I have zero doubt that Messi is one of the all time great players. Last night, however, he looked completely shot. If they wanted to give the award to an Argentinian, it should have gone to Mascherano - awesome performance, again!.
He is one of the all time great players but Maradona was the greatest and Messi isn't in that class. Plus he hasn't tested himself in more then one league and nor has he captured the imagination at international level and can only produce against weak teams in the group stages. Fantastic player but just falls short of Maradona.
I'm not so sure. Different times, different demands on a player. To be honest, take away Messi, Mascherano, and Zabaleta and they look pretty ordinary. And two of those are defensive players. For different reasons, higuain and Aguero didn't show up and Di Maria, injured...places a massive demand on Messi to create something. Nobody else was going to do it...
For all his individual skill, I've often thought that Messi is not a great team player. Argentina were crying out for a creative midfielder in the mould of David Silva, who can find Aguero with a pass when he runs into those pockets of space. Despite all those big name attacking players, Argentina looked toothless up front - they progressed through the latter stages by dogged defending and by nullifying the strengths of the opposition. Definitely a team less than the sum of its parts.
Argentina are ordinary as a team but have some talented individuals. Agree on that but I just feel Messi doesn't have that extra genius quality Maradona had. Messi has to either leave Barca and do great things in another league or light up a international tournament like Maradona or Pele. For me anyway, and I don't believe he deserves to be compared to Maradona or Pele in terms of being viewed as the greatest ever.
"For all his individual skill, I've often thought that Messi is not a great team player." It seems that he has played the tika-taka for so long, that unless that is the system his team is playing, you will never see the best of him. He doesn't have that take the game by the scruff of the neck mindset that Pele, Maradona, Cruyff etc had. "Definitely a team less than the sum of its parts." That much was true this WC.
Its hard enough to compare players who play in the same league today, never mind over different periods. For me Pele will take some beating but he played nearly all his career for Santos which was a challenge well below what Messi faces each week in La Liga. As for Argentina, Aguero was clearly unfit. If he and Di Maria had been fit the whole tournament, Aregntina would have won it at a stroll. They were a lot better than Germany yesterday but contrived to miss three one on ones with the goalkeeper before falling behind to a worldy. And Neuer should have been sent off - if that challenge on Higuain wasn't made with 'excessive force' there is no point in that being in the Laws.
excessive force isn't necessarily a red card offence. I thought it was a yellow and pen at worst, and i'm not sure the Aguero one was as bad as the beeb commentators were making out either
Although Pele played all his career in Brazil,when it came to Internationals he proved how good he was.so good the hungarians nearly crippled him in 1966,to stop him
Why do you believe Argentina would have won it at a stroll? I don't believe many of you watched Argentina before the world cup and assumed they where a great team because of the individual talent they have. Argentina for many years now have been disorganised and a team that fails to deliver anywhere near their potential, plus remember Germany where the team trying to probe, push Argentina back, all Argentina where doing was kick the ball long, or their first half tactic of out wide to the right. Cheap easy tactics to try and catch Germany out and yes they had chances, yet so did Germany and Germany where unlucky the chances kept falling to the wrong players and Germany where definitely the better team. They where positive and trying to break down Argentina who deserved nothing and justice was done in the end. Although I'll credit Argentina for their defensive organisation as that has been lacking in the past, yet very few teams in world football can attack and defend with great quality, Germany are one of them and deserved to be crowned world champions.
Germany are ordinary,and none of the teams are really good,thay all have one stand out player,and if you stop him,you stop them,like Argentina did by stopping Robben,any of those teams could have won if they had used the right tactics for each game
Germany aren't a one man team, if you stop Kroos you have Schweinsteiger who was brillant last night. You can try stopping Muller and Klose but they have 26 world cup goals between them so good luck. There is too much focus on individual talent as Argentina may have players like Aguero and Di Maria who are viewed as world class at club level, but Germany have a much better team unit and are far from ordinary, I wish England could be ordinary and beat Brazil 7-1, have the world cups leading all time scorer and win the world cup!
I said a while back, Argentina used to produce loads of them (i.e. Veron, Ortega, Riquelme) but that's not been the case in recent years - although they should've taken Banega as cover for Di Maria, because when Di Maria picked up that thigh injury they lost pretty much any creative outlet in midfield, putting more pressure on Merri and Rojo.
Never a pen, he's perfectly entitled to challenge for the ball like that, it's just one of the hazards of the game. I remember when Kane ran into We Brown just as he was turning last season, never a foul, **** just happens sometimes. The BBC annoyed me so much with that talk about Aguero's being a straight red. Player challenge for the ball with their arms rasied all the time, it helps with balance and elevation, you don't see high jumpers going leaping over the bar with their arms by their side all the time. Presumably Aguero needs to cut his nails but it really shouldn't be more than a foul, especially in extra time for a World Cup final. They all stopped preaching when Schweinstieger made another foul at the end. No "oh, he's lucky to still be on the pitch" that Macherano got. Doe anyone actually like Lawrenson as a commentator? Seems to me all he does is moan when ever someone goes over and counts the rolls. I'd love to see him commentating on a Liverpool game with Sturridge and Sterling diving all over the place whilst he ignores it all.
Ardiles was not a fan during the game. osvaldo ardiles @osvaldooardiles · 17h Mark lawrenson get in my nerves osvaldo ardiles @osvaldooardiles · 16h Silly comments from lawrenson, again osvaldo ardiles @osvaldooardiles · 16h Does lawrenson knows that he is criticising players that in one hour time are going to be WC winners? osvaldo ardiles @osvaldooardiles · 15h More stupid and biased comments. Agueuro will never do a thing like this
Entirely agree. I really couldn't see what the commentators were prattling on about. Schweinseiger acted like he'd been hit by an express train. And, shock, horror! Some real claret!!...poor little lamb, perhaps they let him have his teddy with him last night. Get real! It's a contact sport..**** happens. Aguero didn't intend to hurt him, IMO.
I tend to agree. Messi looked completely shot - maybe from the burden of expectation, who knows? But, as you say, with Aguero hardly match fit, Di Maria injured, and Higuain unable to hit a cow's arse, it was left to Messi to try and carry the whole show on his own. What Neuer did was totally reckless, with complete disregard for the possible consequences for Aguero. Yes, it was a red card all day long....it was an assault, not a challenge. That's the difference between that challenge and what Aguero did. Aguero made a genuine challenge for the ball. Neuer just threw himself at man and ball like some kamikaze pilot.
