ITT: LEO 'KING' MESSI

http://www.oleole.com/media/main/images/wallpapers/66644/lionel-messi-on-the-_92454.jpg
http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/messi1_415.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/23mbyg.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eslfhA2y2E0&feature=sub

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRulgWjgS2E

http://www.global-changes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/messi-header.jpeg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/images.nachofoto.com/b-Lionel-Messi-one-of--47c0b850868e.jpeg

http://www.football-wallpapers.com/wallpapers2/messi_5_1024x768.jpg

omg van der sar's face.

srsly fuck an american talking jordan v. bird those cunts dont even know the meaning of the word skill. MESSI

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0gpe5a7dwhcQT/x610.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0ctUgrc06x27b/x610.jpg

DUDE IS UNFUCKWITHABLE

and once Argentina sort their shit out and win the 2014 WC he will be rightly crowned as the modern Pele/Di Stefano.

this will never not be beautiful (on mute obv)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5nyf5OUYTg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE-wGI4DlSM&annotation_id=annotation_559660&feature=iv

messi is just the latest in a line of luxury flair players with a poor work ethic. he will settle comfortably into his inevitable 'cult player' niche before long, most likely after the world cup. i would liken him to a le tissier or a ginola.

A more muscular Arshavin.

poor work ethic? are you trolling?

iirc he made the most tackles of any player in la liga last season. (and iirc being a lol forward this meant he also made the most fouls.)

yeah yer rong there. ronaldo yes hes got a poor work ethic. messi no way, although rooney does trump him in the cant-believe-this-dude-is-everywhere-on-the-pitch stakes.

The show pony Paul Scholes

MESSI GUYS, MESSI

he's really good

itv commentators in aftermath of his 'oh look nobody has closed me down 20 yards out' goal were quite unbearable

srsly fuck an american talking jordan v. bird those cunts dont even know the meaning of the word skill. MESSI

ok.

messi can't be touched atm- ronaldo is quicker, stronger, taller and maybe, just maybe, more effective overall, but skill wise messi can't be touched.

but you can't ever say this shit about jordan. sorry.

he's like ringo out there playing football

still though- if ronaldinho was bothered, they would all be fighting for #2 spot.

ummm sorry but no. ronnie at his peak is not close to the messi of this and the previous season. only player i've ever seen that can be put on such a scale is henry 03/04, and i assume cryuff during the ajax triple/maradona 86/di stefano those 6 yrs in a row

for extra aww factor that message up there on his t-shirt is for his newborn niece <3

xxp funny cause i just tonight realised messi now is probably even better and more effective than ronaldinho was when he ruled nou camp those couple of seasons. and ronaldinho was incredible

only tonight?

so the only question left is this: when does messi get his own bottle opener?

talking peaks, henry never, i mean never, > ronaldinho

henry sustained it longer, for sure, but for two years at barca nobody touched ronaldino

and to think it could be ended in an instant by ryan shawcross. football, eh

messi's face doesn't lend itself to bottle openers- maybe a bootscrape? i dunno

could open a bottle on his crown mebbe

umm sorry but henry 03/04 was TEN BEST PLAYERS EVER FUCK A ZIDANE EVER THINKING HE WAS THE BEST FRENCHIE SINCE PLATINI

lol arsenal

tbh not even sure zidane could touch messi

zidane>>>>>henry

CMON

nah seriously watch some football though.

frenchies since platini henry makes top 5. zidane at no 1 is indisputible and by some margin.

henery 03/04 maybe = ginola 99

let the arsenal fan rave, and feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes

Eh, I've always sorta had to check myself when thinking that Nedved might have been better than Zidane- Henry at his peak def. was.

I don't think I ever saw Henry d up like Messi does on the regular, but catching games was hard in this country in the early 00's.

sam we're talking about zinedine zidane here not his brother john zidane or his cousin frank zidane or w/ever you saw.

and tbh i'm not even sure about henry peak > frank peak

post 2002 ish

messi ronaldinho

c ronaldo henry xavi

shevchenko eto'o kaka villa

iniesta rooney imo

they will join that second tier in time

fabregas and torres just chillin' w/ gary cahill in rank 6 or 7

iniesta with xavi as a brundlefly package, yeah for sure. not convinced about him as a lone candidate- even tonight it was clear that without xavi he's a notch lower of a player.

rooney nah. sorry.

torres nah sorry. as well to push for hasselbaink to be in there imo. not even sure about villa being in there just yet.

the way i see it comparing iniesta and xavi is like comparing the sperm producing capabilities of your left baw vs your right baw. They work together so often that it's hard to apportion a greater contribution to either.

also if rooney contiunues his form this season i think he will have matched c ronaldo's 42, both quantitively and qualitatively.

rooney gets back more, works more, extra string to his bow that makes up for being somewhat less skilled and somewhat less of a goal-threat than ronaldo.

i agree re xavi/iniesta, but couldn't lobby for either alone in that tier.

if rooney continues his form this season he'll deservedly be in the running for european player of the year. a lot of players have been in the running for that in any given year since 2002. a stunning conversion from right back tho.

that's cos you probably don't see enough of villa xxp

like torres he needs to play for a better side

iniesta is quite a different player to xavi, who couldn't play lw to save his life though he can run things from deep and play 150 passes at 95% completion

in fact

2002 1st Ronaldo Brazil Spain Real Madrid 169 []
2nd Roberto Carlos Brazil Spain Real Madrid 145
3rd Oliver Kahn Germany Germany Bayern Munich 110
2003 1st Pavel Nedvěd Czech Republic Italy Juventus 190
2nd Thierry Henry France England Arsenal 128
3rd Paolo Maldini Italy Italy Milan 123
2004 1st Andriy Shevchenko Ukraine Italy Milan 175
2nd Deco Portugal Spain Barcelona 139 [J]
3rd Ronaldinho Brazil Spain Barcelona 133
2005 1st Ronaldinho Brazil Spain Barcelona 225
2nd Frank Lampard England England Chelsea 148
3rd Steven Gerrard England England Liverpool 142
2006 1st Fabio Cannavaro Italy Spain Real Madrid 173 [K]
2nd Gianluigi Buffon Italy Italy Juventus 124
3rd Thierry Henry France England Arsenal 121
2007 1st Kaká Brazil Italy Milan 444
2nd Cristiano Ronaldo Portugal England Manchester United 277
3rd Lionel Messi Argentina Spain Barcelona 255
2008 1st Cristiano Ronaldo Portugal England Manchester United 446
2nd Lionel Messi Argentina Spain Barcelona 281
3rd Fernando Torres Spain England Liverpool 179
2009 1st Lionel Messi Argentina Spain Barcelona 473
2nd Cristiano Ronaldo Portugal Spain Real Madrid 233 [L]
3rd Xavi Spain Spain Barcelona 170

i mean nobody's shilling for gerrard here- he'd be miles ahead of rooney for me over the past few seasons. maybe lampard too.

they aren't first rate players, cf sacchi on gerrard 'a great player though not a great footballer'

peak longevity comes into it too i think. gerrard may well have elevated himself because of sheer consistency of form- again maybe lampard on this score?

not to the top table of players tho, agreed

cannavaro ought to be somewhere in yr tier system, also maybe rio ferdinand

none of these players are anywhere near messi

not gerrard or lampard, but fucked if ferdinand doesn't deserve consideration on a 5-7 year scale tbh

sure and nesta above all xxp but wasn't thinking of defensive players, i think there's an argument they should have a separate hierarchy as they would in amerikanische football

i think you can just about compare the virtues of xavi and shevchenko in terms of their offensive capacity but eg xavi and nesta? types too incompatible imo

imo there's something a mite distasteful about an ilx thread celebrating such an already-celebrated footballer. it's very much in the style of the american sport boards. the bullard and kitson threads had something this can never have. football is always bigger than one man

ferdinand has been england's best player other than rooney and scholes that i have witnessed in my life of football fandom

yeah agreed.

so to recap

messi the greatest right now, c ronaldo loses points for using his physical abilities to an unfair advantage.

messi not the undisputed greatest of the new millenium, but definitely better than henry.

rooney better up front than in defence.

'yeah agreed' was xp. i disagree entirely with lj

:)
ferdinand ahead of scholes in terms of 'england' players tho tbh

Ok lets do this

Messi
Henry (w/ Bergkamp)
Ronaldo (pre-fat)
Zidane (w/ Davids)
Ronaldinho
Zidane (w/ anybody else)
Nedved
Henry (w/ anybody else)
Xavi
Bergkamp
Figo
Cannavaro
Buffon
Cristiano
Makelele
Iniesta
Vieira
Drogba
Nesta
Pires
Cambiasso
Pirlo
Villa
Lampard
Essien
Milan's Shevchenko

fuck anyone else

I guess Thuram, Casillas and Seedorf should be in there somewhere as well.

LJ- This is just a one-off. Not gonna be making a thread for every lol superstar. Helps that Messi is incredibly likable and seems like he won't end up being a Tiger Woods or whatever.

I don't know if CR9 is faster than Messi. The only thing he has on him is height and that doesn't really matter when he can do this:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/images.nachofoto.com/b-Lionel-Messi-one-of--47c0b850868e.jpeg

actually sorry was supposed to put pre-fat ronaldo above henry.

