Messi retires from international football aged 29. After missing a penalty in the shootout during the Copa America final, in which Argentina went on to lose, Messi announced his decision.
Sensible decision as it now gives him time to recover between the end of one season and the next, and flying back and forth between Europe and South America for World Cup qualifiers. in addition it gives him time to resolve his tax issues.
I thought that was Pele (some would say Maradona) He did guide Argentina to four finals and the Olympic Gold in 2008.
World Cup two years away? I would have thought he would continue until then, they're already well in to the qualifying matches.
I think his club career is more important to him as it brings him all the sponsorship deals. In addition he has a young family. He has played over 100 internationals for Argentina so he has given them good service.
3 finals in three years, but yeah, realistically only a gold medal at an Olympics is probably not that great a record overall.
Messi is without doubt an incredible footballer and one of the best ever. The fact that he has never really set a World Cup on fire may well go against him when people compile that "best ever" list. Pele did it. Maradonna did it. Messi didn't quite do it, but then it may just be harder in today's game to do that. Tough call, but fro me Maradonna was bigger and better, as was Pele.
When we think of the world's great footballers such as Ronaldo, Messi, Lewendowski, Neymar, Rooney (?) most of their success is on the international stage at club level. The Internationals are an extra to go through. IMO the number of internationals needs to be reduced in order to give the footballers time to recover. Watch the level of performance from the teams in the semi and final drop off. Croatia for example had shot their bolt in defeating Spain. Portugal are playing very conservatively in order to get to the later stages of this tournament.
Probably one of, certainly not the. Still stand by him having a poor international career. 3 losing finals isn't an achievement for a team like Argentina, he had big chances in 2 of those too (didn't see last nights game).
Let's say well done to Chile for their second consecutive victory in this tournament. Hopefully, Chile can make a huge impact at the World Cup in two years time as it is about time that a team from South America was able to compete with the European powerhouses at the serious end of these competitions.
But never looked like winning the tournament. South Americans were nowhere to be seen in South Africa or Germany so it is time for them to reassert themselves. In addition I would love a plethora of African Nations to start making a serious impact at future WCs as football these days seems too Eurocentric!!
Glenn Cockerill still popular up here £51 not bad. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Glenn-Coc...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Holy ****. Now this is mental! Brazilian forward Hulk will be paid £320,000-a-week by Shanghai SIGP after completing his 55.8 million euros transfer. How the hell is this sustainable? A million a week cannot be too far away now.......
To be fair, Rooney has been on 300k a week for a couple of years now. There must be some serious investors over in China though.
