Messi!

June 11, 2014 • 2:13 pm

The World Cup starts tomorrow, though Argentina (Lionel Messi’s team) won’t be playing until Friday, when they take on Bosnia and Herzegovina.  #10, who normally plays for Barcelona and is only 26 years old, is in the opinion of many (including me, and I don’t know much about football) the greatest player alive, and perhaps the greatest of all time.

I like him not only because of his speed and amazing dexterity, but because he’s apparently a nice guy and not a showboater.  There are many Messi videos around, but here’s a short one demonstrating his legendary control of the ball and fantastic dribbling.

39 thoughts on “Messi!”

  2. I look forward to seeing him play too. However, Messi may not get the opportunity to be his regular self. The attacking and midfield lines of the Argentine national squad are not on par with that of FC Barcelona. In all likelihood the opposing teams will place a great deal of pressure on him and we may find ourselves treated to very rare flashes of his genius.

    1. Argentina have some of the best attacking options in the world. With Di Maria, Aguero, Higuain, Lavezzi, etc, no team can solely focus on Messi.

  3. With the due respect, Messi is not regarded to be the greatest of all time. We had other more skillful and accomplished players like Pelé and Maradona. Moreover, we have some news that Messi is not friendly at all with his teammates in Barcelona and Argentina national team. Some argue that the reason Tevez, another fantastic player, was not drafted to WC is because Messi does not like him. Tevez is the symbol of Argentina’s people and sometimes regarded to be more ” el jugador de la gente”.

    1. Yeah, but, Lio is very much one of the greatest of all time. Diego Maradona isn’t an angel either and he’s considered one of the best, many say the best (including himself). It’s hard to compare the brilliance of Pele, who excelled at a time when few others did, and Messi, who excels at a time when there are other truly great players such as Teves, Suarez, Neymar, Ibrahimovic, and others. By almost any standard Christiano Ronaldo could be considered one of the top 3 or 4 greatest players of all time, except he happens to live in the same era as Messi, who has overshadowed CR7 during much of their careers. Ronaldo just completed a phenomenal season with Madrid, though.

      1. You can hardly describe him as “greatest of all time” when he wasn’t able to score a single goal in the last world cup (unlike Pele and Maradona who were great scorers). This notion that he is the best of all time is due merely to commercial interests, that weren’t so prevalent when these other two players were, indeed, the greatest. They need to sell him, and the publicity goes accordingly.

        1. But scoring goals is not the whole game – a goalkeeper has every right to be considered as the greatest player as a forward.

          1. That’s quite right. But as Messi is a forward, it’s fair to judge him at least partly on his lack of goals (so far) in World Cups.

      2. Everyone judges these things by different standards though so I’m not sure how you can say that.

        One thing that I think is clearly wrong though is the idea that Pelé excelled when few other did. He was head and shoulder above other great players. The notion he was say, like Messi, but without as much competition, is nonsense.

        If we were to compare objectively, every generation (or other generation) would have better players than the past, since players are just better athletes today. But I don’t see much value in measuring it that way. I think Pel[e stands out precisely because he was that much better than his peers. But to diminish his peers because of him is just backwards.

        1. Point taken. He certainly rose far above athletic ceilings of the time. I guess my thought is that today, with the knowledge and execution of today’s training and recovery methods, it’s perhaps more challenging to excel greatly, and both Lio and Cristiano have done that.

  5. Thanks for the video link. I agree with you, he’s the best player I’ve seen, and I’ve seen many, two of whom were Pele and Jairzhino: Messi combines their individual talents in one player.

  6. That video of Messi was mediocre at best, and did not reflect his ability. Here is a better one, against top players in the game:

  7. Judging by how he ended the season, you won’t see much of that dexterity. He’s been awful all year.

  8. I love watching Messi play and personally I think he is the best player I have seen since I started watching football around 1980.

    That said, it is a close call for me between Messi and Maradona. I like the fact that both of them try to stay on their feet and ride the tackles whereas some players look to go down at the first opportunity. Maradona played in an era when there was perhaps less protection from the referees against cynical tackles.

    I also put Zidane right up there with them.

    Here’s hoping for a brilliant world cup and perhaps Messi will take it by storm like Maradona did in 1986!!

    1. Messi may not dive as often as Ronaldo, but he’s not averse to going down easily in the penalty area. He’s been booked for it a number of times.

