If Xavi and Iniesta play for Madrid...

your doubt and knowledge is as bullock as always SO? I DOUBT your "doubt" will EVER COME TRUE.

Look 11 topscorers + 10 Paulista + 5 Taca Brazil + 2 intercontinental cups + 760goals clubs official = MOUNTAIN EVEREST for Messi or any others to CLIMB

Wrong again, Messi is dominating La Liga and the Champions League, which surpasses the Brazilian regional championships easily. Messi already has as many CLs and Intercontinentals as Pele won Libertadores and Intercontinentals, so he should surpass him soon and begin to challenge Raul, Bochini, Cruyff, Puskas and DiStefano for greatest club player of all time.

Iniesta has rarely ever played as a RW and i can't remember him playing as a DM in his "professional career" (but feel free to correct me on this if i'm wrong), and when he's positionned as a LF (Spanish NT) he still comes inside to play as a typical midfielder. He has never played as a true winger. Cesc has also played as a DM.
Amongs all those attributes you listed, the only thing Iniesta is far better than Cesc in is dribbling.
I prefer Iniesta's style of play (he's my favourite Barca player as i've often said here), but i have no problem admitting than Cesc is more versatile and more decisive (goals,assists, eye for killer passes) than he is.

no you were wrong ... and KEEP ON counting Messi's liga trohies to see he will CATCH HALF of the King's number!

Messi already has more continental championships than Pele. If/when he wins a few more La Liga titles, he'll have an overall more impressive club trophy-haul than Pele.

That's because a self-respecting league like La Liga is not going to include second-rate regional championships.

This is 100% correct. I think Messi has at least two more CL's in him, which could put him as a challenger to Puskas, DiStefano, Cruyff and Bochini.

Falcao.

He's too one-dimensional.

That's not true. When Xavi, Fabregas and Iniesta play together, Iniesta is a LW, while Cesc is advanced CM/AM. Also remember that last season Pep loved to use 3-4-3 often (even vs Real M at the Bernabeu!) and when he did, Iniesta was CM (next to Xavi) while Fabregas was playing AM/False 10. Fabregas is to the left only because Xavi prefers the right hand side of the CM position. The same thing happens to Iniesta when he plays as the LCM.

Iniesta has played RW, grated less frequently than LW, but he has played in that position - earlier when he broke into Barca's first team and for Spain at WC. Also at Euro 2008 he and Silva often switched flanks. And he has played as DM under Rijkaard due to the team having injuries with their regular DMs, and because Frank wanted Iniesta, Xavi and Deco together on the field. As for Iniesta playing as "true winger" I've never said that he did. True wingers are rarity these days, as most of them come inside to score and/or create.

On the other hand I've never seen Cesc play as DM. Can you remind me when that was? I'm not saying Fabregas doesn't have versatility, because he actually does. But Iniesta is more versatile, in his ability to play different positions/roles and with his skills.

Did you really know the "self respecting " 2 horses (*Real + Barca), league like Liga only won 8 intercontinental cups? while the 2nd rate regional leagues in Brazil won 12 (with 7 different teams)?

It so funny that the 2nd rate league produced two best ever perofrmance in intercontinental cup events (SA vs Europe) with
1- Pele 7goals+ 4ass/ 2 continental cup events LOL ... as UNBROKEN record... and PLEASE Pele beat Benfica of Eusebio, and Milan of Rivera Maldini .... OK?
2- and the Zico with a super hat trick to demolish Liverpool ...

Messi had to thanls to Rijkaard, Ronaldinho, Deco Etoo Xavi to gift him those 2 UCL as free ride.

=============================================

Keep on COUNTING ... like Messi is close eek: )
8 more ligas to go ...
9 more topscorers to go
92 hat tricks
40+ 4 and more gaols game
A 8goal scored game ...


not even mention 3xWC's as another NEVER reaching goal!!!

Pele never won a single national level league competition, Messi has already 5.

It's pretty hard to win a competition that doesn't exist though.

Just to nitpick, he did play 4 seasons (1971-1974) in the Campeonato Brasileiro. Doesn't really change the point of your statement, but is at least a little relevant, seeing as he could inspire Brazil to the WC in 1970. In those years Santos finished resp. 9th, 8th, 6th and 3rd. Not exactly stellar, although he had one good season stat-wise with 19 goals.

2? The 2006 one is arguably the one he owes to his team-mates (although he played a vital role in defeating one of the most dominant English champions ever at their home, before he was injured in the 2nd leg).

The 2009 CL win is mostly because of him... Before 2010 Eto'o had hardly known a free-scoring CL campaign (although scoring in 2 finals was impressive obviously). Messi was also the clutch player as Iniesta was underperforming, except in 1 game (the Final), and Xavi the only other on his level. 9 goals and 5 assists in that campaign by Messi, incl. the clincher in the final and assist to Iniesta in SF. [Note: he scored 3 opening goals, 1 equaliser, 1 outright winner, 1 lead-extending goal (2-goal lead) and 3 "meaningless", ie. creating a 3-goal lead; also 3 of his goals came as a sub when Barça were losing or drawing.]

