Flip

Okay, no need to get your knickers in a twist. It was in response to HTT re: being the best AND the biggest icon within a sport. Jordan, Rossi and possibly Woods and are THE undisputed icons of their sports, that much is obvious. As far as this team vs individual sport goes, I'm sorry but you're dead wrong. Moto GP is a team sport and although Rossi showed his individual brilliance by going to a losing team and winning, you could argue that that is why he is the best (the same argument comes up with Maradona '86 WC). You could also look at someone like Vettel and question (but never answer) where he would be outside of Red Bull. Of course it's a team sport. As for Jordan, I'll back off a bit there. Im not big on basketball, but have friends that are and every single one will pontificate about this player and that, but all of them either talk about him being the best or there's almost an admission that he is. It might be a generation thing, I've just never heard, seen or read a debate, it's always been Jordan, Jordan, Jordan in my experience. As an icon in sport though, he's to basketball what Mickey is to Disney imo. Football doesn't have that person and I don't just mean commercially. Maradona and Pele are always the two talked of, Cruiyff and Best too. All are massive icons in their own right . None are undisputed as the best or most iconic in football imo. This generation will predominantly talk of Messi as the best ever...at this precise moment. He's 25, there's more than enough time for him to be undisputedly the best, but he will have to do it all to get there. Everything, all of it. Fair enough.

Kid Icarus, you're actually typing non-sense there. In the basketball world, even in our own forum, we have had discussions about whether Jordan was the absolute best. It's nowhere near being a consensus. Also taking Valentino Rossi and Tiger Woods into such a discussions shows a lack of recognition to that both of them are stars at sports competing individually. I mean, in football you have to take so much into consideration and the same goes for Jordan, and basketball.

That's the point I've been trying to make for many months on here right now. In terms of talent, Pele is as good as it gets. Maradona, Zico, Messi, Garrincha are in tier right below. That's my personal opinion obviousy.

Well who did he have them to flick on to? Nolan?

Aye I just saw now that I forgot to write for Newcastle. In any case in the last 10 years Shearer and Gary Speed must have been the two most prominent headers of the ball over more than 6 months as Andy Carroll was great at it as well. I never got to see enough of Duncan or Les in a Newcastle shirt and that's why I asked.

Both of them were far better, for a start. That's why I asked. There were two question marks.

Has there ever been a better player than Shearer in the air? How was Les and Duncan Ferguson? Will never forget my only visit to SJP where Shearer didn't lose one header all game. I think we must've won every header that day as Bramble was a beast at the back and Shearer was winning absolutely everything with Dyer and Bellamy running in behind on the flicks.

Without the injections of growth hormones he would probably not been able to live a normal life. He was born with a deficiency where his pituitary gland doesn't produce these growth hormones, there are cases where children who don't receive treatment have problems with not only height but muscle development deficiency as well. So no it's not a shit point to make that he wouldn't be the footballer he is today without the treatment. I'm NOT saying Messi isn't the best in the world or debating whether he is or isn't the best ever right now. I'm just trying to explain the reasoning behind my argument and not trying to take a cheap shot. I'm not calling it doping or performance enhancing, some people grow up with deficinencies and thankfully the world and science has reached the stage where there are treatments for most things in life, and that people can live a healthier life. This is all RE: Pele wouldn't make it in this ERA.

I know

Way to not see the point. Messi never took growth hormones? Im just saying that people go out saying Pele would never make it nowadays, what says Messi would make it without them back in the 50s and 60s? If you can give me a valid reason. Please do. Ive said all along that I love Messi but Tooj made a very good and concrete post showing the ignorance of many on here. I'm not one of them RE: Pele being unable play nowadays and if I was it's such a non-argument that it should be discarded anyway. Just believe the Messi hormone thing is a total cheap shot and more or less totally irrelevant. Oh I do agree with you, but it's totally relevant when people go on about how other players wouldn't cope nowadays.

Way to not see the point. Messi never took growth hormones? Im just saying that people go out saying Pele would never make it nowadays, what says Messi would make it without them back in the 50s and 60s? If you can give me a valid reason. Please do. Ive said all along that I love Messi but Tooj made a very good and concrete post showing the ignorance of many on here.

cheeky bastard. I live in sweden ffs.

:clap: Maybe that will kick some sense into people, especially those talking about how Pele wouldn't be able to succeed in todays game as it has developed so much. People tend to forget that in Pele's era Messi would possibly not even be a footballer as he wouldn't be able to inject the growth hormones that are available nowadays. I don't condemn them, I find it good there are these types of medicine and hormones to develop human beings but if people take that route when arguing then it's easy to get at that when arguing against Messi.

Possibly, in my opinion suarez just brings so much to the Liverpool side. Obviously he needs to keep it up, but i would take suarez over Ibra TODAY. Ibra obviously has had a much better career but I just think Suarez is so class the racist cunt

Juninho isn't even the best freekick taker in Brazlian history. I think Roberto Dinamite scored like 117 career free-kicks and Zico was better than both in terms of free-kicks.

