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Football's greatest - where does Lionel Messi rank?


Dave

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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 :lol:

 

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.

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:lol:

 

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...

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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 :lol:

 

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  O0 and i agree completely with you.

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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.

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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'.

 

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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.

 

 

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