A hoy hoy, I think you've compiled a list of the best players of the past 10ish years! ...and then you've taken out the Manchester United and Liverpool players and replaced them with also-rans from shitty london teams.

liverpool player(s)

fuck this imo, if we're dropping the scale that low then i want ginola, berbatov and modric in STAT

makelele don't belong, btw- not that i didn't rate him, but 'makelele is so underrated' has become a rong cliche. dude had good positional sense but he's not on a list of late 90's - 00's greats.

paricularly one that vieira nor keane make.

i had cristiano? don't think gerrard is on a par with them? shitty london teams? van nistelrooy isn't close, vidic maybe? can't think of another liverpool player who would come close to such a list other than the eternally injured torres?

Zidane is miles clear in this, surely? World Cup performances are what really counts if you're talking about greatness, and if Buffon hadn't made that save in extra-time he'd've dragged France to two of them.

oh yeah btw zidane is miles clear in this- even though i'd say he didn't really perform to his best at world cup tournaments proper? that's what it seemed to me at the time anyway.

Why not Van Nistelrooy, btw? He was better in his position than Makelele was in his.

xps sorry, i see vieira made that list. well ok then.

Re France and world cups, it bugs me that whenever I see retrospectives on 98 they put Henry in a starring role, which is absolutely not how it happened.

France 98 start players were who? desailly, blanc, petit, i don't think anybody really shone upfront?

Guivar'c'h up front every game. Henry didn't even get on in the final, though he did outscore Guivar'c'h, as did everyone else.

Zidane >>>> all others but if we're talking forwards then it's Messi all the way for me. Fuck an Henry, even at his peak he was vying with Van Nistelrooy in the Premiership alone and no one's seriously claiming HIM to be best player in the world material at any point.

Also, I'm a traditionalist, and Zidane having done it in the World Cup elevates him above Ronaldo for me.

Cristiano, that is, not Fat Ron.

Take off the Premiership goggles and ask some French ILXors what they think of Henry.

if we're talking forwards then it's a highlander for fat ronaldo, bacause you can't have it both ways about 'he's done it at the world cup' tbh

Fat Ronaldo's peak years were 90s though. I regret not having seen him much then, from legend he was incredible. He was good in 2002 as well, but then his team were so obviously superior to everyone else there, even England.

zidane's peak years arguably 90's too, and why isn't rivaldo being considered?

i mean fat ron is gonna pwn this year's world cup, frank zidane isn't even in line for an algerian call up iirc

Why not Van Nistelrooy, btw? He was better in his position than Makelele was in his.

― DarraghmacKwacz (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 March 2010 10:00 (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Van Nistelrooy not included for the Trezeguet principle. Also United went through their worst Premiership spell while he was seen as their main forward. Makelele made arguably the two best teams of the past decade. Don't see how this is a thing.

Fat Ronaldo at Real was still pretty special.

Yeah, I always feel Rivaldo gets a raw deal - probably because he's basically unlikeable though. The main image of his career isn't his hattrick against Valencia, it's pretending to get hit in the face then running off to the middle east and Uzbekistan to get more money.

and once Argentina sort their shit out and win the 2014 2010 WC he will be rightly crowned as the modern Pele/Di Stefano. <--- fixed

Rivaldo was pretty great but for some reason I remember him more for his lol milan years. See also: Shevchenko as a Chelsea player ruining it all.

Player who if he wasn't injured all the damn time should be included in the discussion- Recoba.

Players I'm not sure why they aren't included in the discussion because they were arguably as good as most of these second and third tier players; I guess they are just unlikable- Totti, Vieri, Del Piero, Raul.

never 'got' del piero, have never really been convinced by him. freely admit that italian football isn't a huge area of knowledge tho.

Van nistelrooy scored goals for a living like arguably no other player on this list, he's in.

totti makes it vieri doesn't, raul i can live without tbh

My favourite player who'd never make a list like this is Fernando Redondo.

Mine's is Henrik Larsson (obviously)

btw rivaldo's hat-trick against valencia- single most amazing football performance/achievement of the decade

true

i mean, specifically for unnamed persons this, it was EVEN BETTER THAN ARSHAVIN VS LIVERPOOL!

fie upon thee

imo there's something a mite distasteful about an ilx thread celebrating such an already-celebrated footballer. it's very much in the style of the american sport boards. the bullard and kitson threads had something this can never have. football is always bigger than one man

ICE COLD

didn't even have to check who wrote that

tiger_woods_press_conference.wav

it's ok to celebrate footballers as long as they're workmanlike and english. ok, whatever.

they don't have to be either! i just think it's way easier to say funnier and more interesting things about little-known or cult players, or at least ones who are seemingly flawed. messi is brilliant at what he does, and there's no real debate about him unless we're talking about boring things like absolutes

we shouldnt have threads about brilliant people

this thread started as just a celebration and devolved into boring discussion because someone challopsed that Messi was comparable to le tissier, most likely trolling.

tbf maybe this thread really is better off just compiling his best moments and being all 'whoa' rather than attempting to rank footballers

i've either never seen messi play or never seen him play well because i've been to barcelona games 3 or 4 times in recent years but don't remember seeing him do his magic irl :(

tbf maybe this thread really is better off just compiling his best moments and being all 'whoa' rather than attempting to rank footballers

it's not about messi anymore, and we are now trying to rank footballers.

happy?

it stands maradona, hoddle, le tiss, messi, modric, anderton fwiw

le tiss > ian woan > messi

I feel like messi's main talent is barrelling straight down the middle and somehow eluding everyone - it shouldn't work - but the things he does to actually accomplish this are done so subtly it's difficult to pick up except in slo mo, like a fencer or something

I just think he looks like a Lemming.

he keeps putting the ball where the defender can't get it, repeatedly, and in the direction he wants to go. pretty rare skill.

it's not about messi anymore, and we are now trying to rank footballers.

happy?

I was making a "these other guys are rank" jk. Never mind :(

*Andy Ritchie > Chic Charnley > Messi

(*the Morton one)

nah that was to LJ's fussiness onimo

oh right soz

honestly forgot about ian woan but he's obviously gotta be in there, up there with ruel fox and andy impey

I mean, come on ...

http://www.gravelstudios.com/articles/tengames/lemmings1.jpg

can't believe no mention of sami hyypia or dietmar hamann here. or titi camara.

actually sort of serious about hamann, if we're just listing brilliant players.

I've seen Messi in the flesh and he was v good but not in his sparkling ZOMG form (only scored twice lol). One thing I repeatedly noticed was his sublime control - people would ping hard fast high passes at him and you'd be thinking "oh good, Celtic throw, ease the pressure" then realise he'd controlled into his path with a single touch and was already past Lee Naylor (that last bit not too impressive tbh).

lionel who

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNb57ZNuWQ

would kill for a hamann at liverpool now..

I watched a lot of La Liga in 96/97 when Fat Ron was at Barca and he was hands down the greatest, most exciting, most talented footballer I've seen (on the tele). To this day.

I watched a lot of Football Italia between 99 and 02 when Roma were peaking and won the league (was at uni and this was the only free terrestrial football not on at a stupid time), and Totti was a definite favourite of mine. The fact that he mixed his skill with a touch of Roy Keane-esque aggro elevated him above the likes of Del Piero in my mind; Totti liked a scrap.

Messi I want to see more of, but I can see him eclipsing Fat Ron pretty soon. Fat Ron was already ailing by 22; although his ailing years lasted a decade and included many many many goals, just nowhere near as scintillating as his Barca season. Fucking hell. I think back to that and it flabbergasts me. Despite much longer periods spent at Inter and Madrid I still think of him as a Barca player.

Henry at his peak was sublime, and the best player I think who's graced the premiership. He needed Vieira though.

Zidane while absolutely mercurial was not consistent at all; his career is a series of very important moments of brilliance rather than regular and frequent revelations of greatness. I think he managed to time his peaks brilliantly - World Cup and Champions League finals being good times to pull it out of the bag!

John Sheridan needs mentioning, though. And Carlton Palmer, the proto-Vieira.

i may be misremembering hamann- doens't mascherano basically do his job now?

or, basically- if hamann played under benitez wouldn't he be mascherano (or maybe lucas)

sadly you have an aquilani and a lucas instead - although last time you tried to sign hamann he turned out to be igor biscan iirc

was about to OTM SM (with reservations on his Zidane assessment tbh) until the mention of john fucking sheridan, half of an incredibly journeyman irish midfield with townsend for years. rubbish!

We ought to chop this thread's discussions into Best Attacker, Best Midfielder, and Best Defnder, though.

Or even just Best Forward and Best Back.

Cos Makelele's as important a player to the teams he was in as Fat Ron or Zidane, but comparing them is wrong.

Sheridan might have been shit for RoI but I blame Townsend for that; with Palmer at Wednesday Sheridan was awesome. remember that free-kick Le Tissier scored where it was rolled to him and he flicked it up and volleyed it? He nicked that off Sheridan.

who can forget the sheridan turn?

BEST TEAM

did we do a team of the decade thing already, or was it just premier league?

hamann was a better passer than masch and scored more goals, just a better all around player imo. there was some good stats about games won with hamann in that liverpool side vs without.

We need a set formation to do best team. 4-3-3?

Buffon
Cafu - Nesta - Campbell (serious) - ???
Vieira - ??? - ???
Messi - Rooney - Henry

best team as Rafa would pick it

Rafa would just go to the nearest hospital and pick one-legged kids given the opportunity.

