***Official*** English Football Season 2018-19

[Uppercut]

It's a stupid debate.

Agree. Messi is obviously the best player ever. It's like debating who the best cricketer was.

 

[Cabinet96]

John Cross saying last night changed his opinion about Messi is hilarious.

 

[Spikey]

David de Gea has made so many saves like that. The technique is almost synonymous with him.

I see that people have swung their opinions around since the World Cup to debating that Messi is the best player ever. I hate that debate because it almost always involves people ignoring goalkeepers and defenders. The likes of Yashin, Beckenbauer and Baresi should be in the debate but rarely get mentioned. And then how do you quantify the influence of Cruyff into the debate? It gets so messy and yet people often give bold opinions with little nuance.

why wouldn't you ignore goalkeepers

 

[andmark]

why wouldn't you ignore goalkeepers

Because a great goalkeeper can (perhaps literally) save the game. It's tough to compare GKs to strikers though which makes the debate even messier.

 

[Cabinet96]

End of the day there's just not a goalkeeper or defender you'd want to have at your club/on your team more than Messi.

 

[andmark]

I'm not sure. Messi is involved in lots of goals, but that's useless if your team is conceding an equal amount of goals. In that sense you do need at least one top quality defensive player. For that argument, I'd go with Baresi over Messi given that not only was he an elite defender but a complete leader of men.

 

[Spark]

Fairly sure Messi scoring 50 goals a season is fairly useful tbh.

 

[EmJo]

End of the day there's just not a goalkeeper or defender you'd want to have at your club/on your team more than Messi.

Sorry I have to disagree, I would love to have a top keeper at our club, nothing against Lossl but I feel with a safer pair of hands we would have more confidence to attack.

 

[andmark]

Fairly sure Messi scoring 50 goals a season is fairly useful tbh.

Of course it is, but you need a solid defence to back it up. The Arrigo Sacchi AC Milan side for example were able to be so attacking partly because they had the best back four of all time. I'm as much a lover of attacking football as anyone else (the only football shirt I own is a Cruyff 1974 World Cup shirt), but it needs a solid defence to be effective. I'm not being contrarian by the way haha

 

[EmJo]

Fairly sure Messi scoring 50 goals a season is fairly useful tbh.

I would be happy if our whole team can score fifty goals a season.

 

[sledger]

End of the day there's just not a goalkeeper or defender you'd want to have at your club/on your team more than Messi.

Depends who you already have up front I guess.

 

[Spark]

Of course it is, but you need a solid defence to back it up. The Arrigo Sacchi AC Milan side for example were able to be so attacking partly because they had the best back four of all time. I'm as much a lover of attacking football as anyone else (the only football shirt I own is a Cruyff 1974 World Cup shirt), but it needs a solid defence to be effective.

So that makes defenders inherently more valuable than attackers? This is a strange line of argument.

The 2009 Barca team had Yaya Toure at CB in the CL final, did that make them ineffective?

 

[sledger]

I think he goes with his hand because he drops backwards, and by the time he reacts it's already past his feet. I've noticed that the very best keepers don't go with that spread-legs ass-fall technique anymore. DDG would do something like this:

which covers enough of the net to keep out Griezmann's shot.

Yeah I think you are right, but in order to set himself to go with his hands you can see he actually moves his foot away from the ball, whereas if he moved it more or less the same distance in the other direction he probably would have blocked it.

One of those situations where if it was a defender on the line rather than the keeper the shot would almost certainly have been blocked imo.

 

[andmark]

So that makes defenders inherently more valuable than attackers? This is a strange line of argument.

The 2009 Barca team had Yaya Toure at CB in the CL final, did that make them ineffective?

I'm not saying that defending is more important than attacking (although it has been the case at times- see Hellenio Herrera's Inter Milan) but you can't have good attacking without at least a solid defence. Last year, Liverpool were probably the best at attacking in the Premiership bar City, and only finished fourth almost certainly because of their ****show of a defence. It's a thing that defending is simply important and should be factored into "GOAT" debates.

 

[Spark]

I'm not saying that defending is more important than attacking (although it has been the case at times- see Hellenio Herrera's Inter Milan) but you can't have good attacking without at least a solid defence. Last year, Liverpool were probably the best at attacking in the Premiership bar City, and only finished fourth. It's a thing that defending is simply important and should be factored into "GOAT" debates.

TBH them finishing fourth probably has more to do with them prioritising the Champions League more than not being able to defend (which I think was mostly fixed once Van Dijk came in), they dropped points late in the season in a few games they really should have won but weren't really taking entirely seriously.

And in any case the point about Messi is surely not that he's the best attacker therefore wins by default, it's more than he (and Ronaldo) are so much better than everyone else. It is a lot like saying you can't call Bradman the best ever because then you're forgetting bowlers.

 

[andmark]

TBH them finishing fourth probably has more to do with them prioritising the Champions League more than not being able to defend (which I think was mostly fixed once Van Dijk came in), they dropped points late in the season in a few games they really should have won but weren't really taking entirely seriously.

And in any case the point about Messi is surely not that he's the best attacker therefore wins by default, it's more than he (and Ronaldo) are so much better than everyone else. It is a lot like saying you can't call Bradman the best ever because then you're forgetting bowlers.

Is Messi so much better than everyone else in the same way as you say? As you point out, Ronaldo can be compared to him, as can Pele, Maradona and Cruyff. It's not a Bradman situation.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Fairly sure Messi scoring 50 goals a season is fairly useful tbh.

Tbf, what makes Messi truly incredible is that you can make a reasonable argument that even if he scored 0 goals a season and retained all his other skills he'd still be a fabulous player. He's basically a David Silva who also scores 50 goals a year.

 

[Spark]

Is Messi so much better than everyone else in the same way as you say? As you point out, Ronaldo can be compared to him, as can Pele, Maradona and Cruyff. It's not a Bradman situation.

Well I mean that's why there's a legit debate to be had. But it's definitely not just "best attacker therefore best by default" thing. It's not like he (and Ronaldo) just shade it over their contemporaries, which ultimately are the only concrete comparisons you can make.

 

[vcs]

It's hard to imagine a more complete attacker than Messi.

 

[Spark]

Tbf, what makes Messi truly incredible is that you can make a reasonable argument that even if he scored 0 goals a season and retained all his other skills he'd still be a fabulous player. He's basically a David Silva who also scores 50 goals a year.

Yeah this is why I find the "well what about defenders" thing so weird. Like you can pick out the best defender but they'd be, at best, marginally better than their nearest contemporary. Messi is just a freak.