You are right and that is because over a full season two teams are better than us.. but in CL is a totally different story.
I would say form and injuries apply to the league as well. We were in poor form at the start of the season and that cost us la liga but now we are in better form.. isn’t that the same thing? - a few years ago we had Modric out for almost two months and those two months we dropped points where at the end we only lost la liga by 1 point - injury played a role. In la Liga you cannot really afford to lose too many games similarly to how in CL you cannot have bad games because you would be out. Is just that the CL is shorter and by elimination .. I cannot really say Barcelona is a top two team right now after watching them fail misserably against Roma and against Juve last season. There was no bad luck there, everyone was on the pitch and poor form can be compensated by the massive difference in talent & quality between the two teams. Right now if they face a tough opponent who is not afraid to attack them they will concede . The last dominant team Barcelona had was in 2015, the year of the treble.
The Champions League is in fact overrated... That's just a fact. Real Madrid won 3-0 vs. a depleted Juventus team. The Juventus team was depleted because it doesn't have the unlimited funds (read: squad depth) that Real Madrid enjoys. Winning 3-0 vs. a severely depleted Juventus, and losing 1-3 vs. a less severely depleted Juventus, doesn't really say a lot about Real Madrid being the best club in the world. It says a lot more about how inferior in squad depth Juventus is... in fact, if anything, the fact that a depleted Juventus was as competitive as it was, makes me think that Real Madrid is not the best club in the world -- maybe that's precisely why they've been so atrocious in La Liga. A classic example is how Chelsea 2011-12 won the Champions League... Chelsea 2011-12 was arguably not good enough to win any of the top 4 leagues of Europe, but Chelsea 2011-12 (with a lot of dumb luck) won the Champions League because the Champions League is in reality just 5 or 7 games at the tail end of very long seasons, meaning that many of the better clubs will have important players playing with injuries or simply not even playing, because of injuries. The Champions League is the most prestigious club competition but it definitely is overrated, and especially when it consists of Roma 2016, Wolfsburg 2016, Manchester City 2016, and Atletico Madrid 2016. The Copa del Rey 2016 offered more competitive clubs than that... At any rate, it shouldn't automatically make me a "sore loser" to acknowledge reality as it is instead of as it should be.
In case you haven't noticed, I don't respond to your diatribe and don't really care what you say because I've heard all your nonsense before. Perhaps you think @Gregoriak have boosted your credibility with giving you positives for your long posts, in my world we call that waffle, and it adds zero points to whatever you are trying to prove. So once again, I won't read your nonsense, and I'm not interested in what you saying. My advise is you need to respond to your disciples, you know them. I'm not interested.
The Champions League is the team title that I would prefer to win, on the other hand, I think that La Liga is by far a better and a more consistent measurement for individual ability. The Champions League KO stage is very often largely ruined by injuries. We see this all the time... Barcelona vs. Bayern 2015 (Bayern had some key players injured), Barcelona vs. Bayern 2013 (Barcelona had some key players injured), Barcelona vs. Inter 2010 (Iniesta was not fit for either of the two legs, and Ibrahimovic appeared to lack match fitness after just coming back from a three-week injury lapse), Real Madrid vs. Juventus 2018 (Juventus was severely depleted for the first leg), Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich 2017 (Bayern missed key players in the first leg), Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid 2014 (Atletico was missing Diego Costa, who was arguably their standout player that season, and a huge miss for that Atletico team), etc. In each one of those instances, the club with less injuries and/or less obstacles won. In other words: The Champions League is the most prestigious team achievement... but Cristiano Ronaldo getting thoroughly outclassed by Neymar in the first leg, and then Ronaldo being great vs. a severely depleted Juventus team, and then Ronaldo not being anywhere near as great vs. a less depleted Juventus team... Which begs the question: Why should I think that Ronaldo is the best player in the world when he obviously isn't the best player in the world?? Neymar outclassed him in the first leg. Mandzukic outclassed him in the second leg. Ronaldo was impressive only against a severely flawed Juventus team... And that is literally all we have so far in the form of so-called evidence that could prove that Ronaldo at 33 years of age is the best player in the world. One game vs. a severely depleted Juventus... How is that evidence of anything that we didn't already knew on the basis of watching Ronaldo's disappointing La Liga form? Yeah, Ronaldo can be great in one game, and not great in another 3 games. That is what will most probably happen when Ronaldo gets knocked out of the Champions League, and we didn't really need the Champions League to understand that. In the league format, all the players play against the same opponents, so if Messi is injured or out of form vs. Real Madrid in October, then Messi might be in form vs. Real Madrid in March. The league format is not 2 quick games where injuries at the wrong time of the year can totally or largely kill your chances to progress... I just think it's a vastly superior metric for individual ability, and especially so in the Messi-Ronaldo era in which the UCL was dominated by La Liga clubs.