I'd have loved to Vieira and Fabregas play together properly at Arsenal.

vieira ronaldinho nedved maybe

hmm maybe not nedved for 00-09.

cafu probably knocking on a little too in fairness- zanetti plays at RB or midfield these days?

it's an argument I shouldn't start again, but Keane better than Vieira imo.

Also, Gattuso.

Cafu won Serie A with Roma in 201 and then went to Milan. He was the best RB in the world for 2 decades straight. Zanetti's good, but...

Nedved's a great shout. Never seen someone run so much.

Dani Alves might look like some weird thug from X-Men but he's on the way.

Leftbacks is where I'm coming up short. Carlos is too 90s and even then I can't ever love him. I can't think of anyone from the last decade who's fit to lace Andreas Breheme's boots.

Keane vs Vieira is a big, long, argument. I LOVE Keane, but Vieira was pretty much as tough and influential and was a whole lot more elegant too.

Gattuso was a headless chicken. Like Davids with ADHD. He played for RANGERS fgs.

I'm almost willing to rep for Cashley at left back

Hate to say this but it might actually be Cashley at LB :/

Would a three-man midfield of Makalele, Pirlo and Zidane work?

vieira ahead of keane- there i said it.

left back-

evra? too late in the day for him to make a claim?

because there is only one alternative i can think of, and nobody likes him very much at all. (xp lol)

I can't rate Dani Alves, sorry- he's got great talent but his concentration is so poor- his delivery is just crazily inconsistent.

vieira had skills keane could only dream of. having said that, keane had that aggression and competitive edge that few if any other players have.

I'd have Keane and Vieira together, actually, them and Nedved. Fuck Zidane. No lazies in my team.

Cashley probably is the best LB shout but he's such a little cunt I just wont accept it. There MUST be better. I'd accept Evra at a push.

LAHM

Only other plausible left backs I can think of are van Bronckhorst, Panucci and (I think) Sorin

None acceptable, including Lahm. sorry.

LB Roberto Carlos

I would have xavi iniesta and zidane in my midfield vs SM United. fuck compromise!

Yes, too many Premiership players in the team

Panucci's a rightback and was done by 2006 realistically.

Van Bronkhorst played for RANGERS.

Sorin has such fuckawful hair.

Lahn too spotty.

Carlos too old.

Clichy - has loads of mp3s at only 128kbps

Nah; his exclusion is cos of is lopsided face.

it's ashley cole. almost certain. need to go through italian national left backs to be sure.

zambrotta?

never expressed interest in obtaining a ronaldinho bottle opener

is this best now or best of the last 10 years? cos Keane, Vieira & Zidane are too old now as well.

how is twatley better than Roberto Carlos at his prime???? or Evra for that matter?

Best of decade, I think.

i think (without being sure) that it's of the last ten years. furthermore, i'm not sure if it is 'at any stage over the past ten years' or through the decade as a whole.

btw twatly is better than carlos at his prime.

Twatley's a better defender than Carlos.

Carlos, like Zidane, is notable for a handful of amazing moments; beyond that he ran up and down a lot and crossed the ball to Cafu (who crossed it back) a lot.

kicked the ball too hard and too high A LOT

Ashley Cole? OK, he's better than somebody like Lampard, but he isn't all that

maybe I'm just blinkered by not liking Cole, but I don't think I've ever seen him play conspicuously well. Solid and consistent I guess, but never "the best left-back in a decade" good

He is good, but he is definitely overrated

Demonstrates the paucity of great left backs, really

btw the answer is philipp lahm, and here is why

http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/3b4/189210157_843607.gif

Has that horse signed for Palace?

that's better than my reasoning tbh (nippy, versatile, excellent evil eyebrows)

He is good, but he is definitely overrated

*ignores scot*

I think at the same time there's a tendency to underrate Premiership players because we see them every week including when they're a bit rubbish, plus a bit of grass is greener going on.

That said Zambrotta might be a good shout at LB. There's probably a Brazilian or two I'm forgetting as well.

Messi thread being shat all over tbh

yeah we forget how good Cole is because too busy thinking not good enough for wor Cheryl mun ugh what a douche

choose yr soccerball team of the decade

I think at the same time there's a tendency to underrate Premiership players because we see them every week including when they're a bit rubbish, plus a bit of grass is greener going on.

Can't say I've noticed this going on in the British media, down the pub maybe

all time x1

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/FullTextSearchControllerServlet ;)

oop i mean

Messi

haaaaaaaaaaaaaa maracas: slight return

the last few years have given us a few new contenders for this one
Jailbirds XI

i mean, specifically for unnamed persons this, it was EVEN BETTER THAN ARSHAVIN VS LIVERPOOL!

― DarraghmacKwacz (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:22 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Arshavin was pretty terrible in that game, if only he would cover Gibbs we wouldn't have conceded four.

HAL has become self aware

btw in his last three games this guy has scored 8 goals.

nearly form to catch up with modric is that

That said Zambrotta might be a good shout at LB. There's probably a Brazilian or two I'm forgetting as well.

― Maraca Son Sistema (Matt DC), Thursday, 18 March 2010 13:33 (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Zambrotta is a RB?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN6zTox-hhk&feature=player_embedded

no hudson commentary, no credibility.

that is fucking ridiculous. the ball almost literally sticks to his feet. any uk journalist who thinks rooney comes close is trippin' balls. messi the only player to win a decade of ballon d'ors.

xac

and for the 'no workrate thing' he wins the ball to do it in the first place!

"He's the best player in the world and the history of football. Along with [Johan] Cruyff and [Diego] Maradona he is the best we've seen in Barcelona," he told Canal +.

joan laporta overdoes the hyperbole

overdoes?

messi at barca >>> maradona learning he likes coke at barca

no.....

give it time though

best part of the goal is the first man he beats - in beating the last defender he actually loses control at one point, but the defender plays for a spanish club and thus is terrible

but v good goal

lolj

and if he was up against tyrone mears, emmerson boyce, paul mcshane, ricardo rocha or other teams approx at the level real zaragoza this season......

messi vs clarke carlisle

messi vs sol campbell oh wait

ryan shawcross amirite

Sorry but I always thought Maradona's time at Barca was just kind of LOL? Injuries and pissing everyone off and doing lots of coke. I mean they sold him to freaking Napoli, of all teams. I'd assume Barca fans have fonder memories of his replacement the crisp-eater.

Also still love the lol alternate universe where Sheff Utd get their bid for Maradona accepted.

nakh- don't worry, 'lol spanish defenders' is one of lj's main football thread trolling points.

Is that the universe where Spurs choose Zidane over Tim Sherwood? xp

that wasn't the troublesome part about that quote.... xxp

I think that was Blackburn but yeah. (I guess in that universe I wouldn't get frustrated everytime Wenger bangs on about who he was close to signing and we do actually have a forward line up of Ronaldo-Kaka-Essien-Cesc Drogba-Zlatan and I literally wee myself every matchday.)

'lol spanish defenders' is one of lj's main football thread trolling points

some of the defending can be really shit, eg tenerife vs madrid were disgraceful, but it's a little awry this season especially when the lower half of the prem is so crap

ferenc puskas gonna do some poltergeisting chez laporta imo

ah mr nakhchivan, you weren't there when I was all 'this is the worst Premiership since 2000' and everyone was all 'wut' and I was all 'look at 11th place downwards'

generally in Spanish football, especially regarding the lesser (i.e. not top 2) teams, defences really aren't as well-organised as their Premiership equivalents - this is empirical observation

otoh, hull city would not enjoy la liga

three teams in contention for the title within a few points of each other in late march probably invalidates the larger claim

Also still love the lol alternate universe where Sheff Utd get their bid for Maradona accepted.

There's an alternative universe where Romario and Ronaldinho played for St Mirren. I'm still kind of amazed that I ended up in the one where Caniggia played for Dundee.

Don't listen to him, nakh - he was all 'Robinho is going to walk this'

that's more or less true xxp but it doesn't affect claims to messi's greatness, even if you take 25% off his domestic goals total to compensate for it he still has unreal figures

when I say the Premiership, I mean the icosahedral nexus of equally-privileged factions in buoyant concomitance

it is perhaps the most exciting title-race in years too, but the overall quality beyond, say, fulham and everton is diabolical

of course messi is fucking great - would like to see him savage a few Premiership defences

rly like dunn-diouf-pedersen-kalinic tho

I mean the icosahedral nexus of equally-privileged factions in buoyant concomitance

and individual primera liga clubs selling their own tv rights leads to insane levels of disparity where ronaldo earns 100 times more than some of the miserable souls tasked with defending against him

you're probably the only ILXor bold enough to come out as a fan of anything about Blackburn Rovers let alone Diouf, so kudos for the chutzpah if nothing else. although Dunn has some nice touches.

that's kinda capitalism gone bonkers :/

of course messi is fucking great - would like to see him savage a few Premiership defences

― LiveJournal (acoleuthic), Monday, 22 March 2010 11:09 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

;_; you'll see it next week

kalinic is rightly going to obtain the patronage of a hoy hoy as THE NEXT ZLATAN sometime next season after a backheel thru the legs of kieran gibbs, followed by a £16m january move to juventus and a bidone d'oro

ahhh but that's a European Cup defence, not a Premiership one ;)

xp

kalinic is the shefki kuci it's ok to warily praise

of course messi is fucking great - would like to see him savage a few Premiership defences

i mean, surely the opposite? the only reason ronaldo escaped unbussted is because there were no defenders quick enough to catch him. and he played in the same team as vidic.

