Lionel "The Greatest of All Time" Messi

[malvolio]

Mate, sincerely I cant see how this Argentina can beat France (in case they beat Morocco, very likely for me tough i root fot the africans)
of course everything can happen, but that would be a huge surprise

Don't feed the troll Daniele.

 

[Daniele]

Don't feed the troll Daniele.

uh?
sorry I don't follow all the posts and I don't have visibility on which users are trolls and which are true

 

[vegitot]

Birdy thought Arthur would destroy Premier league

Bring some xG shit from twitter and try to be smarter than anyone else without any common sense.

 

[vegitot]

Mate, sincerely I cant see how this Argentina can beat France (in case they beat Morocco, very likely for me tough i root fot the africans)
of course everything can happen, but that would be a huge surprise

People said the very same when Croatia vs Brazil or Morocco vs Spain or Portugal.

Messi may need a performane like vs Real Madrid 2017 though. Or at least vs Netherland this World Cup.

 

[malvolio]

uh?
sorry I don't follow all the posts and I don't have visibility on which users are trolls and which are true

Temptation is a troll

 

[Horatio]

Temptation is a troll

damn I fell for it. Thought Temp was genuine for once since he has been abandoned by his group. Thought he was hoping for us to take him in when a possible Argentina win.

 

[Birdy]

It has been proven pointless to debate this, as [MENTION=4451]Birdy[/MENTION], who is actually the only one left (who is not a troll) saying this, believes everyone else is biased, but he is subjective.

- Provided with evidence that Argentina have been abysmal for extended periods of time, while Messi was missing, he is dismissing it saying:
"They have been tuned to play for Messi, so they are dependent and need time to play better"

- Provided with evidence that Barcelona have been a catastrophic disaster since he left, even with a heavily revamped squad, he is dismissing it saying:
"We need time to reconstruct" although, it's been two years and we couldn't reconstruct a team to pass the group stages while spending most in the world....

- He admits Argentina are not one of the better teams in this World Cup (not by a long shot), but somehow would be better (THAN REACHING A FREAKING FINAL??) without Messi.

- He disregards all the XG stats for players as far as attacking actions are concerned (where Messi is a statistical anomaly, by staticians' own words), because he is the orchestrator and things revolve around him, ignoring the fact that to be able to perform that role and be tasked with it, you have to be absolutely great. They could have Dybala playing a similar position and role.. would they have reached a final with this squad?

- He says Argies had an easy path because they didn't play one of Germany, England, Spain, Brazil, even though those teams either underperformed massively compared to others they already played, or got eliminated early by smaller teams.

I don't know how many more arguments could be made that he will disregard.

Mate, it's good to be accurate and not misconstrue what I say.

1) Yes, and that proves my point actually.
Answered it already for you the other day: When you remove someone around which their game is constructed, they will obviously be abysmal

2) Yes, we need time much more than you think.
For many of you, teams rebuilt from 0 should suddenly win CL. LOL
Pique just costed us UCL group qualification, Busi and Alba are still playing.
Get some grip with where we are at

3) I didn't say they would suddenly be better in this WC if you remove Messi. That falls again under 1
I said this team plays meh football, but have a core of young players that could be made to play better in the future.
For that to happen, they need to stop playing the game at Messi's pace

4) Not sure I ever claimed Dybala can perform the role better.
I rather claim the role might not be needed.
Same thing I claimed when he was at Barca.

5) That's true.
A big team can get eliminated by a smaller team in a knock-out.
Proves nothing mate about how they can fare against another big team.
How many times have you seen it in football?

-> In short, all of these points stand
but somehow, I should cater to what the majority here wants from me, which is blindly worship granny Messi because he is the GOAT and gave us moments of joy.
No thanks, I am not a fanboy

 

[Daniele]

Mate, it's good to be accurate and not misconstrue what I say.

1) Yes, and that proves my point actually.
Answered it already for you the other day: When you remove someone around which their game is constructed, they will obviously be abysmal

2) Yes, we need time much more than you think.
For many of you, teams rebuilt from 0 should suddenly win CL. LOL
Pique just costed us UCL group qualification, Busi and Alba are still playing.
Get some grip with where we are at

3) I didn't say they would suddenly be better in this WC if you remove Messi. That falls again under 1
I said this team plays meh football, but have a core of young players that could be made to play better in the future.
For that to happen, they need to stop playing the game at Messi's pace

4) Not sure I ever claimed Dybala can perform the role better.
I rather claim the role might not be needed.
Same thing I claimed when he was at Barca.

