ITT: LEO 'KING' MESSI

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

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