hence 'ryan shawcross amirite' - crippling messi would be an act of great artistic expression - very futurist

messi has such stubby little legs unlike poor spindly calcium deprived aaron ramsey who subsisted on leeks and haribo until he was 17

Shawcross- "It was an expression of my determination to destroy the artisan ideal that has prevailed throughout the footballing landscape for what seems like aaages, darling"

kalinic? really?

my stance on underrated forwards-

klasnic and lee @ bolton - cool.
cameron jerome and chucho - cool. (ruined by what team they are at obv).
kalinic - not done anything to ever make me care.
llorente - never gonna get a chance because of more attractive spanish strikers but i like him.
rocchi - see above, change spanish to italian.
cavani - looking pretty exciting last couple times i've seen him. closest lol midtable striker to be on a NEXT ZLATAN type shizz, I guess.
acquafresca also looking pretty exciting

player i'm most wtf he looked awesome where did he go - victor obinna

ur forgetting rodallega for sure.

ha, i thought about incl. him. too inconsistent to make the WIGAN PLAYER GOES TO BIG CLUB jump (but then I thought the same of Valencia) but occasionally he looks class.

more likely to be kenny jones replacement at sunderland

oh and i guess torres counts as a midtable striker these days.

rodallega and jones- arsenal really should be looking hard at these guys imo.

spurs too tbh.

there are loads of promising players at wigan

if only their chairman would promise to stfu

maybe in exchange for you rebranding as dwmac

also 10% of the ownership rights of guetamalan wing back twins

what do you know about me and guatemalan twins? i have a very good solicitor on retainer u should know this

when I say the Premiership, I mean the icosahedral nexus of equally-privileged factions in buoyant concomitance

I heard Andy Townsend say exactly the same thing on ITV the other week.

haven't kept up, has this vid been posted yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Rfvorw9Ao&feature=related

that's pretty much the same goal he's been scoring a couple of every week lately, ya? No creativity that lad.

kalinic's is the classic slavstriker career arc so far of awkward first season followed by great second and subsequent £16m move to big club, or the more likely £3m sale to midtable spanish team and seven years of pichichi awards. (alternatively he'll be turning out for panathiaikos in 6 months, whatever. also no you can't have 'pichichi man' as your username.)

can't be bovd to load whole thread but if anyone's put forward the "somehow just cannot give a shit about leo fucking messi" challops then i got your back homie.

maybe you could get dr morbius to cosign?

yeah not giving a shit about messi is like hating anything enjoyable ever done with a football

I still think is too early for him to be put on THE LIST with cruyff, maradona, di stefano... He's going to have to do a lot more with the Argentina shirt on before that

lol he's done more than di stefano did in an argentina shirt. pick them as his only country for one.

however it is also like loving everything enjoyable about footballers. i dunno, this little fucker is just boring to me - he's like a really well-honed pro evo cutscene. where is the ridiculousness in his joy, the joy in his ridiculousness? yknow? he does not have the cartoonishly awesome frisson of the true great, whatever the stats might say.

i have tried to enjoy watching Messi but every time i turn a game on he seems to have a hoy hoy vigourously riding his dick, and my constitution is a little sensitive for such displays.

Di Stefano played half a dozen games, won one Copa América and couldnt do much since AFA screwed then. Anyways he was a better player for national teams than Messi has been

Maybe if we're really lucky he'll be caught with two transsexual prostitues or something.

That's a bit harsh, but 'cartoonishly awesome frisson' is an excellent test of greatness I reckon. If Messi doesn't have it right now, who does?

there is something dispiriting about the ease with which he can destroy sides with the same few moves but necessity is the mother of invention and he has gradually improved his playmaking and long shots as he plays more centrally

i'm not sure if 'the ridiculousness in his joy, the joy in his ridiculousness?' isn't a product of oversaturation, even if you were around during maradona's time i'm guessing it wasn't that easy to see his every game/goal in hd youtube embeds

i'm going to have to stop being enthusiastic about things i guess. wish i was as jaded as u hipsters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/mar/22/leo-messi-barcelona-la-liga-spain - good Sid Lowe article, don't worry hoyey, you're not alone in your wild enthusiasm.

thread needs more Ray Hudson if you want to see real dick-riding

a hoy hoy dick riding messi >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a hoy hoy dick riding diaby tbh

can you use another phrase please

sid lowe is the worst for messi hype anyway, he wrote an article just like that about daniel alves

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/jan/26/dani-alves-barcelona-leo-messi

Daniel Alves one of those ridiculously great players who is surprisingly disliked by britishers?

a hoy hoy dick riding messi >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a hoy hoy dick riding diaby tbh

― DarraghmacKwacz (darraghmac), Monday, 22 March 2010 21:29 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

These past couple weeks I have been starting to think... hmmm, one day Diaby could actually live up to NEXT VIEIRA hype and might be good enough that one day we can carry on without Cesc? Totally different kind of midfielder though so we'd have to change things around but his form has gone from lol comparisons to jenas to omfg am i watching xavi in an black french guy disguise?

however it is also like loving everything enjoyable about footballers. i dunno, this little fucker is just boring to me - he's like a really well-honed pro evo cutscene. where is the ridiculousness in his joy, the joy in his ridiculousness? yknow? he does not have the cartoonishly awesome frisson of the true great, whatever the stats might say.

― r|t|c, Monday, 22 March 2010 19:33 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

There's a real element of truth to this - hell, I've said it about Barcelona - but my main issue here is that great as Messi is, football, even great football, is about more than one man. There's a good deal of Messi-shaped tunnel vision going on at the moment; it's as though footballers who aren't cutting through defences three times a game are incapable of greatness. As a team sport, football is always going to be defined by a collective effort, and as a worldwide sport, defined by more than one team. There's as much beauty in a lower-league player transcending his or her professed abilities and doing something magnificent on a football pitch as there is in the world's most decorated player challenging his. Messi is not the be-all and end-all of what we fans ought to love about football; he is impermanent and mortal, and his time shall pass - football has not acquired new definitions. He's merely a lot more consistent at dribbling, passing and shooting than most players we've seen. A thousand Craig Fagans on a thousand pitches in a thousand years would emulate Messi's greatest goals; his genius is in the regularity of his brilliance.

Yes because Barca only have Messi and people watching them do not care for the work of Zlatan, Iniesta, Xavi, Keita, Pedro, Alves etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Also I don't think anyone on this thread is saying that because watching Messi is a joy that suddenly lower-league football doesn't have its own qualities? You are making an argument out of nothing?

What you mean is, he can do things deliberately and regularly that Craig Fagan would fluke one time out of a billion. Way to puncture the hype.

It's arguments like

yeah not giving a shit about messi is like hating anything enjoyable ever done with a football

― he might have even have gone in. (a hoy hoy), Monday, 22 March 2010 19:20 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

which rile me. Comparatively to my giving-a-shit-about-football, my giving-a-shit-about-Messi is negligible. Dude's damned skilful, sure, and he does great things, but the cornucopia of brilliance I have witnessed in football is far, far vaster than the feats of one man - he is as Sirius to the firmament

ew

I mean, pardon me for deriving far greater joy from Michael Pook's incredible last-gasp winner for Cheltenham in a 6-5 away victory last week than from Messi's Zaragoza strike. And that's an extreme example. Even mundane things like a late Rotherham equaliser can inspire me equally, if I happen to see them. Jimmy Glass for Carlisle is still the greatest thing that's happened in British football since I grew aware of the game.

Messi dribbling past four hapless defenders = impressive*

This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YBrS5Gr5Pk

= stuff of legend

*do it in a World Cup final/semi-final and we're talking

Some days I'm of the view that Adebayor's celebration against Arsenal is the single greatest moment of the last ten years. But so what?

Anyway, I look down on your examples, because the greatest joy I've had recently was seeing my man Bobby Z take on a full-pelt first-time running lob from 25 yards, on the volley, from a route one ball coming over his right shoulder after he'd stolen a yard on Rio at Old Trafford. It didn't go anywhere near the target, but the vision...

^^^pretty awesome. one of my greatest early footballing memories was darren powell of derby aimlessly hoofing a ball high into the box after a corner was cleared, and it ending up dropping in the top corner. glory days.

David Hirst was better than Bobby Z at spectacular misses.

Louis, you're saying you prefer accidents to deliberate acts. Which is fine, but it doesn't make any recipient of a happy accident a great player.

Also you're arguing against a position that no one is taking. Who is saying that Messi is so good he makes the rest of football a joyless irrelevence? Certainly no one here, and not 99.999% of football fans either.

people are saying some very absolutist things about Messi - I don't think it's helpful to think in such terms, especially about players

Dunno, it would be quite helpful if it means he chokes at the World Cup and is rubbish when England inevitably play Argentina.

he strikes me as a man with the resolve and the mental strength to ignore what anyone says about him and concentrate upon playing football. if anything scuppers him, it'll be injury, a disciplined england performance, or most likely his team's tactics

i think he suffers playing for argentina because they have no dani alves, who gives him ridiculous freedom to roam at barca. play him on the left w/ insua maybe?

might even be worth trying maxi rod at rwb and sacrificing the the position to get the best from messi idk

people are saying some very absolutist things about Messi - I don't think it's helpful to think in such terms, especially about players

Is this a plea for more relativism in football discourse?

james milner all rubbing his hands in glee xp

Ismael, that'd be nice!

