in 2010, Wesley Sneijder was robbed; thats why Messi got the award.
too much politics... yawn ooooooo

Ucheosefoh: pls dnt argue with sentiment show ur facts

The best thing about Muller is
that he has given strikers of four
different generations records to beat. In 1972, Muller only needed 60 games to score 85 goals.
Messi, on the other hand, needed 67 games. This is a number that Messi will definitely aim
to beat in 2013. Muller has also
scored two hat- tricks in two
consecutive games in 1970′s
world cup. This is something that
Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Van
Persie and Neymar might want to try doing in the next
world cup in Brazil. Muller has set the bar so high that he continues
to make headlines today. Perhaps, Muller summed up his career very well when he said: “When I got the ball, I smashed it in”

Sagamite:
I think the 2 greatest prior to him were Pele and Maradona.
It is hard to make comparisons because:

comparisons can be made - national team is a very good way to start!

- Maradona played in a not so strong club football team while Messi plays in the best football team I have ever seen.

the more reason maradona is better - he went to napoli - the equivalent would be real zaragoza in this day and age and maradona won them serie a and uefa cup. we often hear the phrase "one player does not make a team" but maradona proved that theory wrong!

- Pele played in an era when it was part-time fishermen that were footballers and never played abroad in his prime while Messi plays with some of the greatest athletes ever seen and plays in one of the best leagues in the world and frequently against the best in the world.

pele won a world cup @ 17. not as a passenger but as the real pilot of the brazil squad. his goals in the semis and the final of 1958 were some of the best goals scored in a world cup in the black/white television era.

But against both he has won more individual awards and is doing the impossible while playing with the best.

this is because the way we watch football has changed. now, it's all about goals and statistics. xavi is a greater player than zidane or nedved or even platini but he would never ever get the accolades they got because he does not score 1347 goals in 78 games.

Maradona is more inspirational but Messi has replicated everything he did individually on the pitch including his best goal.

messi hasn't replicated maradona - not for argentina at least!
even the all south american affair - copa america is beyond messi.

Pele only played in an era where most of the players probably had my fitness, even the international players. Okay, I lied about my fitness but you get the point.

but some of the tackles defenders made in that era would attract INTERPOL or the human rights activists to make an arrest on the pitch. defenders were practically breaking bones then - why do you think tackles from behind was outlawed? pele/maradona were men not the sissies we have today.

That argument is not even specious at all.
- They were not even in the 10 for both FIFA and EU awards.
- If it was political, a foreigner would not win an EU one.

that's exactly what i am saying - i don't need an award to tell me who was the best player in 2010. sneihder's goals eliminated barcelona in the champions league. sneijder then went on to take holland to their first world cup final and yet he was left out in the award while messi who got battered by ozil and muller went on to win the ballon d'or? messi draws the romantics - he is the modern cinderella story....a boy that could not play because of his bone problem as a child and later became great - he uses that history of
his to garner empathy. messi is humble, ronaldo is proud - that's the mentality!

Nah! They play different roles but they surely do not have more dribbling skills, pace or dead ball skills than Messi.
Iniesta comes close in dribbling but is still behind.
Xavi comes close in dead balls but is still behind.
Vision-wise, they are both better but that is their job as midfielders.

they are both better than messi as an all round footballer. when it comes to awareness of time and space - you won't find better players than xavi/iniesta. iniesta dribble better than messi with more close control. xavi's vision is unparalleled and they have higher pass completion stats than messi!

As I said above, the two have the privilege of playing with many Barca/La Masia team-mates in national team. Messi does not. Unlike them, he has to play with team-mates that don't know the passing game he played last weekend and for 9 months in a year.

who are the other la masia team mates? busquets? pique? puyol? valdez? all these players are defenders. xavi and iniesta are what make barcelona and spain tick. forget the other la masia players. the engine room is xaviesta! those 2 midgets can win a football match on their own against 11 players.

Put Iniesta in Argentine team and they would still win nada.
Put Xavi in Argentine team and they would still win nada.
It is the team style of play that makes Spain win. Xavi and Iniesta are key components, not the sole components.

they are the sole components......del bosque had to adopt the barcelona way of playing to win the last world cup and the last euros. the creative force in that midfield = xaviesta. build a team around those 2 lads and you would win championships! the blueprint to the success of any football team = xavi + iniesta!

messi in argentina is ordinary - funny how you say he has crap team mates. messi has tevez, aguero, milito, higuain, cambiasso, zanetti, veron, etc and yet they got outplayed by forlan's uruguay in the last copa. maradona played with this crap quality and dragged argentina to a world cup victory.....

