ITT: LEO 'KING' MESSI

"Plays like he's got Woody Woodpecker down his shorts all the time, Lionel Messi."

big feature on messi in the new (american) sports illustrated -- haven't read it yet but it's one of their best writers

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1169995/index.htm

rip dude

http://www.sushigrass.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/sadtrombone.jpg

heaven needed another new maradona

*** sad vuvuzela sound ***

http://www.mocksession.com/30fps//HEINZECAMERA.gif

l-r: the world (heinze), leo messi (camera)

this doesn't enhance his reputation but it shouldn't diminish him either, despite what the hacks will say

he has been playing essentially as an attacking midfielder, and did so very well while argentina were playing well

today germany could play on the break for the entire game and there weren't enough passing options for messi

stop being otm and ruining the fun.

the hacks will say MARADONA WON IT ON HIS OWN or w/e but everyone knows messi's not as good as maradona (yet....)

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae232/daggerlee/image002.jpg

nice

that's a full grasp

six hat-tricks so far this year

<3 this photo. Look at VDS's face lolol

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

he looks so....small

he is

a puny 22 goals in 17 games is pretty shit for someone with six hat-tricks.

year != season

ah right. i don't care enough for my pointless contrarian cynicism to look up the appropriate stat, then. :'(

http://i.imgur.com/jZXJI.jpg

the rumours were that iniesta had this!

Lionel Messi tonight became the inaugural winner of the Fifa Ballon d'Or at an award ceremony in Zurich. The Argentinian forward was selected ahead of his Barcelona team-mates Xavi and Andrés Iniesta, who won the World Cup with Spain last summer.

Messi, 23, scored an astonishing 60 goals for club and country in 2010 and is regarded by many as the most gifted player of his generation.

The Fifa Ballon d'Or was created following the merging of France Football magazine's European Footballer of the Year prize with the FIFA World Player of the Year award. It is awarded based on votes cast by journalists from around the world and coaches and captains of national teams.

Messi was the holder of both titles and so joins the former Brazil strikers Ronaldo and Rivaldo and France legend Zinedine Zidane as a multiple winner of the latter accolade.

Alfredo Di Stefano, Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Kevin Keegan, Michel Platini, Marco van Basten, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Ronaldo are the only other men to win the Ballon d'Or more than once. Messi also became the first player to come first in a World Cup year without having won the tournament for the first time since 1994.

Lionel Messi tonight became the inaugural winner of the Fifa Ballon d'Or at an award ceremony in Zurich.

how can he be the inaugural winner if all those other dudes won it more than once?

the ballon d'or has been combined with the less prestigious fifa world player of the year to create this new award

oh

i'd imagine, then, that if it's a new award, ushering in a new era, that they'd want the first winner to be the player who regardless of how he matched up against iniesta or whoever will v likely be remembered as an icon of his generation

it's not the ballon d'iouf

it's voted on by players and journos afaik....don't think fifa have any say

messi is the correct choice, tho there was an arg for xavi also

full list of votes here: http://bit.ly/hMj0fV
von bommel's an idiot.

things notice on the first page: 1. o vermaelen. 2. lol 'captain of the national team'. quality nominative determinism. 3. 'invalid vote'? did prince glenson vote for another domenican?

He voted for van persie :)

Did the Irish FA refuse to co-operate?

c-ron not voting for messi

Messi also became the first player to come first in a World Cup year without having won the tournament for the first time since 1994.

Was this Baggio?

stoichkov

baggio won it 93

oh ok. <3 stoichkov.

I hope Van Bommel voted for 'Mark Van Bommel' in first and second place.

David Villa did pretty badly in this all things considered.

yeah but lol valencia

Apparently if only the journalists' votes are counted (like how it used to be) Sneijder wins?

Team of the year. No Englishmen, no English-based players. Don't they watch the best league in the world?

GK - Casillas
DEF - Maicon, Lucio, Pique, Puyol
MID - Sneijder, Xavi, Iniesta
ATK - Messi, Villa, Ronaldo

wouldn't fancy that on a wet tuesday night in stoke

puyol at left back would be their downfall

awesome video of messi not going down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sJhh-YcvbU

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9dkmyZMvQ1qzvxm5.gif

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9dkmyZMvQ1qzvxm5.gif

does messi generally eschew diving cuz i) he isn't a choad or ii) he's more dangerous with the ball than from free kicks

lil from column a, lil from column b i'd guess

iii) doesnt really need to. A tackle that knocks him enough off stride to bother is generally a clear foul

staying on your feet has him go past 1 player and thus he's more likely to have less in front of him, meaning more time to pass or shoot or carry on dribbling while the rest have to then change positions to cover the player who failed in taking him down, possibly leaving others free?

true for any player- though the rate of inconvenience in staying upright obv varies on a scale from messi to heskey