I'm not sure about that - how would the league table work?

play him on the left w/ insua maybe?

might even be worth trying maxi rod at rwb and sacrificing the the position to get the best from messi idk

Maybe try playing him with Dirk Kuyt and Lucas Leiva?

isn't jonas gutierrez a decent emergency FB [/trolling]

lj- i'm trying to cut down on my ridic statements and you know this but then dude goes and scores 8 beautiful goals in 3 matches and i cant help it.

he strikes me as a man with the resolve and the mental strength to ignore what anyone says about him and concentrate upon playing football. if anything scuppers him, it'll be injury, a disciplined england performance, or most likely his team's tactics

― LiveJournal (acoleuthic), Tuesday, March 23, 2010 10:01 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno lj. i feel like your strident and totally worthwhile contrarianism against imaginary opinions is starting to get to him.

rtc's contrarianism was miles more strident than mine - I've basically been the doddery lower-league fan all 'football is a coat of many colours' and he was all 'MESSI HAS NO SOUL'

but yeah sorry lionel I am sure you will take your frustration at not possessing the unquestioning adulation of every football fan on the planet out on arsenal

the criticisms of messi enthusiasm are at least as short sighted and dumb and the enthusiasm itself, tbh. sometimes shit's just great, enjoy and acknowledge it, it won't last forever.

messi is the bellx1 of football imo

he is the first footballer to break the sound barrier with a rocket in his arse?

Discussion of Messi missing out on the fact that he looks like a nerdy little dweeb who would be the last guy to be picked in a playground football match

That is true. He'd never have made it in this country, or if he did he would be Lee Trundle.

i mean trundle is just a great surname, notwithstanding that he runs quite well

although lj's clearly gone off on a mazy, i can sympathise with maybe reacting a little sorely to the insinuation of an idealogical purism when it comes to footer, and not least when it's coming from a guy that doesnt really support a team and a stereotypical nouvelle eurogooner. i'm not sure it gets to the point of why messi in particular draws an emotional blank though.

if we look at it from the 'greatness' side, i have enjoyed/cheered/booed/hissed/reacted to every other "phenomenon" footballer there's been, and it's not a question of style variation (owen scored the same lovely goal pretty much every time - who can't instantly picture it now?) or of exposure (1996 ronaldo at barca & 2007 ronaldo at united caught the imagination equally; i havent even seen any of this lukaku baby maniac at anderlecht but he sounds wicked and i love him already). what is it with messi then? i dunno really - his is just a new kind of inevitability, i think, purified in the depths of barcelona's molecular labs.

like let's say he beats 33 men and slots one in against england in the world cup - how will you react? will it be AHHH 4 FUX SAKE JOHNSON!! or AHH WE JUST GOT TOTALLY RAPED!! or, etc? no. you'll just go "yep, fair play. well done to the little fella. v good player. credit to the game." and meh to all that tbh. as lj says, wouldn't you rather watch a kevin davies' 1000 best elbows comp on youtube instead?

like let's say he beats 33 men and slots one in against england in the world cup - how will you react?

You don't want me to answer that do you?

the product of excellence is predictability. keep gazza, i don't think the argies were offering a swap anyway.

that's not what i'm saying. i've liked many a predictable footballer.

the best kinds of predictable footballers are ballplaying defensive midfielders

the best kind of unpredictable footballers are psychotic centre-backs who happen to have a good touch and the occasional propensity to surge

Zidane was pretty unpredictable? You couldn't necessarily rely on him to turn it on.

rtc, is it fair to say that most of messi's goals come about through an opening of space and then a slow yet quickening process of torture where defenders cower before the inexorable and the commentator clears his throat for the shout of GOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL?

i'd probably root harder for messi if he did more stuff completely out of the blue. with his team up against it. the world cup could, thus, go a long way to endearing messi to me

yeah, zidane had the frenzy of creation, less the icy grip of execution - he was more compelling imo, although you'd possibly want messi in your team ahead of him if you wanted to *win*

anyway- we've signed sandro so i'd liek to add him to this list.

andy carroll's pretty unpredictable, can we put him up there?

Only if we're talking unpredictability in nightclubs, kebab shops or taxi queues

he's just broken steven taylor's jaw in a training ground bust up- does that count?

andy carroll should guard his phone like a hawk - capello could call at any moment

Yes to who will be this year's Hagi/Stoichikov/Milla and the like than whether Messi will do it 'when it matters'.

I guess this debate will rage on when SOL CAMPBELL contains the mighty Messi over two legs right?

We haven't really been blessed with Hagis, etc. ever since. Various Croats in 1998, Diouf in 2002, nobody at all in 2006 as I recall it.

Yeah no names in 2006 spring to mind...maybe that's why we had to contend with Zidane's phoenix from the ashes stuff...

And not a world cup, but who can remember that Greek side from Euro 2004?

Hagi phenomenon referring to one player dragging a rubbish team to a finals?

richard dunne was a 'nearly'

Step forward Wayne Rooney

i missed a sitter there

^heskey^

One brilliant player in a really good but unfashionable team who weren't pre-tournament favourites is a better definition - i.e. a massive shock to pundits who aren't aware of Barcelona, Brescia or, uh, JS Saint-Pierroise

Arshavin in 2008 maybe?

I'm thinking one of the Eastern European teams might have a wonderful footballer we just haven't noticed, maybe Serbia?

Arshavin started off great, then petered out, like Russia really (trying to work Peter the Great into that somewhere)

Arshavin started off with a two-game ban after getting sent off against Andorra!

Not sure it'll happen that way xp, the really promising guys get snapped up young. Would be great if North Korea had the new Maradona tucked away (so long as he managed to flee post-tournament). More likely Gourcuff or some French kid we don't know yet will have a blinder and after the initial surprise it'll just look like the natural order of things reasserting itself.

smh all this lower league real English football played by real English men who hit people nonsense. Of course 3rd division fans leap with joy at sclaffed crosses hitting the top corner and at their cult clogger figure taking ball plus man plus man behind him and anything else that happens to be nearby, but none of these things (particularly when it's not your team) is even close to matching a Messi or a Best or a Maradona in full flight with a ball glued to his toe.

I get the impression here that Messi's genius needs to expose a flaw to make him less boring when in actuality there's nothing more boring than the Flawed Genius who has 5 great career moments if he's lucky and spends the rest of his life snorting coke and punching his wife.

"And not a world cup, but who can remember that Greek side from Euro 2004?"

The Greeks were just as much about the manager...a bit like South Korea in 2002?

Romania and Bulgaria were not at all rub in '94 but erratically brilliant and Hagi/Stoichikov represented that.

xp = lolz was just gonna say North Korea. I reckon Man City will smuggle one of their players to England by the end to provoke an international incident

agreed onimo

Well said, that man

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0ctUgrc06x27b/x610.jpg

for extra aww factor that message up there on his t-shirt is for his newborn niece <3

― DJ Get Up Kids (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 18 March 2010 00:10 (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the sick little cunt

looking a bit ...

http://pentangle.net/blog/files/2009/10/da41600de893757c_landing1.jpg

this finding solace in the maculate is kinda catholic imho, valourizing the pitiful and the miraculous rather than enjoying the honest expression of rarified talents

i also prefer the seriousminded messi to the more playful, latterly clownish ronaldinho when you see the former just getting better and better with application and r10 happy to coast and play a great throughball once a game

i also prefer the seriousminded messi to the more playful, latterly clownish ronaldinho

Hate all that "Playing football with a smile on his face" bollocks

that was one of the more annoying tyldsleyisms of the mid 00s

i used to like that ronaldinho took pleasure in his greatness, and he was never shy with praising his teammates eg saying he wasn't even the best player at barcelona when messi came through

then you see the levity as the other side of the laziness that's afflicted him since

messi is protestant work ethic incarnate by comparison

i used to like that ronaldinho took pleasure in his greatness, and he was never shy with praising his teammates

Yes, I think he said Henrik Larsson was his hero at one point!

andy carroll stuck one on steven taylor?? man i already knew dude was gonna be a kitson x shearer dickhead to savour over the coming years but this just puts the tin hat on it. all hail your new #9 king:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hx1U8gDRC00/SWq3hH5K-GI/AAAAAAAAAHA/DsFMYEeQzSY/s400/andy+carroll+cornrow.JPG

maybe we should start a thread where we all basically lap dance for him for 200 posts until people start disliking him out of spite

Ronaldinho, lovely fellow:

"With Henrik leaving us at the end of the season this club is losing a great scorer, no question. But I am also losing a great friend. Henrik was my idol and now that I am playing next to Henrik Larsson it is fantastic."

The joy in the unexpected things that Ronaldinho would come up with was a great thing but yeah, he's got to be brilliant first or he might as well be a clown. But you can underachieve by going in the other direction too - I'm thinking of Shearer and his one career trophy

OMG <3 AC24 GONNA TAKE THE EPL BY STORM NEXT SEASON

ITT: carollus magnus 'king' novocastriensis

(kitson x shearer)

shit x cunt

LJ- I don't really understand this 'ok so i don't like him because most of his goals don't come out of the blue' thing. He's the sort of player who will win the ball and take on 3 players trying to hack at his feet and score... is that not out of the blue? How more surprising must a goal be to impress you? Will he have to score from taking a goal kick because Valdes is lol rubbish at them?

