Also the trolls love to act like Messi is the only player who has declined substantially with age.
Maradona's prime lasted 5 years. Cruyff's 7ish years. R9 like 3-4 years. Romario 7-8 years. R10's like 3-4 years.
Messi's lasted a solid 11 years (2008-2019) so I don't know where all this rhetoric of him last being a professional player in 2015 or 2011 come from
While all of that is true...
The thing is that back then the internet didn't break out in this way. I guarantee if that was the case back then those players would be dissed on social media too.
There's a general attitude amongst Football fans of "how dare you compare a current player to a famous retired player".
Once you retire you're looked at more fondly and automatically become way more protected.
Messi is miles better than R9 but try and tweet something against R9 and people will come hunting for you with comments like "You don't know about Football, kid" and "Kids these days"....but hate on Messi in a tweet and you'll get way more support.
Just a consequence of the global breakthrough of social media in this period.
Nostalgia bias is insane amongst Football fans. I'll upset a lot of people here too if I start comparing current Footballers to old "legends".
The only Footballing legend who gets proper hate by modern Footy fans is ironically the greatest one: Pele. You'll see dumbfucks everywhere go on and on about crap like "he counted goals he scored against his grandma."