I'm not trying to get you to respond, again, you couldn't respond not even if your life depended on it. My point was to demonstrate how much of a dumbass you are, which I did just as I intended. "Messi does what he wants, so the coach cannot restrict Messi because Messi does what he wants in a formation that was designed and drilled by the coach." What a consummate retard you are LMAO. Your own arguments explicitly prove how much of a dumbass you are, that you don't even appear to comprehend what it is that you're actually thinking, writing, advocating for, etc. So indeed, you might as well stay with short and stupid circle-jerk logic.
In theory what you are saying might be true, but in reality the league is won by avoiding dropping points in low profile games. Real lost to Barca last season's and they won the league by winning the games against teams they were expected to win. The same happened in 2012 eventhough many people associate that season with Ronaldo's "calma's goal", reality is despite the possible pressure if Madrid would have lost, winning remaining games was still going to be enough to win La Liga. Even this season if Madrid were to take six points from Barca they were still going to lose the league as they've been poor against teams they are expected to win. "So that's what ? A full 4 games where Messi didn't have a big impact ? WOW !!! "This is what I call forumists catching feelings, yes prior to that game it is well documented that Messi was having a little impact in el classico, whether you like it or not, I didn't even bother to count the number of games as I know that was a fact. So to point this out is not going out of the way to find fault in his performances but it's just to provide facts, unless if you want your notion that he's been unstoppable to remain. By the way I don't really care because this discussion is annoying. The fact that Ronaldo has 2 goals in 10 games in el Classico is totally irrelevant as I don't remember me praising him for el classico performance, in case you've missed my criteteria. I only raised the el Classico performances because of your revisionism of the history. CL IS WHERE THESE TWO HAVE TO PERFORM. Five star performances against the likes of Alaves or Espanyol adds zero points to me for these 2 players who are playing in super teams, but a performance against relatively equivalent teams is what I'm looking for. TBH I don't even know atm what am I arguing about. If I remember my last query or question was about discrepancy between Messi scoring 5 goals and Ronaldo scoring 30 goals from QF to Finals in the champions league. If you can just try to spin that so that we can get back on topic. NB: This question has nothing to do with La Liga, Coaches, Ongoing instability in Syria, etc.
Hahaha.....Without giving my credentials away anyone who've studied up to at least Masters level can pick up that you are just an idiot with a keyboard. Absolutely zero structure in whatever your are trying to prove, no supporting evidence, emotions, waffling....basically you are all over the place, at least ask @benficafan3, @PuckVanHeel, @Estel, or @BocaFan to help you with structuring your nonsense. Otherwise you'll keep thinking you make sense which imo is stragic, more especially to your kids if you have.
Arturo Vidal has been sidelined for the rest of the season with a knee injury. Bayern Munich will be without Manuel Neuer and Arturo Vidal in Champions League semi-final. Real Madrid have a fully fit squad available. You just can’t write this @leadleader
Karma is a bitch.. he was talking so much shit about vengeance and some other crap , lol and look what happens.. in any case he is a red card waiting to happen in these games. He probably did Bayern a favor.
Again you constantly flip my words around. Where exactly did i say rm with and without ronaldo are the same? You cant even read properly, you are mmaking stuff up so you could have something to argue against so I dont even want to start a discussion with you.. Obviously i could further expand on my points but whats the point when you yourself said you aint going read long posts.
so why mention we won in the 8 games Cristiano missed last season whereas Barcelona struggles big time without Messi this season? What was the whole point of that?