An awesome player who is super unfashionable and at a lol country stealing the show you say? We have a few options:

http://www.topnews.in/sports/files/Nicklas-Bendtner.jpg
http://img.skysports.com/08/03/218x298/ZdravkoKuzmanovic_750936.jpg
http://news.dipag.com/pictures/lowres/20060312/David-Suazo-walks-0000006239.jpg
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u36/CaptainSneddon/AlexisSanchez.jpg

and a trio of exciting players from the most underrated team going into this

http://www.baybul.com/resimler/Resim-190309-1115/1225-diego+forlan-1.jpg
http://www.raxanreeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/luis-suarez.jpg
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/fifau20/assets/contentImages/newsmakers/edinson-cavani.jpg

if uruguay make it to the semis, don't say yr friend with the crazy footballing opinions didnt warn ye

I don't know who half these guys are, but I like your thinking

Bendtner, Kuzmanovic, Suazo, Sanchez, Forlan, Suarez, Cavani.

think you have the wrong suazo, david rather than humberto?

maybe both sure

neither very good tho

maybe Serbia

remind me of the blond nedved looking dude at CSKA (Krasic?)- he is a definite star turn waiting to happen

these aren't exactly recondite names, krasic would probably sell for around £20m and luis suarez even more

They rarely are though - Milla is the only genuine unknown I can think of who stepped up at a recent World Cup

No player is going to burst out of 'nowhere' to shine at a world cup this summer.

and even roger milla seems to have played in the french first division for years before 1990

For about thirty years.

Well there are still unknown quantities in world football but I'd think it very hard to believe there is some African striking God currently going unknown; a New Zealander who didn't take up rugby instead or someone from the middle east more worried about whether he'd get shot by the fans than being awesome.

smh all this lower league real English football played by real English men who hit people nonsense. Of course 3rd division fans leap with joy at sclaffed crosses hitting the top corner and at their cult clogger figure taking ball plus man plus man behind him and anything else that happens to be nearby, but none of these things (particularly when it's not your team) is even close to matching a Messi or a Best or a Maradona in full flight with a ball glued to his toe.

I get the impression here that Messi's genius needs to expose a flaw to make him less boring when in actuality there's nothing more boring than the Flawed Genius who has 5 great career moments if he's lucky and spends the rest of his life snorting coke and punching his wife.

This isn't remotely what I've been saying. You're deriving a pretty crass stereotype from my sentiments. I am NOT only concerned with 'lower league real English football played by real English men' - I spend more time thinking about the Premier League and European football than I do Charlton! I don't believe lower-league football is 'real' as opposed to top-level football. Your generalisations of my beliefs are insulting.

What I'm saying is that football is a large church, and it permits all denominations a pew. You can have your hardworking striving-for-consistent-genius Messi types; doubtless if he's still turning it on in ten years he'll achieve a similar status in my mind to Sachin Tendulkar, who's potentially his nearest sporting equivalent of modern times. I still cheer Tendulkar, his wondrous, impregnable technique, his copious achievements, his occasionally transcendent act of truth (Messi's equivalent of the 200 in an ODI could be a WC hat-trick - he isn't there yet but I have no doubt he'll do incredible things in his career). I dearly love Tendulkar and fully understand the worship. But Messi is at the start of his career. Furthermore, Tendulkar will never bash a brilliant 60* from number 9 to win a Test; he'll never bowl a five-wicket spell to turn a match around. He won't do anything dramatic out of *nowhere*; when he takes to the crease, it is the expectation of a billion Indians that he'll do the business, and the only way he can exceed expectations is to do the unthinkable. Messi must follow suit if I am to lionise him equally.

But I am not solely concerned with acts of unpredictability and maculate agency. Indeed, the Flawed Genius who beats his wife and wrecks his body is of little interest to me; he is talented but has elected himself out of the pantheon. The flawed geniuses I am compelled by are those who try their damnedest and create an achievement of personality and memory, even while their recorded feats may not exceed a few. Most of all I am interested in anything good or remarkable (hence, not any old sliced cross into the top corner - the aesthetics have to be singular or spectacular) that I bear witness to on a football pitch. Naturally, at higher levels of the game, there is more exposure, and more prestige - and perhaps a greater level of skill required to best the opposition - but I am saying that while we praise Messi for his Tendulkar-like march upon statistical and popular dominance, we must keep an open mind for the lower-league footballer who dances through a defence with the ball glued to his toe. It does happen now and then.

cos those defences are shit. next!

Firstly can I mention how much I hate 'genius' being used in sporting terms? I guess a manager can be 'genius' but being able to hit a six or round three players is 'talent'. Or am I rong here?

Also wanna talk flawed 'genius? Growth hormone deficiency has different effects at different ages. In newborn infants the primary manifestations may be hypoglycemia or micropenis, while in later infancy and childhood, growth failure is more likely. Deficiency in adults is rare, but may feature diminished lean body mass, poor bone density, and a number of physical and psychological symptoms. Psychological symptoms include poor memory, social withdrawal, and depression, while physical symptoms may include loss of strength, stamina, and musculature. Other hormonal or glandular disorders frequently coincide with diminished growth hormone production.

lj the thing that bugs me about yr point is you are fighting against no one. we all still like seeing underdogs and lol lame lower league players do something of accidental brilliance. no one looks down on it here and as far as i can tell no one takes the insiped 'i support united and they have won more than yr team so i must like/know more about football than you do' 6 yr old argument. we can and do appreciate both. but is messi less exciting because he plays for a big team? should we back off from enjoying his brilliance because something exciting also happened on the football league show w/ manesh? can't we just shut up and enjoy both?

Being able to hit a six is talent, being able to average 50 and score 150+ in a ODI more than 5 times in a career while shouldering the burden of an entire people's expectation and never falling foul of personal demons once = genius

if Messi grows up to be half the sportsman Tendulkar is I will gladly declare him a genius of our time - but he won't be the only one. He is singular, perhaps, but what will beatify him is a genuine attempt upon the illusion of immortality.

I am saying that Messi IS exciting, but we KNOW he is exciting - it is a problem of expectation, which he must surmount

he is surmounting it and has been for a few years now. he's had expectation as a burden since ronaldinho declared him the best player in the world three years ago or more, and he wears it extremely well.

rooney has been a 'developing talent' for twice as long as messi has been a great footballer.

I think we can safely say Rooney is a great footballer now.

yeah i agree with that, but only since the beginning of this season imo, and possibly in the o of anyone outside of the daily mirror influence zone.

also Messi needs to score more flying volleys and first-time blaps if I'm really gonna love him ;)

Thierry Henry = Brian Lara - so many different shots, so many different and wondrous actions, such rich form, such glorious plunder, and an even more varied and outlandish cavalcade of iconic moments than Messi/Tendulkar - never really led his nation to great things - didn't have that intangible fire of continual improvement

first time blaps relates to losing ur virginity to a granwhore, yes/no?

hahahahaha

can't believe that lionel messi hasn't led his nation to great things he is shit

In the next match against Serbia, Messi became the youngest player to represent Argentina at a World Cup when he came on as a substitute for Maxi Rodríguez in the 74th minute. He assisted Hernán Crespo's goal within minutes of entering the game and also scored the final goal in the 6–0 victory, making him the youngest scorer in the tournament and the sixth youngest goalscorer in the history of the World Cup.[97] Messi started in Argentina's following 0–0 tie against the Netherlands.[98] In the following game against Mexico, Messi came on as a substitute in the 84th minute, with the score tied at 1–1. He appeared to score a goal, but it was ruled offside[99][100] with Argentina needing a late goal in extra time to proceed. Coach José Pekerman left Messi on the bench during the quarter-final match against Germany, which they lost 4–2 on a penalty shootout.[101]

2007 Copa América

Messi at the Copa América 2007Messi played his first game in the Copa América 2007 on 29 June 2007, when Argentina defeated United States 4–1 in the first game. In this game, he showed his capabilities as a playmaker. He set up a goal for fellow striker Hernán Crespo and had numerous shots on target. Tevez came on as a substitute for Messi in the 79th minute and scored minutes later.[102]

His second game was against Colombia, in which he won a penalty that Crespo converted to tie the game at 1–1. He also played a part in Argentina's second goal as he was fouled outside the box, which allowed Juan Roman Riquelme to score from a freekick, and increase Argentina's lead to 3–1. The final score of the game was 4–2 in Argentina's favor and guaranteed them a spot in the tournament's quarterfinals.[103]

In the third game, against Paraguay the coach rested Messi having already qualified for the quarter-finals. He came off the bench in place of Esteban Cambiasso in the 64th minute, with the score at 0–0. In the 79th minute he created a goal for Javier Mascherano.[104] In the quarter-finals, as Argentina faced Peru, Messi scored the second goal of the game, from a Riquelme pass in a 4–0 win.[105] During the semi-final match against Mexico, Messi scored a lob over Oswaldo Sánchez to see Argentina through to the final with a 3–0 win.[106]

the day Messi is caught with coke and hookers = the day he turns into Shane Warne* and becomes my favourite currently active sportsman <3

*the sort of flawed genius who never or rarely compromised his sporting talents or sporting intellect - was just a dude who didn't do it straight and narrow - hence the sort of flawed genius I adore beyond all reason. dude's life spun a yarn. LITERALLY AMIRITE

dmac that's not exactly leading his nation single-handedly to great things, please try and do batter than the second goal in a 4-0 win over peru

he's 21, he plays for one of the best teams in the world. the opportunity to lead trinidad to a world cup has sadly passed him by.

hang on why did I type 'batter'

getting flashbacks of my worst ILX moment here

grannybatter

no, this: battered womens syndrome c/d

oh me, oh my

that was a fucking classic and i can't believe it didn't garner you all sorts of spermabans

spermabatters

It's going to be pretty difficult to lead Maradona's team into anything other than ridicule but I'm sure he'll do his best.