He mostly plays like a support striker, not an out-and-out striker.
Barca plays with 3 support strikers.

see excuses!
messi plays as a support striker? who is he supporting?
messi is a striker for barcelona......a support striker for argentina(just like maradona or riquelme) but guess what? these other players scored tournament goals more than messi!

=
Even if THEY work harder than him, they are not even in his league to mention them in the same breath. I said he works harder than the likes of Pele.

i disagree.
modern football protects strikers these days with "no tackle from behind" "preventing a goal scoring opportunity" and blah blah blah after many quality players were forced to retire because of injuries. messi couldn't have survived the football played in pele's days where a league season has about 80 games.

And so?
He out-scored them when he left the midfield.

strikers are meant to score goals more than the midfield

And so?
Messi has a better scoring record overall.

it only proves its easier to score in spain than england!
english league rejects like forlan, kanoute, rossi, etc are a living witness to that theory.
let's compare the goals ronaldo has scored in real madrid to messi's goals in barcelona.

27? That is 5 years still left in him.
Maradona won the WC at 26 and was still king at 30.
Pele won the WC at 30.
27? So?

messi has 2 world cups left for him before his career winds down
there's no sign he would win any before he retires - unless the spanish national team die in a bomb attack. even then, his chances are slim!

Messi does have an advantage but CR is not even in his league.

how would you know this? you cannot tell me messi has an advantage and yet ronaldo is not close to him. look at ronaldo's goal scoring record since he moved to spain. if ronaldo was still in england - we would all think messi is a demi-god! messi has a huge advantage and that advantage is the reason many think he's better than cristiano. this is the question you should ask yourself - if messi and yakubu swap teams, whose team would win a football game of 90 mins?

Compare CR to the likes of Henry, Gullit, Muller, Di Stephano, Eusebio etc.

ronaldo is miles ahead of the players above - not even close!

Messi plays in a great team, even in that team he is the best.

except that his greatness has not helped his country to win a pin......how great is messi when suarez, robinho, forlan, etc have all outperformed him in his continent? and we have not even mentioned his steroid overdose of his gh-therapy that has made it so difficult to knock him off the ball.

Fairgodwin: you even forgot there was no 'offside' when he, Muller, started playing

When was ur first world that u ever watch and i wil tell that What is interesting is that every time
one of Muller’s records is broken,
all the praise and adulation go to whoever breaks the record. Almost no one seems to pay attention to the fact that there
must be something special about the mysterious German striker
who looks like he holds all of the game’s goal-scoring records.
There is no doubt that Gerd Muller is one of the most underrated players in the history of football. When we remember the 1970′s, we recall Brazil’s memorable world cup campaign in Mexico70,
Holland’s total football or Panenka’s tournament winning penalty kick in Euro76. When we think of German football,
we pay tribute to the likes of Franz
Beckenbauer, Paul Breitner or Uli
Hoenes. However, we almost never think of the man who,almost single-handedly, placed Bayern Munich and West
Germany at the top of European
football for an entire decade. If goals were football’s only currency, Muller would be the
game’s rightful God. As Messi’s 86th goal brings Muller’s name
back to theheadlines, it is
important to pay tribute to the German striker for what he truly was: an unstoppable goal-scoring machine... Lets judge with dat!

coogar:

comparisons can be made - national team is a very good way to start!



the more reason maradona is better - he went to napoli - the equivalent would be real zaragoza in this day and age and maradona won them serie a and uefa cup. we often hear the phrase "one player does not make a team" but maradona proved that theory wrong!



pele won a world cup @ 17. not as a passenger but as the real pilot of the brazil squad. his goals in the semis and the final of 1958 were some of the best goals scored in a world cup in the black/white television era.



this is because the way we watch football has changed. now, it's all about goals and statistics. xavi is a greater player than zidane or nedved or even platini but he would never ever get the accolades they got because he does not score 1347 goals in 78 games.



messi hasn't replicated maradona - not for argentina at least!
even the all south american affair - copa america is beyond messi.



but some of the tackles defenders made in that era would attract INTERPOL or the human rights activists to make an arrest on the pitch. defenders were practically breaking bones then - why do you think tackles from behind was outlawed? pele/maradona were men not the sissies we have today.




that's exactly what i am saying - i don't need an award to tell me who was the best player in 2010. sneihder's goals eliminated barcelona in the champions league. sneijder then went on to take holland to their first world cup final and yet he was left out in the award while messi who got battered by ozil and muller went on to win the ballon d'or? messi draws the romantics - he is the modern cinderella story....a boy that could not play because of his bone problem as a child and later became great - he uses that history of
his to garner empathy. messi is humble, ronaldo is proud - that's the mentality!



