Jump to content
Newcastle-Online

Not worthy of a thread - 2018 FIFA World Cup edition

OzzieMandias

by OzzieMandias
in Football

 Share

Recommended Posts

henke

henke

Posted
Posted

Is there anything at all to back up Maradona being anywhere near Messi's level like? Stats wise it's not even close, and watching Messi it's hard to imagine anyone better.

 

It just seems like nostalgia and/or a want to elevate history above the the present. I'm fine with it to a degree like, modern players will always have an 'advantage' as training methods and fitness improve etc, so there has to be some perspective there. But it just seems massively disingenuous to watch Messi now and be like "Nah, Maradona was better".

Won the World Cup with ten guys who'd never kicked a football before iirc

 

He failed to score in the final though, so clearly Messi is better. Even though he's never been close to winning the world cup.

Link to post
Share on other sites
triggs

triggs

Posted
Posted

Is there anything at all to back up Maradona being anywhere near Messi's level like? Stats wise it's not even close, and watching Messi it's hard to imagine anyone better.

 

It just seems like nostalgia and/or a want to elevate history above the the present. I'm fine with it to a degree like, modern players will always have an 'advantage' as training methods and fitness improve etc, so there has to be some perspective there. But it just seems massively disingenuous to watch Messi now and be like "Nah, Maradona was better".

Won the World Cup with ten guys who'd never kicked a football before iirc

 

He failed to score in the final though, so clearly Messi is better. Even though he's never been close to winning the world cup.

wat

 

He was incredibly close to winning the last world cup :lol:

Link to post
Share on other sites
henke

henke

Posted
Posted

Is there anything at all to back up Maradona being anywhere near Messi's level like? Stats wise it's not even close, and watching Messi it's hard to imagine anyone better.

 

It just seems like nostalgia and/or a want to elevate history above the the present. I'm fine with it to a degree like, modern players will always have an 'advantage' as training methods and fitness improve etc, so there has to be some perspective there. But it just seems massively disingenuous to watch Messi now and be like "Nah, Maradona was better".

Won the World Cup with ten guys who'd never kicked a football before iirc

 

He failed to score in the final though, so clearly Messi is better. Even though he's never been close to winning the world cup.

wat

 

He was incredibly close to winning the last world cup :lol:

 

I was going off the fact Germany were easily the best side in the tournament. But if you want to count Messi making the final then we can offset that with Maradona making the final again in 1990.

Link to post
Share on other sites
triggs

triggs

Posted
Posted

Is there anything at all to back up Maradona being anywhere near Messi's level like? Stats wise it's not even close, and watching Messi it's hard to imagine anyone better.

 

It just seems like nostalgia and/or a want to elevate history above the the present. I'm fine with it to a degree like, modern players will always have an 'advantage' as training methods and fitness improve etc, so there has to be some perspective there. But it just seems massively disingenuous to watch Messi now and be like "Nah, Maradona was better".

Won the World Cup with ten guys who'd never kicked a football before iirc

 

He failed to score in the final though, so clearly Messi is better. Even though he's never been close to winning the world cup.

wat

 

He was incredibly close to winning the last world cup :lol:

 

I was going off the fact Germany were easily the best side in the tournament. But if you want to count Messi making the final then we can offset that with Maradona making the final again in 1990.

Nah, you said he's never been close to winning a world cup which is just plain wrong. They were 7 minutes away from getting to penalties and were the better team for most of the game

Link to post
Share on other sites
Wullie

Wullie

Posted
Posted

Argentina definitely had the better chances in the final before ET. Higuain went clean through early on and completely shanked it, and Messi himself put a chance he'd normally bury just wide.

 

The fact that it even comes down to discussing the particulars of one football match over a career that's seen him score at not much less than a game per game over 500+ games shows how preposterous the debate is.

 

If his team wins a particular game against, as henke says, the best team in the world, then he's the best individual player ever. If they don't win against that team, he's not. It's laughable.

 

This argument says that by definition, if you come from a country that's generally not very good at football, or even, say, doesn't have a good defence during a particular time period, then you can never be the best player ever. So someone comes along in five years time that is clearly better than Messi, makes Messi look bog average, wins the Champions League every year with Northampton Town and scores at a rate of 5 goals a game for 1000 games, but he's Slovakian, or Chinese, or gets injured in the WC semi final. Sorry chum. Maradona's got the trophy in the cabinet.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Flip

Flip

Posted
Posted

It's mainly an age thing isn't it? I was born in 91 and I'm sure as a kid most of the talk of the greatest by adults veered more towards Pele than Maradona, now Pele gets discussed a lot less in comparison, and the 35+ group tends to sway towards Maradona and the younger group Messi.

 

 

 

That might be the case with fans, but the following pundits and ex pros are all quoted as saying he's the best ever having seen both Messi and Maradona, with some of them having seen Pele as well.

 

Wenger, Simone, Guardiola, Beckenbaur, Venebles, Souness, Gullit, Lineker, Tostão, Adriano Galliani, Marcial Pina, Keane, Wright, Shearer, Maldini, original Ronaldo, and Cassano.

 

 

 

Fake news.

 

Why invent a list? Beckenbauer, Ronaldo and Tostao all have said Pele from that I know of. Not sure about the rest though.

 

You could always have googled it instead of calling me a liar, like. :lol:

 

I messed up with Beckenbaur, but...

