10 - Lionel Messi - v4

[KingMessi]

We won the Supercup in 2013 on away goals.

And while he missed the penal against Atletico this CDr, he scored the rebound for the 1-0.

 

[Asylum15]

If Pele was playing in todays football im sure he would be a great great player, a few things have changed in football, but talent is talent.

I agree talent is talent but my opinion is this:

1. Defences nowadays are SO much stronger. Tactical layouts, and team synergy is far more important than it ever has been. You watch the defences Pele is running past in that video, they are all brainlessly pressing and being tactically naive. Contrast this to teams today, especially in La Liga, who sit deep, and don't press until Leo goes into dangerous areas, and even then, the others watching do everything to retain their shape. What Malaga did to us at home this year is the perfect example, total cold, tactical defense.

2. Pele is nowhere near as quick as Leo, more of a 'stop-start' dribbler, similar to Zidane IMO. He obviously had far more ability to score than Zidane but athletically, Leo is a different kettle of fish. Defenders back then seemed to helplessly just 'jog' after Pele, where-as you see Leo being hounded down by defenders every week.

3. Leo is playing against defenders who are much better conditioned, kinda linking in with point 1. They are more agile, faster, look after themselves better.

I honestly believe Leo is a better player, with legacy aside (which will always be argued.)

 

[6 Ballons for Messi]

Those numbers included penalties in penalty shootouts. Perhaps Ronaldo chokes a little on penalties in big moments, since a disproportionate number of his misses seem to have been in important moments. Meanwhile, tons of Messi's missed penalties are in CdR matches. But it's not like Ronaldo hasn't made plenty of important ones or that Messi hasn't missed some important ones too.

Remember, Messi missed one in a very tight CdR quarterfinal tie in 2008. Barcelona still won by one goal, but it was an big moment. He missed one in a 0-0 La Liga match against Sevilla in the 2011-2012 season. He had the Chelsea miss, which obviously lost the tie for us (and I think Ronaldo's teams still won all the CL matches/ties where he missed penalties). He missed in the 2013 Spanish Super Cup, which we would have won if he had made the penalty. His miss in the CdR first leg this year against Atletico was big, even though we ultimately ended up winning somewhat comfortably. Taking only a 1-0 lead to the Calderon was not exactly safe. The miss in the first leg against Man City was perhaps less dire, since we were taking a lead to the Camp Nou regardless, but it was still relatively important.

I'm not saying all that to disparage Messi. He takes lots of important penalties. Of course he has missed some of those. But the same is true of Ronaldo.

These are all pointless games you list.
The only important penalty messi missed is the chelsea one, while cristiano has missed 4-5 important ones.

Also, messi has absolutely bossed the most important penalty in his career.
I'm talking about the penalty vs holland in the world cup.
Holland were firing first, one of their leaders was supposed to take their first penalty, robben/van persie/sneidjer, do you know what they did?(LVG asked 2 of them but didnt name them) They both refused to take it due to nerves and let the poor CB Vlaar strike it and he missed.
Then messi didn't do the same as these muppets, he stepped up, took the ball, placed it in down, had a cold gaze in his eyes and put argentina up 1-0.

It's laughable to say cristiano is better than messi on penalties just because he has a couple more scored in unimportant matches.

 

[Morten]

I agree talent is talent but my opinion is this:

1. Defences nowadays are SO much stronger. Tactical layouts, and team synergy is far more important than it ever has been. You watch the defences Pele is running past in that video, they are all brainlessly pressing and being tactically naive. Contrast this to teams today, especially in La Liga, who sit deep, and don't press until Leo goes into dangerous areas, and even then, the others watching do everything to retain their shape. What Malaga did to us at home this year is the perfect example, total cold, tactical defense.

2. Pele is nowhere near as quick as Leo, more of a 'stop-start' dribbler, similar to Zidane IMO. He obviously had far more ability to score than Zidane but athletically, Leo is a different kettle of fish. Defenders back then seemed to helplessly just 'jog' after Pele, where-as you see Leo being hounded down by defenders every week.

3. Leo is playing against defenders who are much better conditioned, kinda linking in with point 1. They are more agile, faster, look after themselves better.

I honestly believe Leo is a better player, with legacy aside (which will always be argued.)

Im not taking a stance on who is the best, yes the defences were pretty disorganized back then. But a player of Peles talent would adapt to todays game and still be a boss imo.

 

[Alik]

It's like wondering if Newton would have been as influential/famous if he lived during current times

 

[Bran the Greenseer]

It's like wondering if Newton would have been as influential/famous if he lived during current times

Thats different, if you remove Newton from history you remove every following achievement that uses his work so you can't just take him and place him in the present. You can however look at Pele's speed and dribbling and put it in a present situation. He wouldn't be as good today. But you can also account for the fact that if he had been playing today he'd have probably been better physically. However even then technically Messi is on a whole other level imo.

 

[Vlom]

Pelé is not even the best brazilian ever, fenomeno would have eaten him alive even in stats had he stayed fit and focused on football, also beats him in dribbling skills.. Pelé looks so average, touchs the ball, it goes 4m away but no one cares, he gets it back, does it again .. lol

I personally don't rate him much, oh, and I hate assholes like him and Maradonna that say stuff like "X player is good, but he'll never be as good as me", like wtf man, get back on earth.

 

[Vegeta]

I rate both Garrincha and Maradona above Pele. Pele is really, really good, obviously, more of a goalscoring threat with excellent dribbling and technique, but not the most technically proficient EVER. Also, as already noted, the defenses and rules of the era he played in... facepalm-worthy.