they are both better than messi as an all round footballer. when it comes to awareness of time and space - you won't find better players than xavi/iniesta. iniesta dribble better than messi with more close control. xavi's vision is unparalleled and they have higher pass completion stats than messi!



who are the other la masia team mates? busquets? pique? puyol? valdez? all these players are defenders. xavi and iniesta are what make barcelona and spain tick. forget the other la masia players. the engine room is xaviesta! those 2 midgets can win a football match on their own against 11 players.



they are the sole components......del bosque had to adopt the barcelona way of playing to win the last world cup and the last euros. the creative force in that midfield = xaviesta. build a team around those 2 lads and you would win championships! the blueprint to the success of any football team = xavi + iniesta!

messi in argentina is ordinary - funny how you say he has crap team mates. messi has tevez, aguero, milito, higuain, cambiasso, zanetti, veron, etc and yet they got outplayed by forlan's uruguay in the last copa. maradona played with this crap quality and dragged argentina to a world cup victory.....




see excuses!
messi plays as a support striker? who is he supporting?
messi is a striker for barcelona......a support striker for argentina(just like maradona or riquelme) but guess what? these other players scored tournament goals more than messi!



i disagree.
modern football protects strikers these days with "no tackle from behind" "preventing a goal scoring opportunity" and blah blah blah after many quality players were forced to retire because of injuries. messi couldn't have survived the football played in pele's days where a league season has about 80 games.



strikers are meant to score goals more than the midfield




it only proves its easier to score in spain than england!
english league rejects like forlan, kanoute, rossi, etc are a living witness to that theory.
let's compare the goals ronaldo has scored in real madrid to messi's goals in barcelona.



messi has 2 world cups left for him before his career winds down
there's no sign he would win any before he retires - unless the spanish national team die in a bomb attack. even then, his chances are slim!



how would you know this? you cannot tell me messi has an advantage and yet ronaldo is not close to him. look at ronaldo's goal scoring record since he moved to spain. if ronaldo was still in england - we would all think messi is a demi-god! messi has a huge advantage and that advantage is the reason many think he's better than cristiano. this is the question you should ask yourself - if messi and yakubu swap teams, whose team would win a football game of 90 mins?



ronaldo is miles ahead of the players above - not even close!



except that his greatness has not helped his country to win a pin......how great is messi when suarez, robinho, forlan, etc have all outperformed him in his continent? and we have not even mentioned his steroid overdose of his gh-therapy that has made it so difficult to knock him off the ball.

Tel em!

LOL. So Napoli was like Real Zaragoza? The same Napoli squad that included the deadly Careca? Oh, so why didn't Maradona "lead" them to win the Scudetto which Inter Milan of course won?

logica: LOL. So Napoli was like Real Zaragoza? The same Napoli squad that included the deadly Careca?

maradona had already won serie a for napoli before careca joined him down. check the history and try again.

coogar:

comparisons can be made - national team is a very good way to start!

the more reason maradona is better - he went to napoli - the equivalent would be real zaragoza in this day and age and maradona won them serie a and uefa cup. we often hear the phrase "one player does not make a team" but maradona proved that theory wrong!

Unfortunately, Messi has not and will never play for a small team as the big clubs know his value. That does not mean he can't.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Lets even remove 1/3 of Messi's goals at Barcelona because we attribute it to the Barcelona/Iniesta/Xavi effect. If Messi was scoring at 2/3 the rate he is at Barcelona while playing for Real Zaragoza/Napoli, he would still have a better scoring rate than Maradona.

At the national team level, he has a better scoring rate than Maradona.

coogar:
pele won a world cup @ 17. not as a passenger but as the real pilot of the brazil squad. his goals in the semis and the final of 1958 were some of the best goals scored in a world cup in the black/white television era.

Unfortunately, Messi played in an era when football is big and many quality players. So it is not as easy to get into one of the biggest teams and get a starting place.

1958 is a different era with many players at the level of Cyprus!

coogar: this is because the way we watch football has changed. now, it's all about goals and statistics. xavi is a greater player than zidane or nedved or even platini but he would never ever get the accolades they got because he does not score 1347 goals in 78 games.

I partially agree but I think it has always been like that: focus on goals.

Even maybe more so in the past when we they did not have analyst telling people what players not scoring were doing that was spectacular on the pitch and where the only news report that circulated was the scores and who scored.

Many know Pele's name, but I doubt many non-Brazilians know the name any of his team-mates.

coogar:
messi hasn't replicated maradona - not for argentina at least!
even the all south american affair - copa america is beyond messi.

When I say replicate. I meant the goals.

