10 - Lionel Messi - V6

George_Costanza

Active member
-You can't really use those hypothetical table as evidence, ton of variables changes.

Why not? your ring leader uses some absurd statistics and evidence and all I see is his posts is liked by you.

Take Messi out and put another WC player if you would like, and still won’t have a 10% influence as Messi. You have to understand, Messi isn’t the best player in La Liga or in the world, he is arguably the best player in the history of football. I see much criticism toward him especially from Valverde’s fans are warm and fuzzy when it comes to the coach but criticize Messi when the team fails.

-We have played 4 games without Messi during injury, against RM, against Inter twice and against Rayo. 3 wins and 1 draw, the draw was at Inter away (3rd best team in Italy) and we deserved a comfortable win. With a good 10 goals scored in those 4 games.
Worth noting that happened with him being replaced by Rafinha, and the next few games after he came back our performance took a hit.

-Can we play like we played without Messi on a consistent basis? Small sample size suggest "Yes" as the answer. We showed we are clearly better than teams like Inter & CR7 less RM. We have showed during the season that our defense is as strong as anyone bar Atletic (unless they are facing Cristiano). Our midfield isn't as dynamic as we would like it to be, but it is still way better than most elite teams in Europe.

4 matches aren’t enough to judge our performance without Messi. One is being Clasico, I explained why Clasico has different calculation all together beside Real is going through a rough period this season losing CR7 and Zidan. Inter is a mediocre team that is 26 points behind Juve in Serie A standings and lost to a mid-table team in Copa Italia Quarter Final. Messi is being so constant in La Liga that won us so many Liga titles the past decade, I’m not saying he didn’t have bad games in La Liga, he did but La Liga has 38 games, if he is having average-above average performance in 80% of the games, we win the league. Average Messi is >>>Any player in La Liga. Now UCL KO has few matches, average Messi isn’t enough, below average definitely isn’t enough, he has to be on his best to win us games. So if he is having a bad day, we are screwed since the team is worthless without him and our manager is average at best.
There is also a question of what do you mean "without Messi"? Replacing him with vacuum like we did this season when Rafinha was his replacement? Sure the team will take a huge step back, Suarez is shit half of the year, Coutinho is shit 87.36% of the season while Dembele is missing 2 thirds of the year. Only Suarez is reliable goal scorer. We would still most likely be a CL QF level of team. top 3 in Liga, saying we will be Alaves is exaggerating it badly.
But if he is replaced another reliable goal scorer, team would still be dangerous and semi-elite.
And our team right now is very coherent, static but coherent

I explained it above.
 

Potroh

New member
So if he is having a bad day, we are screwed since the team is worthless without him and our manager is average at best.

I absolutely agree with you.

Just as a quick and small addition, lemme mention another factor, not related to Messi.
The goalkeeper. Two years ago the goalkeeper was good-average to say the least, and the team has suffered a lot, as far as results were concerned that is.

Ter Stegen was famously standing "frozen" when opponents scored, also had some great saves, but he wasn't a guaranteed last resort.
Then something happened to him, he changed, he is not freezing anymore, so results are better and more calculable.
Overall it is a very very important factor, specially that the team is playing a much worse football compared to 2-3 years ago, apart from Messi of course...
 

Gaunter O Dimm

New member
those Ronaldo fans with their 'Messi brigade!' 'this is totally unfair to reopen the voting after Messi just played!' REEEE' forgetting their main man had the entire Ballon d'or voting extended for his Euro qualifying matches :lol:

even most EPL fans have Messi comfortably better, it shouldn't even be a debate anymore. Messi vs Maradona and Ronaldo vs Gerd Muller

Voted then read a couple of pages, thought I'd add my 2 pennies but decided I didn't fancy a headache.
 

Arizona Scott

New member
George i am with you messi criticism is utter bullcrap. Insane for a barca fan or fan of great footy. As great as he is--yes good case for best ever, any football match is has 13-14 players who are a part.

The stats and metric some of use clearly show Messi is the most productive and important player for the last decade. The overall metric are not even close with anyone else. Not sure where you axe is with those stats that support your messi being clearly the best of a generation.
 

Sasuke85

Member
I'm worried for Barca's near future when Messi retires. Hope that we will not fall into years of crisis like Man UTD did after Alex Ferguson quit.

Yeah I know Ferguson is a manager and Messi is a player, but they are both the greatest of all times, they are the symbol of their clubs.

And when they retire, a huge gap will inevitably appear. Man UTD spent almost half of billion dollars over the past few years just to fill this gap but they failed miserably, and now they look pathetic.
 

Havesaks

Senior Member
I'm worried for Barca's near future when Messi retires. Hope that we will not fall into years of crisis like Man UTD did after Alex Ferguson quit.

Yeah I know Ferguson is a manager and Messi is a player, but they are both the greatest of all times, they are the symbol of their clubs.

And when they retire, a huge gap will inevitably appear. Man UTD spent almost half of billion dollars over the past few years just to fill this gap but they failed miserably, and now they look pathetic.

ferguson wasn't just a manger, the club was centered around him. No manager or person in general has ever had so much influence in a club like ferguson, uniteds whole infrastructure was evolved around that guy, its incomparable to messi-situation. We need to chill out, barca isn't alaves without messi like some some fans here seem to think, we where a european dark horse through our whole history, and we will still be great after messi steps down. But yes, we have made some good transfers in midfield, gk, and defense and its time to do the same in our attack, some players who can take over in near future; because dembele, malcom, and a jovic-player won't cut it alone.
 

Gaudi

Senior Member
There will be no Messi type player for a long time, we'll need to reshape our tactics and not trying to replicate Messi. So we don't need to look for miracle player but decide what type of striker we'll be able to play with our midfielders we already have or will have next year.
 

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