Is Messi Now Officially the Greatest Footballer in History?

Is Messi the greatest player in football history?

  • Yes

  • No

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Hoghead said:
I wonder what the atmosphere in the locker room at PSG will be like now.
Messi - winner
Mbappe - lost
Neymar - loser
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I think the other two will be even more in awe of him than they are already.
Still slightly wistful that he didn't come to the Etihad. Only slightly. It wasn't very realistic. But I'd just love to see him in that sky blue shirt.
 
Declaring Maradona as the Greatest is an insult to football! He may be to Argentinians and Napolians for various reasons, boy from the backstreet and all that but as a footballer he was a severely flawed character. Blatant Cheat, Drug Cheat, Trouble Causer and he was great for less than a decade.

Messi and his records speak for themselves and if aliens landed tomorrow and asked to watch one footballer from all time I’d say him. You’d see nearly two decades of absolute godly footballing talent.
 
Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
He did, and I don't want to put myself in the false position of decrying Maradona's ability. But in my scale of values, time lines count — a lot. Maradona's apogee is on a really short time line, by comparison. Messi won his first La Liga title in 2005. The following year he won his first CL title. Seventeen years later he's just won the World Cup. There's a good chance he'll be champion in his domestic league, yet again (although no-one would argue it's one of the stronger ones in Europe, granted) and, who knows, he may yet win another CL title.
Maradona won one title with Boca Juniors before departing. His tenure at Barcelona started well and ended two years later in something close to disgrace. The really astonishing time was at Napoli, where he effectively transformed a very obscure team into title winners. But his apogee scarcely lasted beyond ’89, at best. Again, he left in disgrace. We're really looking at six years of greatness, being generous. His case seems to me to be comparable to Best. Best was the most extraordinary player that I've seen live, but you're really looking at brilliance that could transform the outcome of matches from about ’65 to ’69. Beyond that, Best was in pretty sharp decline, although he remained able to do things that virtually no other footballer could, on very rare occasions.
Men evolve as athletes over years. What their body will allow them to do changes, becomes more constricted. Messi has delivered in Spain, more recently France, and Europe, over and over and over, year after year, for seventeen years. The only stage on which he's failed to deliver, till now, was that of a competition that takes place once every four years, and that I'm not inclined to attach undue importance to, despite the razzamataz around it. I greatly admire athletes who are in it for the long haul. It takes discipline as well as the talent — and that is one of the ingredients of greatness, too. Messi didn't need to drink himself under the table, nor take cocaine. He has realised that he has an extraordinary gift, and he has nurtured it. I take my hat off to him for that as much as anything.
For similar reasons, I put Pelé up there. He won his first World Cup in 1958. He won his third in 1970. That had never been done before and I am utterly confident that we will not see it again. It's like Laver doing the calendar grand slam twice, but with seven years between the two! It's more difficult to evaluate Pelé domestically, because basically he only played at a serious level in one country: Brazil. But the Brazilian league was not a Mickey Mouse league in those years, far from it. It produced many brilliant players. He scored some thousand goals, and sorry, I'm not going to quibble about whether they were in friendlies or not. A thousand goals is just ridiculous, in professional football.
More important, though, even than goals, or trophies: both players produced hundreds of brilliant performances.
It's horses for courses, though, and we'll agree to differ. If I love the sport of football so much, it's because I've seen Maradona, Messi, Pelé, Cruyff invent the game in front of my eyes.

Incidentally, the greatest athlete of them all is one most will never have heard of: Edwin Moses. I like to remind people about him. Ed Moses ran the 400 hurdles at the very highest level, at all the top athletics meets, and was unbeaten for fully ten years (122 races). That is just sick! Oh, you can throw in a couple of Olympic golds along the way, just for good measure…
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Nobody, and I mean nobody who is old enough to remember Ed Moses in his prime should ever be using the word “sick” unless they’ve got a slight temperature.
 
theres only one carlito said:
Declaring Maradona as the Greatest is an insult to football! He may be to Argentinians and Napolians for various reasons, boy from the backstreet and all that but as a footballer he was a severely flawed character. Blatant Cheat, Drug Cheat, Trouble Causer and he was great for less than a decade.
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The only insult to football is your comment.
He may not be the greatest but there is a lot of people out there that think he is and I guarantee they know more about football than you and I
 
Xhavenjoe said:
So you are right and the Argentinian and Napoli fans that you speak of are all wrong.
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There may be a bit of bias, from the the Napoli fans at least, in fairness.
I’m sure Barcelona fans would say different.
It’s not that important though, it’s all subjective and as long as we all agree the greasy haired prancing pony who’s just been fucked off isn’t in the discussion then all is good in the world.
 