Definitely not the influence. He just does not have that inspirational character. He has the ability and skills.

coogar:
but some of the tackles defenders made in that era would attract INTERPOL or the human rights activists to make an arrest on the pitch. defenders were practically breaking bones then - why do you think tackles from behind was outlawed? pele/maradona were men not the sissies we have today.

Good point but they also had no offside.

They surely were men but I don't think that made them better with the football brain.

Pele for example does not need to work as hard with defenders since he could not be offside. He just needs to sit upfront with the keeper.

coogar:
that's exactly what i am saying - i don't need an award to tell me who was the best player in 2010. sneihder's goals eliminated barcelona in the champions league. sneijder then went on to take holland to their first world cup final and yet he was left out in the award while messi who got battered by ozil and muller went on to win the ballon d'or? messi draws the romantics - he is the modern cinderella story....a boy that could not play because of his bone problem as a child and later became great - he uses that history of
his to garner empathy. messi is humble, ronaldo is proud - that's the mentality!

I agree with you that awards don't necessarily describe which player is better even though it helps.

But I disagree that Sneijder eliminated Barcelona or took Holland to the WC final. He was just a vital player in the team that did, not the soul. I can't even remember him like we remember Pirlo for Italy in the last Euros.

If he was that good and critical, he would at least be in the top 10 for FIFA and EU awards.

coogar:
they are both better than messi as an all round footballer. when it comes to awareness of time and space - you won't find better players than xavi/iniesta. iniesta dribble better than messi with more close control. xavi's vision is unparalleled and they have higher pass completion stats than messi!

Debatable on the time and space. I think Messi is on par with that, at best Iniesta might edge just slightly.

Iniesta wins in mobility and close circulation.

Xavi wins in game control and vision.

Messi wins in scoring, pace and dribbling but also scores highly in mobility.

coogar:
who are the other la masia team mates? busquets? pique? puyol? valdez? all these players are defenders. xavi and iniesta are what make barcelona and spain tick. forget the other la masia players. the engine room is xaviesta! those 2 midgets can win a football match on their own against 11 players.

Also Fabregas, Pedro, Alba. And David Villa has played with this guys long enough to understand them.

Xaviesta are surely the best but like Messi I doubt they can do it on their own without a La Masia mentality team with them.

As I said put one of Xaviesta in Argentina and I don't think it will come to anything.

coogar:
they are the sole components......del bosque had to adopt the barcelona way of playing to win the last world cup and the last euros. the creative force in that midfield = xaviesta. build a team around those 2 lads and you would win championships! the blueprint to the success of any football team = xavi + iniesta!

They were the creative force but it was the style and the understanding of the style by most Spanish players that won something for them.

coogar:
messi in argentina is ordinary - funny how you say he has crap team mates. messi has tevez, aguero, milito, higuain, cambiasso, zanetti, veron, etc and yet they got outplayed by forlan's uruguay in the last copa. maradona played with this crap quality and dragged argentina to a world cup victory.....

I never said he had crap teammates.

I said he has teammates that don't play yo his style as Xaviesta have with Spain.

coogar:
see excuses!
messi plays as a support striker? who is he supporting?
messi is a striker for barcelona......a support striker for argentina(just like maradona or riquelme) but guess what? these other players scored tournament goals more than messi!

You can never describe Messi as an out-and-out striker. He is like Baggio.

Even look at the computer games. The default setting for the 3 Barca front are SS.

I don't care if anyone scores more "tournament" goals, I care about over-all.

coogar:
i disagree.
modern football protects strikers these days with "no tackle from behind" "preventing a goal scoring opportunity" and blah blah blah after many quality players were forced to retire because of injuries. messi couldn't have survived the football played in pele's days where a league season has about 80 games.

You may have a point there but before they retired their style never included working as hard as Messi on the pitch.

Many guys did the dribbling in the midfield and passed to Pele to finish. Messi is like Iniesta's finest girlfriend.

coogar:
strikers are meant to score goals more than the midfield

True point!

But the players you named (Ronaldo, Forlan, Villa) are strikers, and he outscored them when he became a support striker.

coogar:
it only proves its easier to score in spain than england!
english league rejects like forlan, kanoute, rossi, etc are a living witness to that theory.
let's compare the goals ronaldo has scored in real madrid to messi's goals in barcelona.

Even if we agreed it is easier to score in Spain, Messi still has a better score rate at national level and the virtually same at club level (1 every .94 games) during the period of CR (1 every .92 games). That is basically the same.

coogar:
messi has 2 world cups left for him before his career winds down
there's no sign he would win any before he retires - unless the spanish national team die in a bomb attack. even then, his chances are slim!

