Andrés Iniesta

J

jiopi

Guest
Running at past/defenders is what Ronaldo and Walcott do. Messi's control of the ball at pace is outstanding and probably never seen before. It's probably something Iniesta can never do while one can imagine Messi being able to do what Iniesta does at a later stage in his career. Obviously right now, Iniesta is much better at keeping the ball and creating space through dribbles.
Messi is better at creating space with dribbling already, not because he does it all the time, but because he's better at dribbling.

Here's three examples of creating space and attacking the goal at the same time. Now I would like you to show how Iniesta creates as much space as these examples?

Messi%20assists%20dribble%20Pedro%20RMA.gif


Messi%20dribble%20Benfica.gif


Messi%20dribble%20pass.gif
 

Irish_Cules

New member
The great thing about Iniesta's dribbling is that he is past a defender before they even know he's running at them. His acceleration is incredible but the way he does is in such a gradual and elegant motion.
 

Elite-BkD

New member
Messi is better at creating space with dribbling already, not because he does it all the time, but because he's better at dribbling.

Here's three examples of creating space and attacking the goal at the same time. Now I would like you to show how Iniesta creates as much space as these examples?

Messi%20assists%20dribble%20Pedro%20RMA.gif


Messi%20dribble%20Benfica.gif


Messi%20dribble%20pass.gif

A few quick thoughts:

#1 You seem to have no idea what you're on about generally, because you opened with a gif of a fast counter, where Messi simply exposed the fact that Madrid had left enough open space at the back to build a house on. Nothing to do with creating space.

#2 Posting clips of Messi looking doing excellent things hardly cuts it because we're comparing the two best active players. Of course they both look amazing in action.

Thoughtful manipulation of opposition shape with intelligent movement both on and off the ball so that his side is in a stronger position is an area in which Iniesta is pretty clearly stronger than Messi. Messi, very obviously, has less need of his team being in a stronger position than just about any other player ever. I don't think that it'd be fair to call either one a better dribbler for these reasons though, but it's already been established that different things come to our minds when we think about the concept of dribbling.
You do raise a good point about the frequency of touches though, Messi is pretty incredible in that regard and there is something to be said for that. I do think that Iniesta's control is every bit as deft (actually I'd say Iniesta wins that one outright) though, and of course he has a completely different set of strengths in terms of using that control which for me suits a midfield role better and I suspect those are areas in which Messi will never match Iniesta any more than we'll see the reverse happen.
 
Iniesta is better dribbler than Messi, there is no doubt about it. When Messi tries to dribble players ( without using a lot of speed ) he looks uncomfortable ( mainly b.c he can only use his leftfoot). No one can dribble in tight spaces like Iniesta can.
 

mixer

New member
Iniesta is an awesome dribbler but I have a weird feeling that his dribblings lead to nowhere. Messi's dribblings much more often lead to a goal/assist
 

0n0mat0p0eia

New member
Iniesta is better dribbler than Messi, there is no doubt about it. When Messi tries to dribble players ( without using a lot of speed ) he looks uncomfortable ( mainly b.c he can only use his leftfoot). No one can dribble in tight spaces like Iniesta can.

Have to disagree with this. When Messi runs at/dribbles past defenders, there's no-one in the world who's better.
 

footyfan

Calma, calma
Messi might look uncomfortable (for some people, for me not really) because he's always moving his body weight and feinting to unsettle the marker while Iniesta relies almost exclusively on control.

Another thing I must say is that Messi gets his shirt tugged and pulled around much more than any other player

And let's be honest, if we argue like most people on the internet:

Messi never dives, while Iniesta dives. Thus Messi > Iniesta.
 
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