Also, yes Pelé had the most impressive individual performance in ICC history but honestly how important can 2 games each year be that you keep trotting out these stats. It might be worth mentioning some things to put the games against Benfica in context:
1. the year before (1961), Benfica was demolished 5-0 by Peñarol after winning 1-0 in Portugal
2. their defense had become a sieve in 1962; in the season they won their first ECC (1960/61) their defensive record was 10 goals conceded in 9 games, compared to 11 in 7 in 1961/62; in the domestic league they had conceded only 21 goals in 26 games in 1960/61 as they finished champions, compared to 38 in 26 games in 1961/62 as they finished 3rd. They were destroyed 8-4 on agg. by Santos but they were also destroyed defensively the season before, only that in some matches their offense outscored the opponents. After the ICC they went back to "normal" defensive stats in both league and ECC.

Benfica were that year no defensive masters. His goals in Milan are more impressive in that respect IMO (even though one is a penalty). But even then, Santos actually defeated Milan 4-2 in the 2nd leg without Pelé, and then in the tie-breaker 1-0 again without Pelé.

I agree with you that he has probably the most impressive performances overall in ICC history, but you exaggerate somewhat the extent to which it is impressive. The performance in Lisbon is the one most standing out and is a truly special statistical feat (hat-trick and 2 assists), but was it harder than scoring 2 goals in San Siro, against a very good defensive team?

... It begs a fair question; which performance do you consider best? Benfica away or Milan away? (I have only seen the Benfica matches unfortunately so I can't really judge).
In an analogy I can make, for example in Messi's 2 Club World Cup Finals I would consider the 2009 against Estudiantes higher than 2 goals vs Santos, because of the context. It was the winner, in extra-time, (with his chest!!), in a game that wasn't going very well for Barcelona compared to the demolishing of Santos in 2011 by a team effort, from start to finish.

That La Liga has become a two-horse race (this year it's not Real Madrid contending), just shows how dominant Messi's Barcelona is, this is the same argument you put up for Santos of Pele. Someone has already answered Messi's influence in leading Barcelona to the CL 09 and 11 wins, even in CL06 he was instrumental in defeating Chelsea, who had eliminated Barca the year before sans Messi.

As for the Intercontinental, during Pele's playing years the only Brazilian side to win it was Santos. During Messi's career so far, Barcelona is the only Spaninsh side to have ever won it, so it is very similar. In any event, Pele is not the greatest club player ever even in South America: Spencer, Bochini, Francescoli, Riquelme and Tevez all accomplished more, these should be the historical rivals to Messi.

Great informative post, not even a raving lunatic like James can argue with this.

Thanks. Honestly, I appreciate a lot of the opinions and information that posters like you and James bring (I'm a relative newb on these boards), but I can recognize the biases you each draw from already Argie and Brazilian don't mix very well. I think James can get a bit too zealous, yes, but he's just passionate about his fave player. Like I'm with Messi and you with a host of Argentinian ones.

The thing is that in all these discussions there's always a context for each player, esp. likes of Pelé, Cruyff, Messi, etc. The only one that really escapes these "caveats" is Maradona, but then on him you could say that he only really shined in teams that were defensively very solid and didn't need to control the possession. I think it's tough for people to admit that their favourite players aren't perfect in every way, or that they would maybe not have been as "standing out" under different circumstances. I can admit this about Messi, he still has a very long way to go before being even in the same territory as Pelé/Maradona, but then again I can say this because he's still only 25 Maybe in 5-10 years I'll be "rambling on" like James.

Look at the match ratings. Iniesta was king in both semi-final games against Chelsea. Home and away. Iniesta was superb in the 0-0 when Chelsea played bunker tactics. In the final it was all about Xavi and Iniesta too.
I'd say that the games against Bayern Munich and Lyon were the outstanding ones for Messi that campaign.

Yes, you are right, we are all biased to our favorite players. I just don't feel that Pele should be the standard for greatest club player of all time when others won as much if not more.

No Spain has 4 world Class players and great players around them... Pele is world class, Maradona is world class, Zidane is world class, Cruyff is world class, Yashin is world class, Beckenbauer is world class, Xavi is wold class.

How do those names compare with the rest of the Spaniard team?

Stop calling everyone world class, it dilutes the class if everyone starts become world class.. then we have to create a new class to place players which are clearly above the rest of the Spaniard team.

How is he overrated? He is probably Portugal's best scorer ever has been consistently been named second best player of our time and has even won best player of the year... that makes him overrated?

What does he have to do to actually be considered not overrated to you?

wow.. just wow

voce prefere que ele use a expressao na lingua dele e depois mande voce aprender a falar a lingua dele? Ele pelo menos tenta falar sua lingua, em um jogo mundial ele tem vantagem sobre voce porque ele consegue se comunicar. E desde quando indioma tem uma relacao com entendimento de futebol?

Global game waaaat? ORLY!? NOWAI!!

At the time Pele played, Regional Championships in Brazil were the top of the food chain in Brazil, and it would be comparable to the quality of La Liga nowadays. Today's day and age I completely agree, it's a small regional tournament, almost a glorified pre season.

Most Brazilian sides during that time would not go and play international competitions in South America, because it was dangerous. So second, third place and random teams would go. Santos decided to go to promote their team in Europe.

Don't want to derail this thread too much and i think this 2 players are good enough to get their own thread, so i made one here : http://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/iniesta-vs-fabregas.1981200/

All of those players were world class. They aren't anymore. Any player considered among the very best in the world is world class. That's a pretty logical definition. World class = class of the world = best of the world. Spain has players who are considered among the very best in the world at almost every position, therefore they have many world class players. Simple. You're thinking all-time, not world class.