5) That's true.
A big team can get eliminated by a smaller team in a knock-out.
Proves nothing mate about how they can fare against another big team.
How many times have you seen it in football?

-> In short, all of these points stand
but somehow, I should cater to what the majority here wants from me, which is blindly worship granny Messi because he is the GOAT and gave us moments of joy.
No thanks, I am not a fanboy

ok, without accusing each other of bias, like gentlemen.
In your argument, since it takes time to rebuild the team, what do you think Argentina should have done?
Let'say: don't call Messi anymore f.e. since 4 years ago and build a new non-Messi dependent team.

Here, the best result they could have had, could only have equaled the one actually obtained (America's Cup victory, World Cup final).
If argentina were to lose the final, in theory you could argue "if they had built a new team 4 years ago argentina would also have won the world cup", but do you think this is a valid point?
come on, honestly. To argue that removing Messi would have been better is pure sophistry.
O,k the team doesn't play champagen football, but the results are all on their side

 

[vegitot]

If Messi and Argentina play the best football ever in the final but lose, you will see that bird comes here and be like: See, Messi drags the team down.

 

[JamDav1982]

Messi has criteria no other player does when it comes to the GOAT debate.

Messi v Ronaldo it is all about club football and this idea Ronaldo 'did it in more leagues'.. despite fact he has less assists, goals, trophies or balon dors etc. There is no mention of the WC and how the different perfomances of the two in the criteria.
Messi v Maradon and Pele...now is switches to all being about the World Cup and not having to have 'done it' in multiple leagues or club football being the focus.

Messi is held up to higher standards in the GOAT debate than anyone else.

 

[vegitot]

ok, without accusing each other of bias, like gentlemen.
In your argument, since it takes time to rebuild the team, what do you think Argentina should have done?
Let'say: don't call Messi anymore f.e. since 4 years ago and build a new non-Messi dependent team.

Here, the best result they could have had, could only have equaled the one actually obtained (America's Cup victory, World Cup final).
If argentina were to lose the final, in theory you could argue "if they had built a new team 4 years ago argentina would also have won the world cup", but do you think this is a valid point?
come on, honestly. To argue that removing Messi would have been better is pure sophistry.
O,k the team doesn't play champagen football, but the results are all on their side

You may ask where those younger core were when Argentina nearly failed to qualify for 2018 without Messi.

 

[raskolnikov]

If they lose he will have won 1 out of 6 international finals. He would be unlucky in that regard. I hope him ot Marocco wins it.

 

[Horatio]

You know what would be an interesting discussion? Why is no one saying Morocco has been very lucky so far? They have faced topsides who missed a number of sitters.

 

[malvolio]

You know what would be an interesting discussion? Why is no one saying Morocco has been very lucky so far? They have faced topsides who missed a number of sitters.

Same as with Croatia I guess. People jump on the bandwagon just because they are a small team, plus they have a whole continent that would like them to win. Then reality check comes in and you can dissect their games more clearly.

Croatia got battered by Belgium, Brazil and barely got over Japan. Yet crying now about penalties, as if they deserved to be there.

This is not even a hate post about small teams doing everything to win. In the end that's what they should do if they don't have the tools.

I'm more angry at teams like France, who play shit football while having a loaded squad and immense talent pool to choose from.

 

[Horatio]

Same as with Croatia I guess. People jump on the bandwagon just because they are a small team, plus they have a whole continent that would like them to win. Then reality check comes in and you can dissect their games more clearly.

Croatia got battered by Belgium, Brazil and barely got over Japan. Yet crying now about penalties, as if they deserved to be there.

This is not even a hate post about small teams doing everything to win. In the end that's what they should do if they don't have the tools.

I'm more angry at teams like France, who play shit football while having a loaded squad and immense talent pool to choose from.

No, that is not same with Croatia. Most of you are saying how lucky Croatia were. But never have I seen anyone bring luck up in context of Morocco.