Xhavenjoe said:
The only insult to football is your comment.
He may not be the greatest but there is a lot of people out there that think he is and I guarantee they know more about football than you and I
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100%.

He went to a bottom of the table team in the Seria A, which was the strongest League back then, and turned Napoli into the best team in the competition as well as in Europe.

No one has ever accomplished this before and no one will again. And keep in mind he did this with so much instability off the field, it's just remarkable.

To doubt that he is not one of the all time greats is laughable.
 
Xhavenjoe said:
I'm caught between Pele, Maradona and Messi.
All brilliant.
I was just replying to a poster that said Maradona was an insult to football.
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And you were right to mate, ability wise there’s fuck all between Messi and Maradona, me I ever so slightly edge to Diego, but I totally get and have no problem with those who edge towards Messi, but to dismiss either as nowhere near the other is actually quite pitiful and shows a real lack of football knowledge.
 
Xhavenjoe said:
I'm caught between Pele, Maradona and Messi.
All brilliant.
I was just replying to a poster that said Maradona was an insult to football.
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I never said any such thing,

I said declaring him the greatest is an insult.

The Facts are there for anyone to see. Pure footballing merit, skill, talent, longevity, impact, integrity and as a human. like it or not, Messi has it all.

Diego, for all his natural talent was a disgrace a lot of the time and was not around at the very top anywhere near as long as Messi. That’s just facts.

Let’s not forget that his self proclaimed ‘hand of god goal’ helped them to the 86 World Cup! He’s a cheat and a blatant one and in no way can he be compared to Messi. His lack of integrity throughout his career alone stops that.

And as for football knowledge?

Deary me.
 
Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
I think the other two will be even more in awe of him than they are already.
Still slightly wistful that he didn't come to the Etihad. Only slightly. It wasn't very realistic. But I'd just love to see him in that sky blue shirt.
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Mbappe is in no way in awe of Messi. By all accounts there have been times where he ignores him around the club and sometimes purposely doesn’t pass to him during games.
 
The behaviour of Messi and Ronaldo during this world cup has settled the debate for me.
Ronaldo's childlike selfishness was evident in spades. Walking out alone after his teamates had been on the pitch for a while, personal 'tape man' and minders and fucking straight off when beat instead of helping the younger teammates cope with defeat.
Is Messi the 'best of all time''? Well that's up for further debate but he's certainly won the Ronaldo/Messi contest.
 
JDV said:
He went to a bottom of the table team in the Seria A, which was the strongest League back then, and turned Napoli into the best team in the competition as well as in Europe.

No one has ever accomplished this before and no one will again. And keep in mind he did this with so much instability off the field, it's just remarkable.
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Lying about what happened at Napoli doesn't make your argument stronger. No one will every accomplish what you described again for the simple reason it never happened in the first place.

Napoli were in the UEFA cup in 1983 after finishing 4th in 1982 and 3rd in 1981. They weren't a bottom of the table team in Serie A.

He went to Napoli because they broke the world record to sign him, and then they spent the same amount again on players to go around him. In modern day spending it's the equivalent of dropping £350m in one window.

More like Chelsea 2004/5 than Leicester City.

Sure it was a great achievement, but it certainly wasn't the story of a global superstar deciding to go to the worst club in the league and single handedly carrying them to victory.

As for the greatest side in Europe, they lost in the first round of the European Cup the one year he played in it for them, but did have an impressive win in the old UEFA/Europa League.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
Mbappe is in no way in awe of Messi. By all accounts there have been times where he ignores him around the club and sometimes purposely doesn’t pass to him during games.
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Phil1 said:
He should be in awe the cheeky little shit.
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Actually if he does behave like that — and I admit it's the first I've heard of it — sometimes that kind of behaviour can be symptomatic of someone knowing they're inferior. And resenting it.
 
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