So you spot it is because he does not have the team mates to do it then?

coogar:
how would you know this? you cannot tell me messi has an advantage and yet ronaldo is not close to him. look at ronaldo's goal scoring record since he moved to spain. if ronaldo was still in england - we would all think messi is a demi-god! messi has a huge advantage and that advantage is the reason many think he's better than cristiano. this is the question you should ask yourself - if messi and yakubu swap teams, whose team would win a football game of 90 mins?

The advantage he has is not like some moons ahead. It is not like comparing Barcelona to Napoli. CR has some great players too even though they are not Xaviesta. Ozil, Kaka, Alonso and Khedira are not average players. Even 2 of them make the German team extremely dangerous to play.

coogar:
ronaldo is miles ahead of the players above - not even close!

Nah! Those are the next layer of greats after the top 3 and that is where CR sits.

coogar:
except that his greatness has not helped his country to win a pin......how great is messi when suarez, robinho, forlan, etc have all outperformed him in his continent? and we have not even mentioned his steroid overdose of his gh-therapy that has made it so difficult to knock him off the ball.

suarez, robinho, forlan have not outperformed Messi, they are not even close.

Uruguay and Brazil may have outperformed Argentina.

Good for him, but how does that affect Corruption in Nigeria. Very soon one of our jet pastors will buy a Rocket (with tithe dollars) for Moon Evangelism.
Check out: meeteworld.com

coogar:

maradona had already won serie a for napoli before careca joined him down. check the history and try again.

Ever heard of Fernando Napoli? Or Ciro Ferrara? Or Andrea Carnevale? These were all guys that were capped by the Italian National Team. And you compare Napoli to Real Zaragoza? Name 3 Zaragoza players that were capped by Spain...

Oh, did I forget to mention Salvatore Bagni? A team that had at least 4 members of the Italian National team was like Real Zaragoza? Try again.

pendusky:
The best thing about Muller is
that he has given strikers of four
different generations records to beat. In 1972, Muller only needed 60 games to score 85 goals.
Messi, on the other hand, needed 67 games. This is a number that Messi will definitely aim
to beat in 2013. Muller has also
scored two hat- tricks in two
consecutive games in 1970′s
world cup. This is something that
Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Van
Persie and Neymar might want to try doing in the next
world cup in Brazil. Muller has set the bar so high that he continues
to make headlines today. Perhaps, Muller summed up his career very well when he said: “When I got the ball, I smashed it in”

Gerd muller is stil the best messi cant even survive the tackles of EPL not to talk of the tackles of the 70s. Imagine media saying Messi is beta than Maradona. MESSI CANT EVEN WIN THE WORLD THE WORLD CUP FOR ARGENTINA WIT EVEN THEIR SUPER team. PLZ MESSI COME TO EPL WHEN YOU PLAY READING N STOke city with Qpr u wil b beta than Maradona wit 6 months injury.

Sagamite:
Unfortunately, Messi has not and will never play for a small team as the big clubs know his value. That does not mean he can't.
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

let's leave club affiliations out of it and concentrate on the national team. we would never know the difference in quality between barcelona and napoli - we can only speculate.

Lets even remove 1/3 of Messi's goals at Barcelona because we attribute it to the Barcelona/Iniesta/Xavi effect. If Messi was scoring at 2/3 the rate he is at Barcelona while playing for Real Zaragoza/Napoli, he would still have a better scoring rate than Maradona.
At the national team level, he has a better scoring rate than Maradona.

yet again, you focus on goals instead of the influence they both bring to the team. maradona did not become great because he could score 1000 goals in 20 games - this is why i said we are stat machines in the modern era. if we applied this same yardstick back in the days then platini, maradona, nedved, zidane, kaka, ronaldinho would never smell any award. in those days, influence to the team was more regarded than the sheer number of goals!

Unfortunately, Messi played in an era when football is big and many quality players. So it is not as easy to get into one of the biggest teams and get a starting place.
1958 is a different era with many players at the level of Cyprus!

how many participating countries in 58 had a 17 yr old striker leading them out? lets be honest, pele's achievements in 58 was peerless although he had a super creative force behind him to score those goals!

I partially agree but I think it has always been like that: focus on goals.

kaka, nedved, zidane, platini, rivaldo, shevchenko - none of these players is a goal machine!

Even maybe more so in the past when we they did not have analyst telling people what players not scoring were doing that was spectacular on the pitch and where the only news report that circulated was the scores and who scored.

they told us about the moments of brilliance.
it was about the moments the goals were scored - a player could score 20 goals against zaragoza and it won't mean shyte but another striker chooses his moments. a match destined for draw and then in the 90th minute, cometh the hour - cometh the man! that was what made kanu an african legend in 96.