I think it's unfair that Messi making the exceptional commonplace somehow makes him less worthy of admiration.

I wasn't intending to personally insult anyone and I apologise if I have. I love lower league last day of the season feats of heroism as much as the next guy but I wouldn't fetishise them to an extent that they eclipse your actual best footballers in the world doing it on a regular basis. It's the "regular basis" bit that makes them the best.

And they're not eclipsing! Merely coexisting. Messi's genius isn't so much a genius of moment (unless he really does run past an entire international defence) as one of consistency, and the two appeal to different parts of my sporting appreciation. He's gifted with the ability to jink past everyone, so he does. He hasn't changed the way the game is played - yet. He's worthy of enormous admiration, because he works so hard at improving himself, and because he clearly think about his game.

the day Messi is caught with coke and hookers = the day he turns into Shane Warne* and becomes my favourite currently active sportsman <3

FUCKING LEGEND

there's nothing more boring than the Flawed Genius who has 5 great career moments if he's lucky and spends the rest of his life snorting coke and punching his wife.

I don't mean he becomes a coke addict, I mean a single infraction (of which that's a cliched example - I could have said 'the day Messi goes on Countdown' or 'the day Messi takes up skydiving' or 'the day Messi gets caught painting the hippos at Woburn') which reveals a mind questing for experience

if he assaults women (which Warne didn't do AFAIK) then fuck him, also if he loses his life to drugs, fuck him

the case of Geoff Boycott is weird, because he was such a great sportsman and is such a wonderful commentator, but he did his his ladyfriend quite hard at one stage - twat, but arguably redeemable

Warne is not that sort of Flawed Genius; I was at pains to stress this! He redefined an entire sporting craft, for a start

hmm what part of hitting one's ladyfriend quite hard is redeemable?

idk, the "quite" bit?

what part of it is relevant?

different spheres. i don't really give two shits what a player's like off the pitch, though i do enjoy terry and cashley squirming in public because their entire on-pitch persona is exactly that of a pair of cunts.

ts; althusser vs collmore

*collymore

well he then got throat cancer and apologised quite profusely for his actions, and isn't a recidivist - dude's had his karma imo

but violence against women is something I find hard to forgive - hence 'arguably'

terry and cashley being brought low through no fault other than their own = awesome

"brendan is a top class accountant, but he was involved in a fracas with ulrika jonsson in a bar in paris. you've got to factor that in when looking at his balance sheets brian."

"john terry is a pub footballer you've never heard of that cheats on his wife. how do you feel about john terry?"

xp lj you didn't just 'karma' cancer.

he survived it and still has a very successful career to add to his pretty successful life - I'm not saying all cancer is karma - often it's tragic - but sometimes something like that fits snugly into a metanarrative

not saying terry/cole deserve to have their football judged according to their off-field acts, but their personalities certainly can be

STFU about cricket, dudes.

i mean yeah it's not good to factor cancer into karma, sorry. i'm just trying to show how Boycott shouldn't just be defined by his striking of a woman, but how hard it is not to

argh i've only gone and run the ball into my own net, out of the statium, and off towards beachy head ;_;

there is something amiss in this need for footballers to ingratiate themselves via various extracurricular escapades. don't really get this ah fuck, jimmy bullard, fuckin legend son shit, football is such a simple game and doesn't depend on paratextual piffle.

nor is football an ideal venue for esotericism, sure i like yr psychotic south slavic playmakers and tortured nu maradonas but i prefer that out of all the millions of kids the world over who try for a football career, there is one who is arguably the best at the somewhat counterintuitively privileged skill of kicking a ball.

very few people will have heard of giacinto scelsi or the young marble giants let alone agree to their greatness but only cavilling contrarians would argue with messi's place in the hierarchy.

young marble giants, even

i think you mean the young marble giants

No he means young marble giants.

also I am saying quite clearly in this thread that Messi has a great chance of joining the pantheon - in fact it is almost inevitable - but as I keep saying anyone can be the 'best' at kicking a ball, for a moment - the ontology of 'best' is limitless and confusing

scans better with the but not actually correct innit xxp

oh wait haha i thought he was correcting a phantom spelling error, rather than amending out a 'the'

there isn't anything confusing about the inarguable fact that no other top level footballer has the glue feet messi showed eg vs zaragoza, and manipulating a football with feet needn't be considered metaphysically wrt its importance in playing football

at this point I should just admit defeat, right

where the skills needed for football, in terms of offensive play, can be separated from general physical talents such as pace, strength, height, etc, then messi is peerless. c ronaldo is quick, strong and tall, rooney's excess fat gives him a ballast advantage, drogba can power opponents out of the way.

these guys all combine these physical advantages with footballing skills to great effect, but the fact that messi is up there without those physical advantages has a lot to do with why he's admired on another level by so many imo

that was the best argument in that sid lowe piece

When it comes to the inevitable and often tedious comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the things that is often said about Messi is that he is not as complete.........Ronaldo is invariably described as more complete than Messi – stronger, faster, bigger, more athletic. But aren't they all part of the same package, an obsession with physical strength? Isn't that a pretty incomplete reading of complete?

What height was Maradona again?

messi isn't exactly slow tbh, nor slight

why only yesterday mr nakhchivan was emphasising how his stoutness of calf would ward off even the staunchest of shawcrossings

He's no Arshavin

at this point I should just admit defeat, right

― LiveJournal (acoleuthic), Tuesday, March 23, 2010 3:29 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes, your imaginary antagonists have made you look quite silly.

ADMIT DE FEET OF MESSI AS ARTICLE NO 1 AS EVIDENCE IMO

tbh caek as ever I've pretty much played myself

sometimes you are just too real for this board.

Worth noting that wee tiny Messi would be wee-er and tinier if Barca hadn't given him treatment for a growth hormone deficiency.

Aye, otherwise he might just have been the Argentinian Pat Nevin

so he's a drug cheat

nakhchivan w/ some unexpected sectarian football moralising here.

i may have been attempting to argue against him (and largely losing) but nakhchivan is on some serious awesome-fucking-football-analysis tip - his posting is A+ and his use of modernist crit dialectic is to be encouraged

sectarian?

secretarial

try to avoid milibandian moralizing tbh but if that's what it takes to subdue lj's bullardian intifada, so be it

bullardian antipasta

You trying to make like nakh's special friend is starting to bug me more than all this Messi-worship tbh. I'm gonna find me a really shit lower-division poster and lionise him instead.

i love bullard as much as anyone, and i'm not wishing harm on him or anything, but most pics i see of the dude off pitch make it look like the guy has maybe 6 months left to live or something:

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00429/Jimmy_Bullard_682x4_429252a.jpg

the warmth of lj's maternal embrace is a beautiful way to welcome new football posters into the fold imo.

Awesome post darragh

I laughed

i'm ready for the bigtime

noticed&amused by casual choice of terms:
enjoying the increased thrills in lower-expectation lower-league football is catholic (thumbs down on you guys)
messi's lack of lols/generosity in exchange for focus and consistency is comparatively protestant (high five for him)

i think the 'catholic' was in reference to the poverty, substance abuse and wifebeating aspects iirc.

nobody will want to be my special friend when i praise the chutzpah of chillwave nomenclature as being almost as cool as the murder of abortion doctors

ah right, well i hate all xtians rly but being boring is worse than instituionalizing pederasty i suppose

that's the sort of perverted thinking you espouse when you hate on messi

messi >>>>>>> our maddie

candela in the windass

it always ends with slash

good wholesome muscly lower-league slash

I like LJ's large church w/ windass and messi sharing a hymn book

good wholesome muscly lower-league-humping-genius-into-submission ecclesiastical slash

we're getting dangerously close to catholic baiting again with the 'humping in church' thread

72 goals in 89 starts under guardiola

halfway to being barca's record goalscorer.

everyone stfu. leo 'KING' messi.

Okay. That middle stat is (if true) impressive for him, but really unimpressive for Barca - that makes the all-time record holder ever about the equivalent of Fowler at Liverpool, or a couple of years' Dixie Dean

well if my half hearing it while not concentrating on the telly from yerman from revista de la liga isn't good enough for you then i have no care to provide further proof.

Fowler = 183 in 369 appearances for Liverpool
Cesar Rodriguez = 235 in 351 for Barca

Messi is Barca's 10th top scorer with 114 in 199
Gerrard is Liverpool's with 129 in 517

Dunnon what that means other than Gerrard chips in a shitload considering how deep he plays. Messi not much better than Fowler's goals-per-game but he's 22 years old and getting better every year.

Dixie Dean = pre-war scoring for fun before Hitler spoiled it all.

Controversy on google answers:

1. Cesar Rodriguez 235
2. Ladislao Kubala 196
3. Samuel Eto'o 130
3. Rivaldo 130
5. Mariano Martin 124
6. Charles Rexach 122
6. Patrick Kluivert 122
8. Josep Escola 118
9. Hristo Stoitchkov 117
10. Estanislao Basora 112
Strawbail7

The highest was not Cesar Rodriguez. It was Paulino Alcántara with 357 goals in 357 appearances. He was of Filipino descent and still remains as the highest goal scorer in FC Barcelona History.
Guest

Missed out Ian Rush = 346 in 660

I imagine if Messi stays fit and stays with Barca for >600 games he'll surpass that.

