofing long balls or playing counter attacking football but dreams about returning to the same pure tiki-taka of 2 or 3 seasons ago are pipe dreams at the moment.

 

[BarcaVillain]

Nobody is saying that hoofing into the box for a tall CF is the ONLY way to score against teams that collapse. There is a reason they collapse down the middle and that is because they are happy for us to cross into the box knowing fully well that we are not a threat to score from headers or from wide areas . We need to open up our attacking options instead of just trying to attack from a certain part of the pitch which is surrounded by a sea of defenders. What I'm speaking about is the need to add variety to the final third and having a threat in the box and that is not only provided by having a tall CF. What I talked about was increasing the height of our frontline and you can do that by adding a wing player like Thomas Muller who can occasionally play down the middle but is always a threat from crosses due to his aerial ability like Cristiano is even though he's not a CF.

Also, you're once again incorrect in saying that we haven't played tiki-taka in the last 2 years. Obviously Tata has brought in his own philiosophy which doesn't suit the current players but we were playing tiki-taka under Tito who was assistant to Guardiola and raised up in the La Masia philosophy but as the season wore on and the competition got tougher we weren't able to penetrate against the more elite teams who were organized defensively and did a better job closing down. Tito's attacking philosophy was by and large a continuation of the Barca philosophy.

And you say that we constantly throw the ball away to top teams but we actually did have 71% possession against Atleti, sometimes you have to take risks if you want to score even at the cost of losing possession and we HAD to score at the Vicente Calderon. Yes, we have been crossing more this season and that is stupid but against Atleti we did it more in the second half as we kept losing the ball when we tried to go down the middle. At times those crosses were a sign of desperation because we couldn't pass our way through their tight defense.

And yes, Spain might still win the World Cup but the quality of the elite teams in the CL is much higher than the quality of teams that Spain (who will have Diego Costa) will face
at the international level. There is no international team with the quality of Bayern Munich or Real Madrid that Spain has to face at the international level. Germany don't have two amazing world class wingers like Robben or Ribery etc. and Mandzukic is a better CF than Gomez.

The arrogance and inflexibility of Barca has proven to be their downfall as their game has just stagnated. I've said from day 1 that playing Masch as CB was stupid but Barca never seemed to learn. You can keep dreaming about the 'true tiki-taka' of 2 or 3 years ago but those days are over. The fact that Barca haven't been able to evolve and make a proper or better transition to a post-Xavi era is one of the reasons why they are stuck where they are. That obviously doesn't mean a completely radical overhaul and hoofing long balls or playing counter attacking football but dreams about returning to the same pure tiki-taka of 2 or 3 seasons ago are pipe dreams at the moment.

Absolutely agree with every word. Every team has a peak, and that has now obviously passed. The sign of a great club is recognising when that peak has been reached and having the guts to recycle the players, regardless of sentiment.

 

[aki13]

For the record, I never said he was having a bad season.

He is having a good season and its better than most if not all players in the world, but he is only at 90% of 2011-2012.

That's the difference. People need to actually read what I write. I am not calling for Messi to be sold, I am saying he should think about leaving for himself.

And I am not saying Messi is poor. He is 90% as brilliant as he was in 2011-2012. IMO.

 

[Zincubus]

Most people but not the man himself?

Maradona was regarded as probably the best player in the world when he left for Barcelona by the time he got to the World Cup in 1986 he himself admits he had not being playing all that well and was considered below the likes of Platini, Zico etc.

Also in his time in Italy Maradona started to lose his desire and hunger to play every week and would go out partying and miss training when he felt like it. He went through spells of being comitted to losing interest in behaving as a pro footballer should.

Would Argentina have won world cup without Maradona - probably not but they had a very good side at the time. Maradona was their best player but he did not do things single handedly.

As for Napoli - when Maradona arrived they became one of the biggest spenders in Italy and the team that won the leagues in 1987 and 1990 were totally rebuilt from the team they had before Napoli joined. They signed Brazilian and Italian intls to compliment Maradona and had one of the strongest squads in league.

Dont just churn out the same old myths go out and research it.

How much of his success was down to drugs and whatever .....

 

[dakt]

The most paintfull part about watching the game against ATM was how much hopeless Messi and the rest of the team was.
Not that it was just a bad game, but we were clueless, no idea, and the KING was also huge disappointment...no interest at all, no heart.

 

[Devils]

Messi has always been more Lebron than Jordan...incredibly talented,unplayable when on but too many important games where he disappears...Inter 2010/Chelsea 2012/Bayern 2013/Atletico 2014

It seems like every time he faces a stifling,physical defense in important matches,he gets disinterested and doesn't posses the killer instinct of a Jordan to persevere and find a way to lead the team.

People can say,well he has won it all so he lacks motivation,but Jordan had 5 rings and played for the 6-th like it was his first...you can't kill your desire to win.

Ever since the individual battle with Ronaldo was started by the media,little by little he has been more interested in individual accolades than Barca and yesterday reached the boiling point of that attitude.

This post sums it up excellently.

The Lebron comparison is actually key point to what Messi is. They share the same type athlete character.

I always felt at unease about Messi's character when he was younger, because I (and many other cules) felt that one day we would expect Messi to lead our team because he is the most gifted player to ever play the game. Thing was that he never showed his ambition to do it when he was younger either.

You look at athletes such as Jordan or Maradona. Players who literally took grasp of the sport by its neck tossed it from side to side until they achieved what they wanted. They came into their teams and said "I'm here, I'm the best in the world, and I'm going to lead my team to victory even even I have to drag them through hell to do it." Although those guys came off as egotistical and were controversial, their actions spoke for themselves with what they achieved in their respective sports.

I think the issue is that Messi has become too big for his own good. Can anyone think of a coach (other than Pep) or player who is going to come to Barca and have to nerve to risk pissing Messi off by benching him or yelling at him during a game? that individual would instantly come under fire from so many different parties.

I agree completely with the notion that has been mentioned that there has to be someone on the team to light a fire under every player's ass, because they are simply not good enough at the moment. But it really is a giant task, when you have someone like Messi who the entire world has an eye on. Either way, Tata is definitely not the man to do it.