Many know Pele's name, but I doubt many non-Brazilians know the name any of his team-mates.

they were a quartet then according to radio commentary...
whenever you hear didi-vava-garrincha-pele, the next word is goalllllllllll!

Definitely not the influence. He just does not have that inspirational character. He has the ability and skills.

exactly - but argentines would sacrifice all the goals messi has scored for barca to win a world cup!

Good point but they also had no offside.
They surely were men but I don't think that made them better with the football brain.
Pele for example does not need to work as hard with defenders since he could not be offside. He just needs to sit upfront with the keeper.

but that was the era of 5 defenders - they had what they called "the last man" then or a number 5 whose mission is to break as many legs as possible. i actually think there were many quality players back then. you need to watch the 1970 world cup clips and see the quality of the goals scored - they are far better than the goal mouth scramble these days.

I agree with you that awards don't necessarily describe which player is better even though it helps. But I disagree that Sneijder eliminated Barcelona or took Holland to the WC final. He was just a vital player in the team that did, not the soul. I can't even remember him like we remember Pirlo for Italy in the last Euros.

how many goals did sneijder score against barcelona in the semis? how many did messi score? how many goals did sneijder score @ the world cup as a support striker, how many did messi? sneijder was the heart and soul of the 2 teams he played for that year. he won the treble for inter milan and had robben not brainfarted - holland would have won the world cup!

If he was that good and critical, he would at least be in the top 10 for FIFA and EU awards.

politics!

Debatable on the time and space. I think Messi is on par with that, at best Iniesta might edge just slightly. Iniesta wins in mobility and close circulation. Xavi wins in game control and vision. Messi wins in scoring, pace and dribbling but also scores highly in mobility.

we would have to agree to disagree on this one......

Also Fabregas, Pedro, Alba. And David Villa has played with this guys long enough to understand them Xaviesta are surely the best but like Messi I doubt they can do it on their own without a La Masia mentality team with them.

xaviesta had won the champions league in 06 and 09 before these names joined barcelona.

As I said put one of Xaviesta in Argentina and I don't think it will come to anything.
They were the creative force but it was the style and the understanding of the style by most Spanish players that won something for them.

maybe maybe not - we would never know....
the only thing we know is maradona's team mates in 86 are not as good as what messi has had at his disposal. if maradona could drag argentina to 2 world cup finals back to back, why can't messi?

I never said he had crap teammates.
I said he has teammates that don't play yo his style as Xaviesta have with Spain.

but maradona never used this excuse - Italian style at napoli was different to the style argentina played between 1985 and 1990.

You can never describe Messi as an out-and-out striker. He is like Baggio.

he is a false 9 or 9 and a half. baggio is a 10!
messi played closer to the opponents goal than baggio. baggio had schillaci ahead of him to do the scoring. messi has no one @ barcelona ahead of him!

Even look at the computer games. The default setting for the 3 Barca front are SS.
I don't care if anyone scores more "tournament" goals, I care about over-all.

goals win matches - if messi was scoring at the vital moments, argentina would have won more. it's increasingly becoming evident that messi is crap for his country. look at fat ronaldo - he bossed everywhere he played(brazil, inter, madrid, psv). zidane, ronaldinho, xavi and iniesta too. why can't messi?

in the last copa in his home soil, argentina played against a 10-man uruguayan team for almost 80 mins(including extra time) and yet messi's team lost on their home soil!

You may have a point there but before they retired their style never included working as hard as Messi on the pitch.
Many guys did the dribbling in the midfield and passed to Pele to finish. Messi is like Iniesta's finest girlfriend.

messi has aguero and tevez to pass to him too - what has he done with the passes?

But the players you named (Ronaldo, Forlan, Villa) are strikers, and he outscored them when he became a support striker.

messi has not outscored ronaldo if you take the goals in spain into consideration.

Even if we agreed it is easier to score in Spain, Messi still has a better score rate at national level and the virtually same at club level (1 every .94 games) during the period of CR (1 every .92 games). That is basically the same.

we are splitting hair here - that's not the same thing!

So you spot it is because he does not have the team mates to do it then?

he has - at least in south american competitions if winning the world cup is a huge task

The advantage he has is not like some moons ahead. It is not like comparing Barcelona to Napoli. CR has some great players too even though they are not Xaviesta. Ozil, Kaka, Alonso and Khedira are not average players. Even 2 of them make the German team extremely dangerous to play.

the advantage he has is huge.
cristiano is the only non-barcelona player that is in the top 5 players in the world today. others would be messi, xavi, iniesta and villa!

