10 - Lionel Messi - v3

[KingMessi]

I'm not so sure that it's quite the same as Messi/Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho was taking an 18 year old kid from the academy under his wing. Neymar is young but he was already a a superstar when he arrived and he cost a massive fee. While I do believe that Messi and Neymar get on well together it's obvious that Neymar is sucking up to Messi big time.

Messi is to Munir, as Ronaldinho was to Munir.

 

[Behrox]

Messi is to Munir, as Ronaldinho was to Munir.

Munir was with Ronnie too

 

[Irish_Cules]

Ye Messi/Munir is a more suitable comparison. Ronnie and Messi are still such different personalities though. Messi is reserved while Ronnie was all about having fun. He probably just saw Messi as another person he could have a good time with.

 

[Mitchell1978]

Ye Messi/Munir is a more suitable comparison. Ronnie and Messi are still such different personalities though. Messi is reserved while Ronnie was all about having fun. He probably just saw Messi as another person he could have a good time with.

Sometimes a clash in personalities works for friendship though.

 

[Irish_Cules]

Sometimes a clash in personalities works for friendship though.

Ye I'm referring to the personality of being a mentor though. Ronaldinho was outgoing and fun loving personality so he made a big effort with Messi. It was just more natural to him. Messi is much more reserved so I don't see him being a mentor in that regard. He'll be nice to them and lead by example but he's not going to take a player under his wing like Ronaldinho did with him.

 

[Gohan]

Sometimes a clash in personalities works for friendship though.

Naruto and Sasuke. For the anime fans out there.

 

[Icarium]

What telltale signs did I miss that you are seeing?



The president of PSG did jokingly (or not) say yesterday that they'd talk to us about Messi. Other than that, I haven't heard anything.

lol I was joking.

 

[blaugrana1987]

Was just reading ********* (yea I know) article about distance covered in UCL 2012. Here is Messi part...

With the rise of Barcelona as Europe's most formidable club, the phrase 'let the ball do the work' has emerged as part of coaching dogma. And to this ideology there is some merit: the Catalans have managed to achieve success again and again while playing a relatively slow-paced game, primarily confined to one half of the pitch. During the group stage, Barcelona averaged a whopping 68 per cent possession. Pedro was their hardest worker, averaging 11.5km per game, while Xavi ranked second at a modest 11.3. Lionel Messi put in an shockingly low 8.2km for each 90 minutes played, but this was according to Pep Guardiola's game plan: though he ran very little, the Argentine was joint-top scorer in the group stage."

This year he ran exactly 16668m in two games and that gets you avg of 8.33m. So...pretty much in line with Messi from his best days. That gets us to what alot of people have been saying for some time, our game is static. Too static. Messi-Neymar is not functioning exactly great. They are NOT looking that great at all, really. Whats happening is Messi is playing fantastic passes to Neymar who puts them behind the net, but we could have bought anyone in the world to finish those chances of. What Neymar has to do is to give that service back sometime, now that would be REAL chemistry. Not Messi finding cracks in defenses to pick amazing pass to Neymar. For that, we need Suarez.

Messi is yearning for someone to play one two with, because Neymar is not exactly doing it (he takes too long to release pass, and can get a bit individual at times) and Iniesta is clearly out of form. Our other MF, Rakitic, is doing most of work covering for Alves escapades by opponents corner flags and so his chemistry with Messi/Iniesta is not good.

I'm not going to even mention Pedro...He was great at Barca and should be thanked for great years of service, but he is straight trash these days. Contributes nothing and at times looks like he plays his own game of some sort. Anyway, I came to the conclusion that there is more Messi dependency then ever before. Two years ago when he was scoring buckets, and we said we are dependent on him, at least he was scoring like 2 for match. These days he is SOLE provider for pretty much every goal we score. He isn't even assisting, he is carrying the balls on silver plate. That is very worrying. He is playing for two (except running part) and not really getting enough praise. Hopefully when Suarez comes back things will get better as you can sense Messi is desperate for someone to play with (and he isn't hiding that).

 

[raskolnikov]

Neymar looks for Messi a lot though, this season they click, its not Suarez/Sturridge yet but its not simple pass/finish either.

 

[blaugrana1987]

Neymar looks for Messi a lot though, this season they click, its not Suarez/Sturridge yet but its not simple pass/finish either.

I'm sorry but I just don't agree with that. And thats actually because I'm a fan of Neymars. He is not Chicarito, looking is not good enough. He needs to release pass much much faster, he needs to think and act faster, thats only way Messi knows.

I'm not criticizing him for sake of it, but seriously, he had two situations yesterday where he could and should have passed to messi, but opted to dribble instead and whole defense already formed back. With first goal he was great, and thats kind of play I want to see between the two.

 

[footyfan]

Best performance in 2014! Also nice kits, although I would've preferred black shorts.

[video=vimeo;107745979]http://vimeo.com/107745979[/video]

 

[doublehh03]

It's a no win for Messi though, before people felt he was taking up to much of our attack, now he is shooting less and Neymar is shooting more, so which should it be?

Also the sample size is too small as I mentioned before, and do we really want him taking more shots if they are not good scoring chances? Maybe less is better with Messi as he focuses on creating goals and only shoots when the chance is clear.

Finally if Messi goes back to shooting at around 5.5 like in previous seasons then there is no chance of Neymar and Saurez hitting above 3 per games, we will just go back to being dependent on his goals.

I'm not saying he needs to shoot 5+ shots a game, but he's the best player in football. He needs to be aggressive and looking for his shots, which would only help Neymar and esp. the younger strikers on this team (Sandro and Munir). I know he's in a bit of bind doing both scoring and facilitating but 3 shots a game is too little for a player of his stature.

The team as a whole doesn't have a lot of shots on goal in general. That's not good long term when they will face stronger teams offensively like Madrid or down the line in UCL potentially Chelsea.

Playing possession ball is fine, but the team is too talented not to be averaging 8-9+ quality shots on goals.

 

[Jadentheman]

I'm not saying he needs to shoot 5+ shots a game, but he's the best player in football. He needs to be aggressive and looking for his shots, which would only help Neymar and esp. the younger strikers on this team (Sandro and Munir). I know he's in a bit of bind doing both scoring and facilitating but 3 shots a game is too little for a player of his stature.

The team as a whole doesn't have a lot of shots on goal in general. That's not good long term when they will face stronger teams offensively like Madrid or down the line in UCL potentially Chelsea.

Playing possession ball is fine, but the team is too talented not to be averaging 8-9+ quality shots on goals.

I think it's still that "pass it into goal" mentality.

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

I think Messi has a great chance of winning the balon d'or. He'll be breaking Telmo Zarras record this month which is a HUGE accomplishment and if he beats Reinaldo to becoming all time CL top scorer at 27 that's another huge advantage. You also have the clasico.

It's a damn shame Atletico couldn't hold on to win the CL and even worse Ronaldo got a garbage time penalty in the final. If neither of those things happened, Messi would be essentially guaranteed the balon d'or.

 

[kilian]

Who cares about balon d`or. Everyone is so obsessed with that s**t. Team trophies are the ones that really count.