Football's greatest - where does Lionel Messi rank?

[Guest neesy111]

Messi has also become Barca's top goalscorer in La Liga on 192 goals now.

[Flip]

Love how some Real Madrid fans still think CRonaldo is better. Lunatics.

[Guest neesy111]

Friend on FB has said because Ronaldo has played in PL, it makes him the better player.

 

[Mole_Toonfan]

Love how some Real Madrid fans still think CRonaldo is better. Lunatics.

 

CR has to think about Falcao tbh.... has more goals than him now

[ponsaelius]

Friend on FB has said because Ronaldo has played in PL, it makes him the better player.

 

 

Many on my Twatter timeline saying the same

[Flip]

Love how some Real Madrid fans still think CRonaldo is better. Lunatics.

 

CR has to think about Falcao tbh.... has more goals than him now

 

Goals doesn't mean all though tbh. It's the overall play and how you contribute to winning. A defender can still be the best player in the world and a defender won't score many goals. Messi contributes overall much more than any other player in the world, and along that he is the big reason to why his team is the best in the world, mentioning CRonaldo in the same bracket as him shouldn't be allowed.

[Guest]

Love how some Brazilian fans still think Pele was better. Lunatics.

 

 

[Flip]

 

I'm not going to go into that discussion. On the other hand, Pele should be the least of your worries, you should probably talk with all the Argentinians who still reckons Di Stefano and Maradona are above Messi...

[Mole_Toonfan]

Love how some Real Madrid fans still think CRonaldo is better. Lunatics.

 

CR has to think about Falcao tbh.... has more goals than him now

 

Goals doesn't mean all though tbh. It's the overall play and how you contribute to winning. A defender can still be the best player in the world and a defender won't score many goals. Messi contributes overall much more than any other player in the world, and along that he is the big reason to why his team is the best in the world, mentioning CRonaldo in the same bracket as him shouldn't be allowed.

 

I know i wasn't being totally serious  and i agree completely with you.

[Dave]

http://i.imgur.com/3DcOg.jpg

[Neil]

Just as I thought, can't do it in the FA Cup when it matters.

[Flip]

Just as I thought, can't do it in the FA Cup when it matters.

 

Terrible man

[Guest elbee909]

Yeah, wet and windy night away to Stoke.  Coward.

[Fenham Mag]

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=747526

 

What a pointless thread. Can the greatest ever hack it in the Premier League

 

 

[Neil]

It's not just stats with Messi, of course, because you can talk about how he skins players for fun game after game, plays ridiculous through balls, has astonishing close control, finishing, so on and so forth. But there are some truly remarkable numbers to consider:

 

86 goals in a single year. 86 goals. Many, many teams - some very good ones included I bet - will not have managed that. You'd expect him to get more as well in his remaining 3 games of 2012, barring injury.

 

283 goals in 352 games for Barcelona. The assists number will be preposterous as well no doubt (29 assists for Barcelona last season alone). Add in his Argentina goals, and it's 314 goals in his career.

 

He is only 4 international goals away from beating Maradona's total. He's only 29 goals away from matching his club career tally too, which will almost certainly happen this season.

 

He is Barcelona's all-time leading goalscorer. At his current rate he will be La Liga's all-time leading goalscorer before the end of next season.

 

He is already 2nd leading goalscorer in the history of the Champions League, with 56 goals in just 74 games. He needs 16 to beat Raul. At his current rate you'd be surprised if this wasn't seen to by the end of next season.

 

Could go on and on, too many mind-boggling records to get through. But here's the most ridiculous number:

 

He's 25 years old.

 

He will go down as the greatest ever.

[Mr. Snrub]

Already is.

[ponsaelius]

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A9tIheWCIAA1u00.jpg:large

 

 

[LRD]

He still has 3 more matches in this calender year to further extend his record.

 

Search 'Messi 86 GOALS in 2012' in YouTube (oops, I've said it)

[TheHoob]

Hasn't even peaked yet

[Cronky]

Leaving aside the debate about whether he is 'better' than Pele or Maradona, I'd say he's carved out his own unique place in the game. Muller was an out and out goal poacher who contributed very little else to his team's play. No-one would have predicted that a player like Messi, who often picks the ball up from deep and joins in the build-up, would beat his record.

 

And has there ever been a player who operates so well in tight spaces with opponents all over him? I couldn't say that the other two were 'better'.

 

[AlanSkÃrare]

Unprecedented in his excellence now.

 

Sure we've seen players like Maradona, Pelé and Ronaldo be far ahead of their time and dominate the game, but Messi has added the most insane part of his game to that dominance. His goalscoring is far, far beyond those players, even Ronaldo who you'd argue had goalscoring as his main asset. And goalscoring is the most vital asset, it wins him games and titles, on an individual level but also in terms of Barcelona, probably the best team ever on club level. His goalscoring is the crown of that team, what makes them click.

 

 

[Flip]

Unprecedented in his excellence now.

 

Sure we've seen players like Maradona, Pelé and Ronaldo be far ahead of their time and dominate the game, but Messi has added the most insane part of his game to that dominance. His goalscoring is far, far beyond those players, even Ronaldo who you'd argue had goalscoring as his main asset. And goalscoring is the most vital asset, it wins him games and titles, on an individual level but also in terms of Barcelona, probably the best team ever on club level. His goalscoring is the crown of that team, what makes them click.

