Messi never really padded his goal-tally significantly during the group-stages. Lets stick to facts. It's hard, I know. Thread title is Messi v Ronaldo not Messi v Maradona. Let me know when Ronaldo wins something with Portugal or accumulates a better GPG ratio with Portugal. Then maybe we can bring-up the whole Messi-Argentina thing.
Isn't Messi one of the leading knock-out stage goalscorers in CL history? He certainly has more than CR7. Last time I checked, Messi is joint leading goalscorer in Conmebol WCQ. He has 12 NT goals in total this year. This argument is slowly turning to myth just as the myth that Messi is nothing with Inesta and Xavi has already become myth. He just needs a strong tournament performance to finally put this argument to rest. Unlike in soccer, the offense and defense are never playing on the field at the same time. The play of the offense has no direct correlation with the play of the defense. Dan Marino could throw for 400 yards and 4 touchdowns, but if his defense (which he has no control over) couldn't stop the opposing offense, it would be all for not. I still believe Montana to be the greater quarterback, but it's not as simple as you put it.
Messi has 26, Ronaldo 21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe...ons_League_records_and_statistics#Goalscoring
some posts ago I put a goal by goal by Messi on the CL . But even there is has Messi scoring tons of goals vs teams like Bayern Leverkusen, which is on the knockout phase.. but come on man.. 5 goals against that team? I think after that he scored 3 more against the rest of the teams he played on knockouts. WCQ is not really great competition, Brazil mostly plays with mixed teams and the team that does the qualifying rarely looks exactly like the WC team. But yes... unless he has a strong tournament, the argument will always be there and people can't just ignore that. Montana's team was far superior than Marino's team, we know that because you don't substitute the "Best ever" and keep winning like he wasn't needed. That's what most Marino enthusiasts point to. Lots of records but no rings is what everyone else points to.
CR7 has also played in 13 more CL matches than Messi. Messi has the second highest GPG ratio of the top 10, trailing only Di Stefano. If you extrapolate that ratio to include 13 extra games, he would have 66 goals , putting him only 5 goals behind Raul.
It's funny how you try to turn that into a bad thing. Neymar has 6 Copa Libertadores goals in the knockout stage in his whole career. Messi almost equaled that in one game. lolololol
They were in their primes during the "2 group-stage" era. The second group stages were usually pretty tough so a bit unfair to say they padded their stats as it suggests they were playing against cannon fodder. But, yes, they did have more games so easier for them to break CL scoring records. Nevertheless, Messi still on track to smash their achievements in fewer games.
If you want to account for that and count 2nd group stage as the equivalent of knockout games then Raul scored 16, giving him 36 latter stage goals (51% of his CL goals excluding qualifiers), and Van Nistelrooy scored 11, giving him 17 (30%). For comparison Messi's ration is 46% and Ronaldo 47%. Obviously, the 2nd group stage gives more guaranteed games per year.
That's the counter. 2nd group stage games aren't quite "group-stage" games (modern CL) but they also aren't quick "knockout" games (modern CL as well) because they are guaranteed games which give more scoring opportunities. There is no perfect system to make a comparison. Overall GPG ratio would be the easiest, though still far from perfect.
So people like Michael Jordan because he was nice? Not because he was one of the most talented guys to play the game? I guess that means Kobe is better, since he's quite celebrated despite his attitude and being accused of rape and everything. And Ronaldo never has them, so what does that prove? It's like we're not allowed to count any of the easily observable ways Messi is clearly superior, including what he actually does on the pitch, his stats, awards he's received and accolades from his peers. I'm pretty sure that's arbitrary criteria, since it requires too many variables to be held constant: specifically the quality of other Argentina players and the quality of teams Argentina faces in the given time period. Unless you're arguing that Ronaldo would win all kinds of stuff if he played for Argentina in Messi's place, I don't even understand this comparison. Apples and oranges. It's not as easy for a single player to be as dominant as people remember Maradona and Pele' were, and even that discounts the talent around them.
Jordan was a great player, and people love greatness, but Mohamed Ali was a great boxer and he was hated during his playing time. Why is that? because one was vocal and the other one wasn't, it 100% makes a difference. Barry Bonds.. great baseball player, hated, Wayne Gretzky great hockey player.. loved... It's not just about what you do on the field. Ronaldo has also received those awards, and Ronaldo has never failed his National Team, more like they have failed him. Of course.. the talent of the Argentinean team is not up to the World standards to be one of the best National teams in the world... (yes I'm being sarcastic). Come on now Argentina is light years ahead of Portugal in talent. As I've said before, Portugal has a nice little team, they might even beat teams like Germany, Argentina, Spain or Brazil in a competition, but that was their lucky day. Pele had an amazing team around him, Maradona not so much, that's why there's the comparison between the 2. And when it comes down to statistics.. yes you CAN compare apples to oranges. http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v1i3/air-1-3-apples.html I guess everything is up for comparison uh? What would our world be without statistics!?
Barcelona was on top before Messi, and without Messi the core of the Barca team won 2 Euros and 1 WC... This argument is not valid sir.