 

Tostao - "Messi is better than Maradona; he is more complete, more consistent, more spectacular. He is reinventing the game – a mix of the real and the virtual."

 

Ronaldo - "Does Messi deserve to be called the greatest player in the world? Yes, for sure."

 

EDIT: Yep, they don't say he's the best ever. It was a mistake though, I didn't 'invent' anything.

 

All from here: https://genius.com/Lionel-messi-quotes-on-lionel-messi-annotated

 

 

Both Ronaldo and Tostao have said Pele is better, there's article on google if you google them, might be in portuguese, but I rather trust articles over quotes that are taken out of context. Ronaldo even says he thinks Pele and Maradona are far ahead of Messi.

 

http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/futebol-internacional/futebol-espanhol/noticia/2015/12/ronaldo-prefere-et-messi-cr7-e-acha-pele-e-maradona-muito-melhores.html

http://globoesporte.globo.com/mg/noticia/2012/03/tostao-nao-poupa-elogios-messi-ele-ja-e-bem-melhor-que-maradona.html

 

So yeah...

 

Pointless discussion. My apologies.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Howaythetoon

Guest Howaythetoon

Posted
Posted

CL football is of a much higher standard than the WC, Messi has to be the best player ever though in the modern sense. But Pele has this magical aura about him giving his WC exploits and for me is the true greatest of all time and likely never to be surpassed. Maradona was a great player, but like Cruyff and Best and players like them a few rungs below Pele and Messi. I rate Ronaldo of Real Madrid, but he's a level below Messi as well. If Messi wins a WC it's game set and match for him like.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest firetotheworks

Guest firetotheworks

Posted
Posted

It's mainly an age thing isn't it? I was born in 91 and I'm sure as a kid most of the talk of the greatest by adults veered more towards Pele than Maradona, now Pele gets discussed a lot less in comparison, and the 35+ group tends to sway towards Maradona and the younger group Messi.

 

 

 

That might be the case with fans, but the following pundits and ex pros are all quoted as saying he's the best ever having seen both Messi and Maradona, with some of them having seen Pele as well.

 

Wenger, Simone, Guardiola, Beckenbaur, Venebles, Souness, Gullit, Lineker, Tostão, Adriano Galliani, Marcial Pina, Keane, Wright, Shearer, Maldini, original Ronaldo, and Cassano.

 

 

 

Fake news.

 

Why invent a list? Beckenbauer, Ronaldo and Tostao all have said Pele from that I know of. Not sure about the rest though.

 

You could always have googled it instead of calling me a liar, like. :lol:

 

I messed up with Beckenbaur, but...

 

Tostao - "Messi is better than Maradona; he is more complete, more consistent, more spectacular. He is reinventing the game – a mix of the real and the virtual."

 

Ronaldo - "Does Messi deserve to be called the greatest player in the world? Yes, for sure."

 

EDIT: Yep, they don't say he's the best ever. It was a mistake though, I didn't 'invent' anything.

 

All from here: https://genius.com/Lionel-messi-quotes-on-lionel-messi-annotated

 

 

Both Ronaldo and Tostao have said Pele is better, there's article on google if you google them, might be in portuguese, but I rather trust articles over quotes that are taken out of context. Ronaldo even says he thinks Pele and Maradona are far ahead of Messi.

 

http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/futebol-internacional/futebol-espanhol/noticia/2015/12/ronaldo-prefere-et-messi-cr7-e-acha-pele-e-maradona-muito-melhores.html

http://globoesporte.globo.com/mg/noticia/2012/03/tostao-nao-poupa-elogios-messi-ele-ja-e-bem-melhor-que-maradona.html

 

So yeah...

 

Pointless discussion. My apologies.

 

 

 

I know, hence

EDIT: Yep, they don't say he's the best ever. It was a mistake though, I didn't 'invent' anything.

 

Tbf, Ronaldo's 41 so he can't really say whether Pele was better or not imo. I try to limit things to 'in my lifetime', but it is tempting to go beyond that purely because it seems impossible that anyone could be any better. Whatever happens, I hope that in the future it'll be a case of my kids coming to me and saying 'such and such is the best player ever' and a whole generation of dads and grandads just saying 'Nah, Messi'

Link to post
Share on other sites
Kaizero

Kaizero

Posted
Posted

No Italy, Netherlands, Chile, U.S., Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon this year. That’s wild.

 

Yes and no. Morocco and Tunisia both have more appereances at the WC than Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, so by that logic their non-appereance would be more wild.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Deuce

Deuce

Posted
Posted

No Italy, Netherlands, Chile, U.S., Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon this year. That’s wild.

 

Yes and no. Morocco and Tunisia both have more appereances at the WC than Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, so by that logic their non-appereance would be more wild.

 

Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have each made the last three in a row though, and generally been considered CAF heavyweights in recent years, whereas Tunisia hasn’t been to a WC since 2006 and Morocco since 1998.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Tisd09

Tisd09

Posted
Posted

No Italy, Netherlands, Chile, U.S., Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon this year. That’s wild.

And Wales - semi-finalist of Euro 2016! They had quite easy group and couldn't make it.

 

I'm gutted, we under performed in so many games and threw some points away. The Ireland game was so frustrating, people praising the Irish when we played into their hands. Bale or no Bale we should have had the ability to qualify from that group.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...