Variations in form can have an effect in La Liga as well but not nearly to the same extent. In CL, you have one awful performance and you're out ala Barca vs. Roma. In La Liga, Real Madrid had a horrific first three months of the season but they would still be in the title race if Barca wasn't pulling off a record-setting campaign. There is far more margin for error in La Liga. Judging Barca's level based on the 2nd leg vs. Roma (i.e. one match) is ridiculous. Barca this year played five matches against Real, Atletico and Juventus. They won three and drew two. Looking at the larger sample size shows that Barca is an elite team. I can say Real is not the best team in the world because of how they got bossed by Juventus in the 2nd leg and at home. That's still only one match and isn't a fair assessment. I would be stupid for saying that based on one match.
Talk about cherrypicked stats... Who cares about QF to F goals in the last 7 years. Ronaldo scored 60 goals in the knockout stages of the CL and Messi scored 40. Ronaldo played 72 matches though compared to 62 for Messi. And people who know the game of football know there is more to the game than scoring. Messi's dribbling and passing creates so many goalscoring chances that don't appear in the stat sheet. Ronaldo has more CL assists 38-29 (I think a 12-11 edge in knockouts) but in terms of key passes made it's not close. Since Ronaldo came to Real Madrid in 2009, Messi made 181 key passes in 85 matches and Ronaldo made 167 passes in 97 matches. In terms of overall player rating that looks at total offensive output, Messi also comes out ahead in the CL. If we're gonna use stats, let's be intellectually honest and present all stats.
I brought up Clasico because that's a big game. And you keep criticizing his big game performance. You can say it's not CL, but El Clasico in La Liga is just as tough of a game as any CL KO game. Not only that, it's against "the best team in the world". When I say unstoppable you know what I mean. Not literally every single game, but quite often. 36 goals and assists all together. Yes, this is your criteria ... Ronaldo vs Messi in CL QF onwards only. But not all time stats, let's make it last whatever years so that it looks even more lopsided. Why not other years ? Well, because Messi's teammates were too good back then. But at the same time, let's count all the goals Ronaldo scores as a target striker with amazing service. Did I get that right ? Talk about cherry picking. Look at all goals Ronaldo is scoring, they are basically all 1 touch goals (the bicycle goal was truly amazing). But that's why you have him scoring all those goals. Even when Madrid don't play that well, they still manage to create very good chances for Ronaldo to score. Messi is on average playing farther from the goal in those games.
To win la liga you must score at least 90 points if not you have no chance and that means you cannot drop points against smaller teams.. once you do that 3 or 4 times early in the season your title hopes are basically over.
Your credentials (whatever those are) cannot possibly give credibility to your premise, because your premise simply makes no sense at all. Your credentials are pointless in a discussion this simple... You are saying that a tactical system cannot restrict Messi if Messi has a free role, which is a moronic argument, because a free role does not change the fact that the actual system and the actual players are the underlying context that defines everything else. A free role by Messi, does not make Luis Suarez a good one-two player. Messi has to try to make the best out of Suarez, a striker who is below-average at the one-two plays which have always been Messi's bread and butter; Messi does not play in a system that suits him, but he tries to do the best with the pieces he gets to play with. I could be a bum with a keyboard, but hey, at least I can discern such an obvious thing. Your credentials, whatever those are, do not make your dumbass premise any less dumb. In other words... Your level of stupid cannot be taught or unlearned, it's probably one of those things that you have to be born with I'm afraid... And for the record: Not one single one of those posters that you've mentioned has shown to be great at "structuring long essays" probably for the same reasons that I do not bother with that stuff -- because nobody in this forum gets paid for writing articles, therefore, nobody really cares about structure and/or slight grammatical errors. Not to mention, that most of those posters do not speak or write English as their first language, and I know that for a fact because I actually read their comments (especially the long and meaty comments) -- the insignificant but noticeable grammatical errors are consistent enough that it's impossible to miss them (for those of us who can actually spot those mistakes with ease), which would