ITT: LEO 'KING' MESSI

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?