  9. That’s some pretty big names getting schooled. Messi benefits from an increased emphasis by the referees on letting the best players show their skills – a FIFA initiative that began in the early 21st century. Otherwise he’d have been hacked to death like Pele in ’66, Maradona at Naples, and Marco van Basten who had to retire at the age of 28.

    It’s not perfect (can anything involving FIFA be better than so-so? OK, they’re really good at corruption.) but it’s still much better than the bad old days.

    1. To be fair though that’s one area that most sports entities don’t do a good job with – keeping up with athletic changes that result in more fouling.

      What happens instead is the game evolves – fouls aren’t called, then players dive in order to get fouls called that otherwise would not be, then fouls get rougher – anyways, that’s way oversimplified but the point is there’s an evolution-like mechanism at play because of a selection factor and that selection factor is limited/imperfect refereeing. Not much can be done about that – it can be made slightly better but nowhere near perfect (there aren’t even good mechanisms for dealing with multiple infractions in one play) but this is true of all sports that use referees to judge something (whether it be a foul or anything else).

      To add to the problem many of these entities are very resistant to change and when they implement change it’s not necessarily the best choices (replay doesn’t have to stop a game for extended periods of time with today’s technology, but that’s often what is talked about and what was implemented in american football and baseball).

      At any rate, soccer will continue to evolve too and in the end I like the direction it has taken to protect more skilled players.

      1. He actually went easy on FIFA.

        Sadly it is the worst of all these unaccountable mafias that sports entities become (even in the US – see NCAA and others).

        And his conclusion is absolutely right.

    3. I agree, FIFA, and most governing bodies in soccer, are totally unworthy of managing this great sport. It’s potential is so much more than it has been allowed to attain.

  12. Needless to say placing the label of greatest on anything is a matter of perception. Though Messi is a marvel to watch because he is so good at all the aspects of playing football, in a way the other but less balanced greats stand out more for me, especially Zidane who not only played as he was dreaming but when you watch, you think you are dreaming. He had this rubbery, almost weak style, that you were amazed he could even move, not to mention he could move with such intuitive deliberation and grace. So that one aspect stands out, and I think ‘greatness’.

    With Messi everything is great and my mind shuts down, can’t break it down, so his talent sits uneasily with me and also with others. His smoothness is raises suspicion in the mind. He is too perfect to be true kind of thing. Or it could just be envy. 🙂

    2. Zidane’s double dragback was superb. The way he used it at pace to go around players was just amazing.

  13. We all tend to suffer from a bias from our experience & from more recent experience at that, in compiling ‘greatest ever’ lists. How can I comment on a player like Ricardo Zamora or Tom Finney? Especially hard when all we have is the adulation of their peers & little or nothing on film. So, although it is a different game now in many respects, not least the ball, it is better to consider a player in his own lifetime & in the eyes of contemporaries.

    If you like this ‘greatest ever’ game, try the BBC sport website –
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-27699398

  14. Gareth Price (#8) hit on one major reason to enjoy Messi’s play. He is not a diver like so many other players.
    Unfortunately, because of this referees often let fouls against him go because he tends to try to play through them.

  15. Soccer… boooooo…. booooo………

    our grandkids will have holy wars over soccer and dogs v cats!

  16. I assume y’all saw the FIFA hunk on last Sunday’s ep of “This week tonight with John Oliver”? Excellent, in-depth reporting on that nighted organization.

  17. Messi probably is the best player in the World right now, Ronaldo is really his only competition . . . until . . . Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore unveil bionic feet developed in joint venture between Nike and Lockheed-Martin . . . US wins cup 2-1 over Brazil in highly disputed final. It could totally happen!

  18. Scoring goals is not the only measure of a great player. Maradona himself, who was Argentina’s coach in South Africa, admitted he was asking Lio to fill a different role than the one he filled for Barca. With a bevy of scorers at their disposal Argentina were hoping Lio might turn provider. In the end it was not the best approach perhaps. Marketing is bigger, more ferocious, now than then, yes, but it doesn’t take away from his amazing abilities and accomplishments. As far as his demeanor goes, who cares how he is in the locker room for pasta’s sake. The only place his demeanor counts is on the pitch on which he consistently runs through tackles to finish play, and where 99% of today’s other great players (Neymar. Suarez) would execute some sort of dive in hopes of drawing yellow or red. Perhaps he has yet to achieve greatness for his country, but Pele never tested himself professionally against the best in Europe, so it’s hard to gauge with exactness. Given the level of athleticism and skill of today’s best players the level to which he and CR7 have risen above them is phenomenal.

  19. Watching Ronaldinho, though, is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters – pure fun.

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