Nah! Those are the next layer of greats after the top 3 and that is where CR sits.

messi is not better than ronaldo - the 2 of them have equal greatness overall! if you see any slight difference it's because of the difference in quality in the teams they play for. i asked a question you smartly dodged. if messi and yakubu swap teams, whose team would win?

suarez, robinho, forlan have not outperformed Messi, they are not even close.
Uruguay and Brazil may have outperformed Argentina.

but these players are the reason their respective countries outperformed messi's argentina!

[right][/right]

i congratulate messi for another world best of the year award for all of apairance in barca,No club like barca No players like messi now

50% of Messi's goals came through a very weak opposition, Remember, he scored 5 goals against a weak team in Champions league.

Ucheosefoh: Messi is the best at what he does, Ronaldo cant play Messi's position if he can Mou could have been using him in that position cus Madrid have problem with their strikers form, only Messi can play false nine effectively in the whole world

Why would CR7 play as a false 9 when there are current two strikers at R. Madrid?

Enoyoh:

Messi has played 86 matches check it.

In 2012? Is it football u are watching or Rugby? Y do u want to start an ignorant argument?

Sagamite:

I thought your were right or at least specious until the last paragraph.

I think Messi is already the greatest.

- He has been the worst best more than anyone.

- Despite Xavi/Iniesta being as good as they are, Messi is still better and more skillful than them.

- Despite not being an out-and-out striker, he has scored more goals than virtual all in that list, even those that are out-and-out strikers.

- For the out-and-out strikers in your list, he works harder than them and is more creative.

- For the offensive midfielders out of that list, he has more goals than them.

- For all of them, he has broken all their scoring ratios (bar Pele) and their awards won.

- Worse still, he is still young and is only at the midpoint of his career.

If there are football fans that would think he is not great like the person above, they, need to stop watching football.

You are on point and I'm with u all the way.

toba: I can see that most people posting comments here have little knowledge about football. Pls how many matches did gerd Muller played for him to score 85 goals in a year and how many has Lionel Messi played to score 86 goals? Obviously, Messi has played more. Gerd Muller did his in fewer matches in a year.

Also tell Lionel messi to 'carry Argentina on his back' and win the WC. If not he's a local champion. Zidane 'carried france on his back' to win france 98, Euro 2000 and then won the champions league for Madrid in 2002. Who is messi?

Messi carries barca's attack on his back. He has more assists and goals than any of them.

Eifeh: Who can stop the world best?

Even haterz knows no one can stop him.. They will just die with their hatreds

tomakint:
abeg tell them oooo, because some analysis here about the greatness of Messi is not only laughable but very irritating and pointless especially form coogar and pazienta

Simply call them HATERZ. They are probably Penaldo, Crynaldo, Gaynaldo & Sadnaldo fanboiz...

pendusky:
When was ur first world that u ever watch and i wil tell that What is interesting is that every time
one of Muller’s records is broken,
all the praise and adulation go to whoever breaks the record. Almost no one seems to pay attention to the fact that there
must be something special about the mysterious German striker
who looks like he holds all of the game’s goal-scoring records.
There is no doubt that Gerd Muller is one of the most underrated players in the history of football. When we remember the 1970′s, we recall Brazil’s memorable world cup campaign in Mexico70,
Holland’s total football or Panenka’s tournament winning penalty kick in Euro76. When we think of German football,
we pay tribute to the likes of Franz
Beckenbauer, Paul Breitner or Uli
Hoenes. However, we almost never think of the man who,almost single-handedly, placed Bayern Munich and West
Germany at the top of European
football for an entire decade. If goals were football’s only currency, Muller would be the
game’s rightful God. As Messi’s 86th goal brings Muller’s name
back to theheadlines, it is
important to pay tribute to the German striker for what he truly was: an unstoppable goal-scoring machine... Lets judge with dat!

Der Bomber was a striker's striker! Ninja had more goals than appearances in almost every tournament he played.

Messi is already a great but to be the GOAT he has to lead Argentina to a World Cup that's just the fact

Sagamite:

You are a person!

You are still yet to tell me why you think Cristiano is great but Messi is not.

What has Cristiano done in the club and national teams that Messi has not done.

Ewu,cristiano has proven his worth at two teams playing at top level football,your midget has only proven his worth at one team. Cretin.

I feel so honored to be born in this generation.. 30years to come, I will tell my children about the greatest player of my generation, MESSI.. I never watched pele, maradona, muller, etc, so I can't say anything about then, but I watch Leo every week.. Seeing is believing.

toba: I can see that most people posting comments here have little knowledge about football. Pls how many matches did gerd Muller played for him to score 85 goals in a year and how many has Lionel Messi played to score 86 goals? Obviously, Messi has played more. Gerd Muller did his in fewer matches in a year.

