ITT: LEO 'KING' MESSI

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.

That's 18 goals in 25 El Classico matches, equalling Di Stefano's record. 8 goals and 7 assists in 12 matches at the Bernabeu.

argentina now has both pope & king

found in

Has now scored in 19 consecutive matches, against every side in La Liga.

I've never heard of anything like this. Inzaghi scored against every side in Serie A in one season for Atalanta, which I still think is incredible - but to do it in consecutive games is staggering.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2308603/Gary-Neville-Lionel-Messis-impact-spiritual.html

http://i.imgur.com/zNhZ0OG.jpg?1

Spanish media claim weight loss and no more pizza are ...
www.101greatgoals.com/.../spanish-media-claim-weight-loss-pizza-reaso...
20 Mar 2015 - The resurgence of the phenomenon is due to weight loss and the fact that he's ... Mundo Deportivo's front page states that Messi has lost 3.5 kilos, which equates to ... 68-Year-Old Grandma Outsmarts Botox Doctors, Looks 40

messi > seville goalie jean reno

barca v sevilla in tbilisi. Caucasian occasion.

wonder what kind of a year messi will have, hasn't had a full summer break in two years (losing the world cup and the copa america finals the past two summers).

trying not to be too overl-dramatic but it has dawned on me that he's currently at his peak, and that, depending on his fitness in the coming seasons, may not have that many great seasons left in him. which is sort of scary.

very different player, and very different history of injuries, but rvp was the best forward in the prem 3 years ago, now he's 32 and at fenerbahce.

4-4!

Pedro

had to be

shite game

Messi sentenced to 21 months for tax evasion!

I assume he's too rich to actually go to prison but that's a shock.

best convicted-criminal footballer since gary croft

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoILrO9WYAAETYi.jpg

King

"hi welcome to sehpora"

*sephora

Lionel Messi to Goal: "I wasn't happy and I wanted to leave. I have not been allowed this in any way and I will STAY at the club so as not to get into a legal dispute. The management of the club led by Bartomeu is a disaster". 🚨 #FCB #Messi #Barcelona

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) September 4, 2020

The 33-year-old revealed that he had informed Bartomeu of his intention to leave “all year” and his mind was already made up before their 8-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

send the fax sooner then ya wee fud