Suarez is the best player in the PL at the moment. Without him Liverpool would be in a relegation battle. I don't care how much of a cunt he is, but Suarez has been class this season and the game against us was only an example of how good he has been.

In the end the best 5 players ever are South Americans. The Europeans have a lot to achieve to reach those levels

Apparently a lot of stuff gone on in Sao Paulo as they met Tigres from Argentina today for the Copa Sudamericana final (Europe League over there). Tigres refused to come back onto the pitch after half time and the referee had to give Sao Paulo the victory as they led 2-0. Apparently were bunch of problems in the first half and the police had to intervene. Tigres coach saying they didn't come out as the military police threatened to shoot them as the Tigres players were close to invade Sao Paulos locker room as they tried to get to their players. Love South American football, so nice to not have developed so this shit still goes on...embarassing really.

Big cultural connection between Japan and Brazil, Sao Paulo has the highest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan. Lots of Germans in Brazil aswell? Think I read that somewhere. All dem descendents of escaped Nazis after WWII. Aye quite a lot in the Southern parts of Brazil. Some cities have these german houses and everything.

He should be sitting on the legends side already. Shit picture especially with Falcao and CRonaldo waiting to go there without them ever having a chance

You're Swedish aren't you? I recognize your name from the old magpies.nu forums. Just to get the context of your views on Ronaldo, how do you rate him in comparison to Zlatan for example? Aye, half Swedish. Depends on which Ronaldo, in any case I rate both quite much higher than Zlatan tbf. Zlatan is a top top striker, but even today in a time where we don't have as many good strikers as years back I don't see him as a top 5 in the world. I rate Falcao, Messi, CRonaldo, Suarez, van Persie, Rooney all above him tbf. Then I think it instantly makes an absolute mockery of the ridiculous lengths you go to fight your case for Pele, regardless of your Brazilian heritage. I've said this time and time before, I've seen over 100 matches of Pele play. I'm grown up in a football family spending hours watching football a day. Sure I wasn't there to see every single game of his, but I'd think I've seen more of Pele than I have of Messi as I don't watch Barcelona against Vallecano, Valladolid, Deportivo and so on. I've had this discussion before and people have actually been fair on that, but I guess you found your lousy argument trying to make a point. I respect your sentiments and do find you have valid arguments regarding CR even if I don't agree on them a slight bit. But like VI and Tooj are saying you not only do a great disservice to Romario, you also prove you didn't watch him. I mean everyone talks about freekicks and so on but I could go on and name at the very least 10 players who were better than CRonaldo. And to all of you talking about CRonaldo and his freekicks, I hope you realize he has scored in something of like 7% of his freekicks with only like 24% hitting the target. This stat was on Swedish tv the other day. Look up Zico, a man regarded by many as the greatest player (well until Messi) not to win a World Cup. That guy was an attacking midfielder who dominated games and he COULD strike a ball from a freekick. For me and many many others Zico was a much better player than todays CRonaldo. So was Maradona, Messi, Garrincha, Cruyff, Beckenbauer. These guys had something else about them something the absolute best had. I'm not taking anything away from CRonaldo, he's just nowhere near the absolute top of the best of all times.

Don't necessarily agree here. I love Iniesta to bits, but CRonaldo is still the 2nd best in the world at the moment and that also seems to be the consensus.

Check out my forum name. How old are you? What's your name? Where do you live?

Wait, what? The smily takes away the first part ffs. Come on. And what I mean with boring organized football is that we won't give Chelsea space to play. We're not playing Chelsea until February.

As well as the middle class in Brazil growing with 40% over the last couple of years as well as Corinthians being in it for the first time gives them the opportunity to go there now that they can afford it. It was mental the amount of support Corinthians has like. I just got back from Sao Paulo and even on the motorways there's people flogging coke and flags in the middle of traffic and such (That much is normal I know). Some people there told me it was sort of like 'the club of the people' the same way AC Milan were? Still a canny amount with Ronaldo on the back of the shirt from this time there, albeit brief like. Loved the place Flamengo has the biggest support in Brazil, but like you said Corinthians is the club of the people. It's a saying that everyone from the favelas supports Corinthians. Corinthians is not only for football though so there was a joke that the Brazilian Olympic Federation sent to few 'Corinthianos' to the Olympics and that's the reason Brazil gained so few medals, and that if had they sent more Brazil would've returned to Brazil with 75 bronzes, 55 silvers and 30 golds. Along with 100 of Rolex watches and the Queens crown. That kind of shows what level the Corinthians team has and their 'stereotype'. It's reported that Flamengo has 33million supporters across Brazil and Corinthians 26millions more or less. Huge numbers.