Also tell Lionel messi to 'carry Argentina on his back' and win the WC. If not he's a local champion. Zidane 'carried france on his back' to win france 98, Euro 2000 and then won the champions league for Madrid in 2002. Who is messi?

When I find a loser I easily identify them. Of course u're 1. Be orientated that the whole team wins a tournament not just a player no matter how outstanding d player is..it's a joint achievement. Both France and Madrid were lucky to have ZiZu in those periods mentioned above but u still need to check the pple he played with...Carlos, Fernando Heiro, Raul, etc @Madrid...David Trezeguet (u rememba dat goal against Portugal in that Euro), Petit, Pires, Viera, Henry, Diesally, Lizarazu, Djoakerf, Bertez, etc these are lovely players at their peak. They all work together even though ZiZu seemed d biggest star, without their contribution not would happened. Brazil in 2002: it's not just Ronaldo- see ronaldinho, rivaldo, carlos, Cafu, etc A great player play with great personalities. Or u expect Messi to be doing Okocha...sorry, I mean u expect Messi to be doing local champion playing for a team like Bolton to show he's good? Nobdy remembers a player like dat. U need to play for the champions and in the midst of the champions to be relevant. Barcelonal defines football not madrid, chelsea, man city, etc so y should he leave his dream team? Arsenal play nice but Messi can't play with those puppies now...in fact, they're far from being a force. Outside money, y would any sane player leave Barca for any club? Or wat do u want to prove that u can't do in thesame league that has the likes of Fabregas, Iniesta, Casilas, Falcao, Ronaldo, Ozil, Benzeman, Xavi, etc. These are the main pple in football. EPL, except for RVP, Rooney...? Messi is another name for Soccer

ssainty: congrats messi,ur indeed a genius...
1st to commt

You wish.

pazienza: Ewu,cristiano has proven his worth at two teams playing at top level football,your midget has only proven his worth at one team. Cretin.

Sir Alex to me is d best manager of this era. He has managed only one club after he gained stardom- Man U! Y is the knight not moving around? That's the difference between som1 that has vision and a deluded person. Henry did almost everything with arsenal...same can be said of Giggs and Scholes. Henry startle is seated there at Emirate (pple putting there names on the sand of time ur Ronaldo is busy taken a tour). Messi has record that even Ronaldo's son will be looking up to break.

abysirius: When I find a loser I easily identify them. Of course u're 1. Be orientated that the whole team wins a tournament not just a player no matter how outstanding d player is..it's a joint achievement. Both France and Madrid were lucky to have ZiZu in those periods mentioned above but u still need to check the pple he played with...Carlos, Fernando Heiro, Raul, etc @Madrid...David Trezeguet (u rememba dat goal against Portugal in that Euro), Petit, Pires, Viera, Henry, Diesally, Lizarazu, Djoakerf, Bertez, etc these are lovely players at their peak. They all work together even though ZiZu seemed d biggest star, without their contribution not would happened. Brazil in 2002: it's not just Ronaldo- see ronaldinho, rivaldo, carlos, Cafu, etc A great player play with great personalities. Or u expect Messi to be doing Okocha...sorry, I mean u expect Messi to be doing local champion playing for a team like Bolton to show he's good? Nobdy remembers a player like dat. U need to play for the champions and in the midst of the champions to be relevant. Barcelonal defines football not madrid, chelsea, man city, etc so y should he leave his dream team? Arsenal play nice but Messi can't play with those puppies now...in fact, they're far from being a force. Outside money, y would any sane player leave Barca for any club? Or wat do u want to prove that u can't do in thesame league that has the likes of Fabregas, Iniesta, Casilas, Falcao, Ronaldo, Ozil, Benzeman, Xavi, etc. These are the main pple in football. EPL, except for RVP, Rooney...? Messi is another name for Soccer

QED... Educate them fellaz for me.

sokera:

He is a great player and a record maker but believe me der is no record unbreakable, one day I mean one day someone is also going to break Messi's records. I love this guy.

...maybe after another 40 long years.

naijanaweown :
this guy is untouchable ,messi d phenomenon. This guy has to be studied,there is something unique about messi.

Lecture holds tonight!

toba: I can see that most people posting comments here have little knowledge about football. Pls how many matches did gerd Muller played for him to score 85 goals in a year and how many has Lionel Messi played to score 86 goals? Obviously, Messi has played more. Gerd Muller did his in fewer matches in a year.

Also tell Lionel messi to 'carry Argentina on his back' and win the WC. If not he's a local champion. Zidane 'carried france on his back' to win france 98, Euro 2000 and then won the champions league for Madrid in 2002. Who is messi?

An argentine goal-machine!