Ballon d'Or 2012 Thread...

That's just semantics to be honest. There was no season-long national-level league in Brazil before 1970 (only the Taça which provided entry to the Libertadores, and inter-state tournaments), so therefore it would be disingenuous to not count the state championships (in this case, the Paulista) as the equivalent of modern-day top flight league.

 

Actually it's not. There was 27 separate regional leagues in Brazil them days which definitely diluted the quality of one "regional" league a lot. Same if Messi played Catalonian league (+ Valencia population wise) with Barcelona. Messi would score 5 goals in every game.

Pele only scored about 100+ goals in national level football at the age of 25.

I've checked these and nobody scored 300 at age 25 in national top flight level.

Ronaldo
Batistuta
Hugo Sanchez
Romario
Puskas
Gerd Müller
Pele (did but only in regional level)

Messi probably is the youngest one, at least post second war.

 

Agreed, but the Paulista and Carioca were by far the best level in Brazil at that time, and equal to most top flights in my opinion (maybe not the top 2-3 of the world like La Liga is today, but then again the São Paulo-Rio tourney was far stronger than any modern league is likely to be, would be like a European superleague)

 

How do you measure the opposition level, meaning how easy it's to score, in those regional leagues?

Santos in Paulista 57-65, 979 goals in 300 games, 3.26 GPG
Barcelona in La Liga 04-12, 719 goals in 304 games, 2.37 GPG

 

These are good stats to be taken into consideration
As all may know the top scorer table for la liga
Messi 13
Cristiano 11
Falcao 10
But now look at the total # of shots
Cristiano 61
Messi 51
Falcao 31

 

Would taking away penalties make the argument better?

Messi 12 4,17 s/g
Falcao 6 4.50 s/g
Cronaldo 7 8.14 s/g

 

Luis Suarez (only spanish Ballon d'Or winner): "There has never been a fast, skilfull, technical player who also scores so many goals. Until Messi. He has it all"