not tend to happen with writers whom are significantly better than me, me being another person in this forum who neither speaks nor writes English as his first language. As a matter of fact, @Estel is probably one of the better English writers of the forum, but he also happens to not understand much of anything about modern football, which is very easy to grasp if you actually read what Estel always says -- and it's always the same exact thing that Estel says, there is no variation at all to his narrative, Zidane's name is thrown around and a sprinkle of Real Madrid bias on the sides, and it's always wrong, in fact, it gets wronger by the year. Would much rather listen to the opinions of people with a flawed grasp on the English language, so long as those people actually have a clue about the things they agree or disagree with. And to make it perfectly obvious: I know that I write loosely structured rants, and I knowingly do that as best as I can with the few minutes that I have to share my thoughts. This is not academia nor do I act like it should be. So I find it bizarre that you of all people, a terrible writer who also happens to be equally terrible at arguments, YOU think that my posts lack structure and evidence LMAO. Your lack of self-awareness is truly staggering... Anyways... You really need to improve on your English if you want to speak about the "structure" and the "waffles" LMAO. If you were any good at reading in this language, you would've by now understood the ample evidence that I've offered to support my case, but hey, how could you possibly know that when you admit yourself that you do not f-cking read posts longer than your peanut-size attention span? Better return far up north to Ronaldo's asshole before the sun ruins your perfect tan. Your credentials will be perfect for that task.
Don't forget the 4-0 goal and the 5-0 goal in a Semi Final that was already 3-0 with 2 out of the 3 goals being away goals, meaning that Bayern Munich had to score 4 goals in the next 70 minutes of the second leg... Those 4-0 and 5-0 goals were crucial in "sealing the win" so to speak, crucial statistics in Ronaldo's run to the 2014 Ronaldo d'Or award. Oh and... don't forget the 6-0 goal, the 7-1 goal, and the 8-2 goal, very very important goals that yet again demonstrated how crucial it was to have Ronaldo score a gazillion tap ins. And how could I forget... the 4-1 goal in minute 130 of the final... another crucial statistic... Goals win you games and Ronaldo scores more goals than Messi. You just can't work your way around that fact can you? CAN YOU? We could go 20 more pages or 200 more pages for that matter, and that will still be the argument peddled about by Ronaldo fans... SMH.
Underwear merchant might probably go missing against an in form Bayern team. He was invinsible against a depleted Juventus team in the 2nd leg, most probably Heynckes Bayern will probably cause problems again like they did back in 2011-12 season. The so called “GOAT” was utter trash against Bayern in two legs barring that penalty and usual tap-in in the 2nd leg.
Saw my name being invoked here, so thought of adding my two cents after glancing through the discussion. First of all, let's leave aside the historic comparison for when both players have finished playing in a particular competition. After all, Messi did not score in 2 straight major international tournaments before picking up 2 straight player of the tournament awards for his scoring and overall game play, in the next couple of major international tournaments he participated in. So it is entirely possible that he comes up big in the latter stages of the CL in the upcoming seasons to redress the balance. Instead, I believe it is more pertinent to look at the current season goalscoring of Messi/CRonaldo and their team mates (along with the teams' defensive performances), in order to draw conclusions. So to begin with, here are the top-3 goal scorers for each of their teams by competition - Barcelona top-3 goalscorers by Competition (2017/18) La Liga 1) Messi - 29 goals, 2) Suarez - 23 goals, 3) Paulinho - 8 goals Copa del Rey 1) Suarez - 5 goals, 2) Messi - 4 goals, 3) Arnaiz - 3 goals Champions League 1) Messi - 6 goals, 2) Own goals - 5, 3) Six players - 1 goal Real Madrid top-3 goalscorers by Competition (2017/18) La liga 1) CRonaldo - 25 goals, 2) Bale - 11 goals, 3) Asensio/Isco - 6 goals Copa del Rey 1) Vasquez/Mayoral - 3 goals, 2) Asensio - 2 goals, 3) Benzema/Bale/Isco - 1 goal Champions League 1) CRonaldo - 15 goals, 2) Benzema/Marcelo - 2 goals, 3) Seven players - 1 goal Going through the above, following are the observations that I can make, Barcelona have done well in competitions wherein Messi has had comparable help in terms of scoring from at least one other player in the team (that being Suarez and the competitions being La Liga and the CdR) and looked shaky in the