 

[raskolnikov]

Pelé is not even the best brazilian ever, fenomeno would have eaten him alive even in stats had he stayed fit and focused on football, also beats him in dribbling skills.. Pelé looks so average, touchs the ball, it goes 4m away but no one cares, he gets it back, does it again .. lol

I personally don't rate him much, oh, and I hate assholes like him and Maradonna that say stuff like "X player is good, but he'll never be as good as me", like wtf man, get back on earth.

Regarding Pele, was he the only one scoring that much back then? For example if you look at the Hungarian league in the 50's they had several great goalscorers like Puskas, Daek and kubala. I always think of Pele as ahead of his time, he was the best in that era which is all that matters. His lies about his goaldcoring stats should be ignored.

 

[lessthanjake]

These are all pointless games you list.
The only important penalty messi missed is the chelsea one, while cristiano has missed 4-5 important ones.

Also, messi has absolutely bossed the most important penalty in his career.
I'm talking about the penalty vs holland in the world cup.
Holland were firing first, one of their leaders was supposed to take their first penalty, robben/van persie/sneidjer, do you know what they did?(LVG asked 2 of them but didnt name them) They both refused to take it due to nerves and let the poor CB Vlaar strike it and he missed.
Then messi didn't do the same as these muppets, he stepped up, took the ball, placed it in down, had a cold gaze in his eyes and put argentina up 1-0.

It's laughable to say cristiano is better than messi on penalties just because he has a couple more scored in unimportant matches.

Oh I agree about Holland. I almost went on a rant about that same thing myself. That was the biggest penalty of Messi's career, and he nailed it. I give him tons of credit for that.

But if you classify the penalties I listed as pointless, then it's hard to really say that Cristiano has missed a ton of important ones either. After all, is there really a big difference between missing a third minute penalty in the first leg of the 2008 CL semifinal and Messi's miss versus Man City this year? Perhaps it was an earlier round and you might say we were clearly superior to Man City anyways. But Man United won without the penalty, were largely superior as well, and the penalty came so early that it wasn't some do-or-die moment in the tie. I think you're splitting hairs if you are trying to act like Messi's miss was irrelevant while Ronaldo's miss was a big deal. Both were misses in the CL knockout stages when the tie was still close.

Also, based on your metric of importance, how many important penalties has Messi even attempted? Certainly the one against Holland. And the one against Chelsea. Perhaps the one against Uruguay in the last Copa America. I can't actually think of any others. So Messi has missed 1 of 3. And remember, Ronaldo has certainly made important ones. He made one in the England shootout in Euro 2004. He made one earlier in the Bayern semifinal where he later missed in the shootout. He made the winning kick in the shootout against England in the 2006 World Cup. He made the penalty that put them ahead in this year's semifinal tie against Juventus. I suppose both men have also made 3 penalties each in close league Clasicos. I'd classify those as super important as well. Ronaldo also made one to put them ahead in the second leg of the 2013 CdR semifinal against us. I gather that perhaps you think the CdR is pointless, but surely a Clasico CdR semifinal tie IS important. I think it's important, and I think most people would agree. Putting all that together, Messi has missed 1 of 6 important penalties, while Ronaldo has missed 3 of 11. It's worse, but not exactly notably worse, and also surely not a particularly meaningful difference given the super low sample size.

 

[Vlom]

[MENTION=8123]lessthanjake[/MENTION] you are really trying too hard mate

 

[lessthanjake]

[MENTION=8123]lessthanjake[/MENTION] you are really trying too hard mate

The thing is that I just really don't think Messi fans need to cling to things that are only semi-logical when comparing Messi to Ronaldo. We see that all the time in the arguments people make for why Ronaldo is better. But we don't need to do that. Ronaldo is a better penalty taker than Messi. Not by a lot, but he is better, despite having missed a few important ones. And there are other things Ronaldo is better at too. But Messi is still clearly the better overall player.

 

[Vlom]

The thing is that I just really don't think Messi fans need to cling to things that are only semi-logical when comparing Messi to Ronaldo. We see that all the time in the arguments people make for why Ronaldo is better. But we don't need to do that. Ronaldo is a better penalty taker than Messi. Not by a lot, but he is better, despite having missed a few important ones. And there are other things Ronaldo is better at too. But Messi is still clearly the better overall player.

Alright, you convinced me, Ronaldo is the goat

 

[10Rivaldo]

Regarding Pele, was he the only one scoring that much back then? For example if you look at the Hungarian league in the 50's they had several great goalscorers like Puskas, Daek and kubala. I always think of Pele as ahead of his time, he was the best in that era which is all that matters. His lies about his goaldcoring stats should be ignored.

Pele was supposed to be more than just a great goalscorer, he was a lot more well rounded. Comparing Puskas to Pele is like comparing Ronaldo to Messi. Both great players but one is clearly the better player

 

[10Rivaldo]

Pelé is not even the best brazilian ever, fenomeno would have eaten him alive even in stats had he stayed fit and focused on football, also beats him in dribbling skills.. Pelé looks so average, touchs the ball, it goes 4m away but no one cares, he gets it back, does it again .. lol

I personally don't rate him much, oh, and I hate assholes like him and Maradonna that say stuff like "X player is good, but he'll never be as good as me", like wtf man, get back on earth.

But he didn't stay fit. Longevity is an important factor.