 

 

 

You taking the piss?

[AlanSkÃrare]

Unprecedented in his excellence now.

 

Sure we've seen players like Maradona, Pelé and Ronaldo be far ahead of their time and dominate the game, but Messi has added the most insane part of his game to that dominance. His goalscoring is far, far beyond those players, even Ronaldo who you'd argue had goalscoring as his main asset. And goalscoring is the most vital asset, it wins him games and titles, on an individual level but also in terms of Barcelona, probably the best team ever on club level. His goalscoring is the crown of that team, what makes them click.

 

 

 

You taking the p*ss?

 

How so? The consistency in his goalscoring is far beyond them. Obviously not Pelé, but he never played in Europe.

[Flip]

Unprecedented in his excellence now.

 

Sure we've seen players like Maradona, Pelé and Ronaldo be far ahead of their time and dominate the game, but Messi has added the most insane part of his game to that dominance. His goalscoring is far, far beyond those players, even Ronaldo who you'd argue had goalscoring as his main asset. And goalscoring is the most vital asset, it wins him games and titles, on an individual level but also in terms of Barcelona, probably the best team ever on club level. His goalscoring is the crown of that team, what makes them click.

 

 

 

You taking the p*ss?

 

How so? The consistency in his goalscoring is far beyond them. Obviously not Pelé, but he never played in Europe.

 

Well you did mention Pele there. I just need to clarify once again that South American football back then had better standards than European football. Pele's Santos went in 59' to Europe and played I think 15 friendlies, (these were of course not REAL friendlies they were competitive games and that's why his friendlies record always comes to consideration when talking about his goalscoring records). Pele and Santos played Inter de Milan twice in the space of three weeks. Inter which the year after would go on to become one of the best teams in Italian history and he scored SIX goals against them in two games. Losing the first 3-2 and then winning the second 7-1 and he took the complete piss of Inter. And just to show how good South American football was back then, Santos lost 5-3 to Real Madrid which was the best team in Europe at the moment in 59' but lost 6-2 to Colo Colo. In one month of friendlies Pele went on to score 25 goals playing teams like Inter, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia all teams who were successful back then, as well as Real Betis who would have its best finish ever in spanish football in 1963 as well as Hamburg who would reach the semi-finals in 1961' in the Champions League.

 

People need to get a perspective of what Pele really was, he was a King amongst men. And I do respect people rating Messi over, however saying that his goalscoring was beyond any of them is for me a ridiculous statement. At the end of his career we can judge him. I mean Di Stefano himself didn't have a much worse goalscoring record than Messi and he won 5 straight Champions Leagues too.

 

What Messi, Maradona, Pele and Garrincha all have in their favour though is that they won things and were dominant in the way they did it. Garrincha and Maradona each won one world cup completely on their own. Pele and Messi basically won everything (Messi probably will, will probably dominate the World Cup in Brazil and shut my mouth )

[AlanSkÃrare]

Unprecedented in his excellence now.

 

Sure we've seen players like Maradona, Pelé and Ronaldo be far ahead of their time and dominate the game, but Messi has added the most insane part of his game to that dominance. His goalscoring is far, far beyond those players, even Ronaldo who you'd argue had goalscoring as his main asset. And goalscoring is the most vital asset, it wins him games and titles, on an individual level but also in terms of Barcelona, probably the best team ever on club level. His goalscoring is the crown of that team, what makes them click.

 

 

 

You taking the p*ss?

 

How so? The consistency in his goalscoring is far beyond them. Obviously not Pelé, but he never played in Europe.

 

Well you did mention Pele there. I just need to clarify once again that South American football back then had better standards than European football. Pele's Santos went in 59' to Europe and played I think 15 friendlies, (these were of course not REAL friendlies they were competitive games and that's why his friendlies record always comes to consideration when talking about his goalscoring records). Pele and Santos played Inter de Milan twice in the space of three weeks. Inter which the year after would go on to become one of the best teams in Italian history and he scored SIX goals against them in two games. Losing the first 3-2 and then winning the second 7-1 and he took the complete p*ss of Inter. And just to show how good South American football was back then, Santos lost 5-3 to Real Madrid which was the best team in Europe at the moment in 59' but lost 6-2 to Colo Colo. In one month of friendlies Pele went on to score 25 goals playing teams like Inter, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia all teams who were successful back then, as well as Real Betis who would have its best finish ever in spanish football in 1963 as well as Hamburg who would reach the semi-finals in 1961' in the Champions League.

 

People need to get a perspective of what Pele really was, he was a King amongst men. And I do respect people rating Messi over, however saying that his goalscoring was beyond any of them is for me a ridiculous statement. At the end of his career we can judge him. I mean Di Stefano himself didn't have a much worse goalscoring record than Messi and he won 5 straight Champions Leagues too.

 

What Messi, Maradona, Pele and Garrincha all have in their favour though is that they won things and were dominant in the way they did it. Garrincha and Maradona each won one world cup completely on their own. Pele and Messi basically won everything (Messi probably will, will probably dominate the World Cup in Brazil and shut my mouth )

 

Fair enough, I stand corrected on that point. However in todays climate and what the sport represents today I still don't find their goalscoring comparable.