You clearful ommited the Kobe comparison i see..... just saying Like against Germany, Denmark or Spain (when he wanted to take the glory penalty) huh??? All the main talents in the Argentine Squad are fowards, you can can't win with only great fowards. Granted Portugal lacks in the striking department, they have a good midfield.
Kobe is not included in this conversation because he's not loved by all, it's pretty split between people that love him and hate him. Unless you live in the west coast or in China where people love him. people miss penalties all the time... But C.Ronaldo performs to the same standard on his Portugal NT as he does outside of it. That's what I mean by Messi failing his national team. Come on man, Argentina is being picked as one of the favorites to win for a reason. And it's not for having 27 forwards... Argentina is better up front and in the middle than Portugal by far, their defense is suspect because both of Argentina's DBs are attacking wingers... If the coach wanted to fix the team, he could easily do it by putting a team with DBs instead of the WB he uses. Also it's kind of sad that their best Defensive holding mid is 34 (and yes I'm talking about Pablo Guinazu) every time he's in that defense becomes 100000x better... so why he's not a starter on that team.. baffles me... to add more offense to that team?
These comparisons are getting silly now. Ronaldo isn't hated or even considered a controversial player like Mohammed Ali or Barry Bonds. To claim that Messi is more popular just because he's a nice guy is silly and undermines his tremendous accomplishments. In what way did Portugal fail Ronaldo? Did you actually watch the Euros? Ronaldo was particularly found out against Spain, a team with defenders that don't fall for his "push the ball into space, try like hell to outrun Puyol then look at the ref when I get muscled off" technique. Or how about his "shoot as hard as I can from the edge of the box and in traffic and hope for the best!" technique? I'm sure Puyol and Jerome Boateng have really sore shins, at least. Or how about his free kicks straight to Casillas? (maybe he got confused and thought he was back-passing?). We can only speculate if Messi would have done better, but I didn't see Ronaldo really do much to indicate that his team let him down. He just looked out-matched, like the rest of his team did and didn't really bring any spark or creativity to create a breakthrough. Look at Ibra's performance to see what that looks like. As others have said, there're serious defensive gaps in Argentina's NT right now. To assume their ascendency is taken-for-granted based on historically performance means you're just relying on stereotypes and not actually watching the current game. "Comparing apples and oranges" is an expression that basically means the comparison you're trying to make isn't very good; not to insist that you literally can't compare different kinds of fruit. The comparison you're trying to make--Messi's relative accomplishments with a historically strong NT vs. Ronaldo's relative accomplishments with a historically weaker NT--just isn't a very good one. There are so many variable factors to consider in that comparison (coaches, quality/form of teammates, cohesion with teammates, quality/form of opposing competition, differences in competition formats) that trying to isolate the quality of an individual player to make comparisons is really difficult. It's far easier (and better) to compare their stats directly, especially since they play in the same leagues. And again, the fact that Messi hasn't duplicated Maradona's accomplishments requires a lot of assumptions about a ton of variables. The game has grown tremendously since then. For one thing, the regions of Africa and Asia have relatively exploded. In Maradona's day, there were only a handful of black players in England (let alone Europe); now it's like 20% of the EPL. There's a lot more talent distributed across the top level today I believe than back then.
His popularity is 100% increased by the media. People love superstars, especially humble superstars. Puyol did great this last Euro.. oh wait... Ibra is the same player in the Swedish Nat Team as he is on his club team. Ronaldo is the same player in Portugal as he is in his club teams. Well he was until he went to La Liga where no defense is played and his team can score at will and he's the main forward. He's starting to get some of the Messi like stats... doubling his GPG from the NT. Argentina has defenders that can turn that defense around, but for some reason they rather play the big name offensive players, instead of shut down defenders. That team is really solid, just has a bad outlook on things. Sure you can compare their stats directly from the same league, but when you are putting them to be the 2 best forwards out there, you can't just base it on the numbers of that league. You must take everything into account. His performance on the Copa America speaks for itself. I mean you do realize that if Messi doesn't win a World Cup, a Copa America or a Confed Cup he will be Cruyff. One of the greatest players to have lived.. but couldn't win anything so he's not in the discussion of greatest ever. While C. Ronaldo will be like Eusebio... footnote on the greatest ever discussion as a great striker. Right now if Spain wins another WC Iniesta and Xavi will surpass Messi in the greatest ever list to begin with! Not right now because people like goal and messi scores them, but in the future Messi will become the striker which benefited from playing with those 2. Also if Brazil wins and Neymar keeps his career at the pace it is, he's also on the list of being ahead of Messi on the best ever list. That's how important the WC is.
There is no doubt that Messi is the best. The statistics tell it all. Who cares if he has Iniesta and Xavi. And he is not replaceable AT ALL - whoever says that he is must be joking. Still so young, Messi will crack every record and it will remain that way for the next 100 years. His story is a big one.
He needs to stay on his current pace until he is 37 to equal Pele... not sure that's going to happen... also.. he has not won a World Cup.. much less than 3... He'll be Cruyff if he doesn't win anything.
Messi di great but ... some record Messi will NEVER get: - Won and scored goals at WC by 17yrs old - Won 2 WC at 21yrs old - Won 3 WCs' at 29yrs old