It was Paulino Alcántara with 357 goals in 357 appearances.

215 goals in friendlies.

114/199 goal .57 goals per game.

129/517 .24 goals per game.

gerrard don't play that deep- a good lot of those goals have been while the team is set up around stevie me as second striker, in fact.

so Messi may well be third by end of the season aged 22 (fourth after Paulino Alcántara) - that is pretty bloody impressive

you'd certainly fancy him to be in 5th anyway.

600 x .57 goals per game is 342 goals for barcelona.

No, because if you include Alcántara and therefore friendlies a few other guys move up the table.

xpost

i've scored hundreds of goals in friendlies ffs

ok you're on the list Darragh 'King' Mac

they were for barca 'b' tho :(

Messi not much better than Fowler's goals-per-game but he's 22 years old... and a winger.

How come this guy played so many friendlies anyway?

the war? at a guess.

1911-1927

most games played in the catalunya league- not officially recognised maybe?

lol english managers- read his wiki page.

Not sure Robbie Fowler ever took more than a couple of touches before scoring, either.

yeah but that was his MO- took goalie by surprise with early strike. fowler was superawesome from 94-97 iirc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/27/lionel-messi-argentina

diego 'wanker' maradona

Who do they think he is, Owen Hargreaves?

to be fair to the Argentinians i don't think i've seen Messi do anything for the national team.

yeah he never scores beautiful important goals for argentina oh wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IcOd8gdImg

obviously he still scores occasionally but i've seen him be totally anonymous a good few times.

Yeah kids do that, I think Maradona had one good game at the 1982 WC, aged 22. He wasn't anonymous though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vefHf4Z2lnY

showing the speed of thought to go Souness two seconds after a high-foot incident

to go Souness

brilliantly phrased

According to Brazil's physical preparation specialists, at the time of that great Dutch side, players were running 5,000 metres per game. By the mid 90s this had doubled, and now some players are covering 13,000.

For all the talk of whether Messi can be considered one of the true greats, why is there never talk of whether pre-Cryuff players can? It must have been piss easy for Pele to play against defenders who never did anything. I mean louisAlan Hanson can talk about how 'easy' it is to play defences but would the current shiiiiite Burnley side whip the Brazil of the sixties because of phyiscal training alone?

(I'm not saying they would, or that the 60s Brazil weren't talented... it is just such a distance jump that for a player like Messi or Zidane to have such physical and technical ability as well as stamina and increased tactical ability to work so well when being tracked harder that they are technically doing double the work every match to say Garrincha or Eusebio...)

If those talented players of yesteryear had today's diet and training regimes wouldn't they still stand out?

60s Brazil were the first to take a scientific approach to diet & training & all that, so they might've been able to compete, but I reckon they'd've been ripped apart on tactical sophistication. As would Burnley to be fair. The Ajax and Holland Cruyff sides were the first properly modern sides I think.

imo there's no merit at all in comparing different eras of the sport.

but cf peter schmeichel pissing off bobby charlton with a 'we'd beat them 10-0' comment in ?1997? for further analysis.

john giles, as always, has the final word on the matter:

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/bob.dunning/giles2.jpg

"You can only beat the team out in front of you, Bill"

imo there's no merit at all in qualitatively comparing different eras of the sport.

fixed for otm

well yeah fair enough.

seriously

maxwell slim hopes?

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0g1f89L2hf1bV/x610.jpg

Ossie Ardiles on BBC Radio 5 live: "For Lionel Messi, the World Cup coming up is so, so, so important. He says he would give up all his medals for a World Cup medal and this World Cup could be how he is remembered."

not the 14, 18 or 22 world cups ossie? why does e'erything have to be THING THAT HAPPENS RITE NOW? although i guess he may have lost his pace at 34 in the aussie heat.

itt leo king messi

but if bendtner could have put one or two away.....

arsenal were good out there tonight.

yeah we were alright but really whoever the opposition were didn't matter

yeah that's true

diaby though! he was pretty great. is he an attacking midfielder?

Leo "The Little Fella (© Andy Gray)" Messi

not reading thread but can we lock it please

also itt: karma

lol butthurt

From Pete, London, via text to 81111: "I seem to remember Steven Pienaar scoring a very similar goal to Messi's third also against Arsenal. Don't remember the hype."

dude in f365 mailbox reckons the ref was a major factor- i thought he was excellent tbh- arsenal's goal for a start, and although denilson's booking was a bad call i can't remember a better 90 mins form an official in a game this big.

well it was a bit lol europeans and their diving but yeah it was fine.

even usa ESPN is losing its shit over this 4 goal game from tonight/last night w/e

dude in f365 mailbox reckons the ref was a major factor- i thought he was excellent tbh- arsenal's goal for a start, and although denilson's booking was a bad call i can't remember a better 90 mins form an official in a game this big.

― Jesse James Woods (darraghmac), Tuesday, 6 April 2010 21:56 (Yesterday) Permalink

Yeah that's crazy talk, what decisions he did get wrong went against Arsenal iirc but they were miniscule. That said I don't think you have to be some sort of mecha-Hansen type figure to suggest that all of Barca's goals were preventable wrt positioning/not clearing the damn ball (maybe this has been said in reports, haven't read)

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/04Ir4FQ82q0t9/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/05JT80o3jvcSX/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09UedYRcfA9Lp/x610.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/02Cg32Ff3z6ew/610x.jpg

Favorite unintentionally homoerotic sports imagery

this guys house is gonna have to get an extension from all the match balls he taking home

or you know his 5 yr old wish of living in a ball pit gonna be fulfilled soon enough

just watched the highlights and WTF dude is like controlling the game with an xbox 360

where are highlights?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdO38N8XLI

pretty good quality

he's just so...offbeat that it puts opposing defenders out of their rhythm. kind of like boxing a southpaw. I dunno much about soccer but are left footed strikers common?

he can use both feet well iirc

also he gives hope to people like me cause I am also 5'7" and waiting for my chance to shine in a global futbol match

thanks dyao!

http://i35.tinypic.com/20ud6r7.jpg

they're not common but left footed forwards are somewhat more common than in the general population

sometimes it's an advantage but he has also been neutralized by right-footed defenders, who are often in a better position to take the ball from him when he comes from the right side of the field as he used to do 90% of the time

just watched the highlights and WTF dude is like controlling the game with an xbox 360

wenger says he's more like a playstation

your body is a playstation

his balance/use of his own body weight is amazing.

hope it is revealed that he does some sort of drunken boxing/carrying uneven weights type training in the offseason

there were a few years where i kinda lost interest in football but seeing him vs chelsea in (feb?) 2006 was probably the foremost factor in my renewed enthusiasm.....eto'o, deco and ronaldiho were fairly special too but this nervous looking kid with his hands in his sleeves runs at chelsea and o_0

the biophysical anomaly is a subject unto itself, since previous generation or so the elite players have largely conformed to a sort of ronaldo-henry type, 6'1/6'2, lithe but powerful and sprinter fast, which is unsurprising given they have to compete with increasingly athletic defenders etc

his fourth goal is siiiick

Maradonaesque I'd say - not that that's a great new insight or anything. I had never really seen it properly before last night, but there were a few occasions (inc the last goal I think) where a ruck of bodies came together around him and he emerged with the ball still stuck to his feet. He reminds me partly of Diego, but more so of Tom or Jerry when they go sleepwalking and manage to cross highways or construction sites with nary a scratch.

Except they do it really slowly, and Messi is fast.

he's like a glorified ritchie humphreys

ronaldinho 04/05 vs messi 09/10 tho.

nah fuck it i'm a major ronaldinho stan and everything but it's messi

wow, arsenal defending there is pretty lol.

guy on the bbc sport text commentary yesterday statically proved that mike newell was better than messi.

fourth hat trick of the new year

there are some aspects where even now ronaldinho is superior - his vision from deeper positions and manipulation of the ball at close quarters (not when running).

since messi began playing predominantly in this sort of false-10 position he is showing his understanding of the game is or at least has become superb, it's tempting to privilege ronaldinho's capacity for wtf moments like the toepunt vs chelsea or the chip to giuly vs milan but those are only a small part of a playmaker's job.

a lot of the time it's to elect instantly from several fairly obvious options, none of them especially esoteric and messi's instinct here is uncannily good.

similarly his sangfroid in 1v1's is exceptional, better even than the best 'pure' finishers i can think of and unlike his mesmeric dribbling that is a facet of his game that others could at least hope to emulate but they simply don't.

so when lj was saying messi does 80% of the time what craig fagan does 2% of the time or whatever that is kinda true but i don't think it diminishes his greatness at all, in some respects it even enhances my respect for him because it shows the quality of his thought and aptitude for learning rather than simply getting by on whatever freakish neuroanatomical gifts he was born with.

when lj was saying messi does 80% of the time what craig fagan does 2% of the time or whatever

yeah tbh in what way is this not a magnificent compliment? consistency of brilliance is an outstandingly rare trait in any field.

never got the ronaldinho hype. he does tricks, I guess. messi is the real deal.

is there an 04/05 ronaldinho highlight reel?