ones wherein that was not the case, ultimately crashing out (CL). Real Madrid have been unusually reliant on CRonaldo in terms of goalscoring, and thus they have suffered in the tournaments wherein he has not been in a great touch from the start (La Liga) or wherein he has not featured (CdR), and thus have only done well in the competition wherein he has been extraordinarily consistent with his output (CL). Going further, if one looks at the teams' clean sheets across these tournaments, the issue becomes even more clear. Barcelona clean sheets (2017/18) La Liga - 18, Copa del Rey - 6, Champions League - 6 Real Madrid clean sheets (2017/18) La Liga - 9, Copa del Rey - 3, Champions League - 3 So the dependency of Real Madrid on CRonaldo for this season is worsened by the lack of defensive solidity from the team, to an extent wherein if he scores only a single goal often it is not enough to help the team win. In case of Barcelona, the dependency on Messi (and Suarez to a lesser extent) is offset by their relatively better defensive record, although they have suffered in games wherein both factors have aligned i.e. them being defensively poor and Messi/Suarez not having performed. TLDR; Both players have needed their team members (offensive and defensive) to step up to win major trophies in 2017/18, although CRonaldo's performance in the CL statistically this season, is as close to one player dragging a team to the CL SF, as it can get. I doubt however that Real Madrid can move further ahead in the CL, without some of its other players stepping up in terms of providing goals and defensive solidity.
Context. Someone showed a tweet showing that in the last 7 seasons or whatever Ronaldo has scored 30 goals vs. 5 goals by Messi from QF to Finals of the CL. To everyone who dont really care about these two players they'll agree that the level of the competition is much more tougher/competitive at that stage compared to group stages and round of 16. So I didn't cherry pick these stats to make Ronaldo look better, as a matter of fact I have no interest in cherry picking any stats even in the near future to make a case for any player. If it will make you happy you can change that tweet to make it the last 12 years but the question will be the same. So if one person disputes these stats, which I presume they aren't made up, with but "He performed better in El Clasico" that is simply irrelevant to be honest because that point got nothing to do with what is being debated, and this is exactly what you did. Having said this, can you quote me where I kept on criticizing Messi's big game performance! I also don't see what is negative or wrong with scoring with one touch. Is that a new criteria you ate creating now to try to taint the record of a certain player? Is he supposed to score solo goals or other players are forced to score solo goals. And when Messi scores are his goals self created? On Messi playing deep in those games, I'll repeat, nobody forces Messi to play in a certain way, he chooses the way he feels he can influence the game. The fact that it doesn't seem to be working at that stage of the tournament means he needs to find a different way of influencing the game. This is solely on him, and this idea of blaming his team mates, coaches, etc, is not going to help and cannot exonerate him from criticism.
Not sure whom you are responding to as I can't see the quote (assuming there is one as the post before this one is also your's, from what I can see). Might be one of the posters that I have on Ignore, in which case I don't think that I would be of any help.
I don't expect anyone to comment as if they are writing a thesis, and since I speak 5 languages and English is not my first language I don't care about grammatical errors, spelling, or any of many small things in people's comments. However I value comments with clear structure. If we are discussing about Wenger leaving Arsenal I'm not expecting to see somebody talking about how the referees have favored Mourinho, why Italy didn't go to the World Cup, and how useless is Ballon d'Or, how lucky Chelsea have been, and how everybody doesn't actually understand football...etc. This is what I mean by not having a structure. Comments that are all over the place and keep on repeating the same unsubstantiated nonsense for the nth time are tiring.
Check my response to @celito because it answers your concern about me cherry picking stats. This "people who know the game of football" comment is childish and pointless. It is basically as nauseating as Xavi's comments of football lost whenever Barca didn't win. Without even analyzing your use of words to describe some of these important stats that you presented, basically what you are saying is that beside what the facts say Messi has actually been better in the CL than Ronaldo!!!! I don't think this discussion needs to go anywhere further.