Cristiano Ronaldo scored 60 goals, helped his team (Portugal) reach the semi finals of Euro cup and won the Spanish League with real madrid. He is the first player to score against every Spanish league team he has faced and holds many record including scoring in 6 consecutive matches against barcelona. do you still think messi would win the world player of the year award?
He wasn't consistent enough for Barca during the La Liga campaign. Just ask yourself out loud, "Was Iniesta the best player in the world this year?" As much as I love the Pale Rider, I couldn't seriously answer "yes" to that question. That's not to say he isn't great and world class regardless.
I think he's been the best player in the world for a couple of years now! The reason Barca achieved what they did was because of Iniesta and Xavi... Messi is pretty replaceable on that team. I can't consider a replaceable part the best player in the world... You can't replace Michael Jordan, you can't replace Wayne Gretzky, you can't replace Barry Bonds... You can replace Messi... how is that the world's best player?
I'm sorry, but that's sig worthy. Please tell me how 211 goals in the last 4 complete seasons are replaceable.
you only need 1 goal above the competition to win games and championships... One more time.. remove Messi from Barcelona's team.. and you have the Spaniard National Team, they have done a lot of winning over the past 4 years. With a lot of 1 goal up scores. Somebody else scored those goals, they kept the ball away from the opposition.. and won, without Messi. So if they got a combined 105 goals from other players, they probably would have won around the same number of games. Messi has a lot of extra goal games, where the opposition gets crushed... those goals count for his stats, that's about it. It's not Messi's fault that he gets put in a position to score tons and tons of goals, plus he's an amazing striker and makes them count! But if you put Messi as the premier piece of your team.. you have Argentina Put this on your sig... Barca without Messi = Spaniard Team Messi without Barca = Argentinean Team One wins.. the other fails hard... Messi is not best player in the world if not for Iniesta and Xavi. Everytime he gets up there he should just take the trophy and hand it to those 2 and say thank you. If that's not enough proof for you... wait until Xavi can't play anymore and Iniesta gets older and can't run around the pitch.
Your argument is flawed because Spain don't need to compete with the likes of Real Madrid, Man United, Bayern Munich, etc. to win the Euros and World Cup. I don't know how people could follow football so closely (as you clearly do) yet not realize that Spain plays against a completely different set of opponents. That said, I'm not saying Messi wins things all by himself so don't twist my words in that direction. Thanks.
spain played with a lot of teams stronger than those you have mentioned. Germany has a stronger side than bayer, italy much stronger than AC, england stronger than man u, brazil and argentina are also stronger than the club teams, you can even make the case for the dutch, portugal uruguay etc etc. seems pretty even to me. plus im sure ivoey coast japan ghana and other WC teams are better quality than 1/2 of the teams in the champions league Group stages in CL is almost laughable. take a closer look at the rosters of the teams you mentioned, then take a look at the rosters of the Nat Teams, you'll have a different opinion about the lvl of competition
No way is England stronger than Man United. England doesn't have Vidic, RVP, Nani, Valencia, or Evra. Also, England doesn't play nearly as well as a team as Man United does.
Agree so ... ManU > England (maybe = Tottenham) Germany NT = Bayern Italy NT > Juve Brazil NT >> any Santos, Sao Paolo ... Argentina NT > River, Boca Netherland NT >> Ajax USA NT > MLS winner France NT > PSG Spain NT >= Barca or Real (like 51/49) Portugal NT >> Benfica ..,
Really? Messi doesn't put Barca over the top? You could throw in Dani Alves too (healthy and in form). The only thing Spain really has over Barca is Casillas, but I don't think that makes up for not having Messi.
Not only Cassilas but Sergio Ramos (not that worse tahn Dani Alves). On TOP of that in absence of Messi, Spain still got tons of choices in Silva, Fabregas, Carzola, Torres. In midfield Xabi Alonso also provided more thorough than a Busque who was mainly DM. Thats why I rated Spain 51 and Barca 49 (very close call) and in fact SPain won 3biggest consecutive prizes, while Barca had hard time to retain their Liga + UCL at same time!
Which is why I consider Messi something of a replaceable piece. And once again, if you are replaceable you can't be the best in the world... Just saying...
Comparing Portugal with Benfica is completely missing the point. Benfica isn't a top 5-7 club team in the world. Portugal is (for NTs). Portugal have many gaping holes on their team, but they are top 5-7 in the world. That should tell you something about national teams. Real Madrid should be the one compared to Portugal since there is overlap of key players, but of course RM has so much more talent at pretty much every position outside those 2 key players that are on both teams. Barca > Spain (Spain might have more depth, but there is a good reason why they don't score much) RM > Portugal Bayern >= Germany (when Robben and Ribery are on, they outweigh Ozil and Khedira) Juve = Italy Man City > Argentina Chelsea > Brazil Man Utd >>>> England So clearly the world of club football is a lot more top heavy.
No. PositionPlayer 1 GK David de Gea 2 DF Rafael 3 DF Patrice Evra (vice-captain) 4 DF Phil Jones 5 DF Rio Ferdinand 6 DF Jonny Evans 7 MF Antonio Valencia 8 MF Anderson 10 FW Wayne Rooney 11 MF Ryan Giggs 12 DF Chris Smalling 13 GK Anders Lindegaard 14 FW Javier Hernández 15 DF Nemanja Vidić (captain) 16 MF Michael Carrick No. PositionPlayer 17 MF Nani 18 MF Ashley Young 19 FW Danny Welbeck 20 FW Robin van Persie 21 FW Ángelo Henríquez 22 MF Paul Scholes 23 MF Tom Cleverley 24 MF Darren Fletcher 25 MF Nick Powell 26 MF Shinji Kagawa 27 FW Federico Macheda 28 DF Alexander Büttner 33 FW Bébé 50 GKSam Johnstone You can make that call... I say it's pretty close #Pos.PlayerDate of birth (age)CapsGoalsClub GK Fraser Forster 17 March 1988 (age 24) 0 0 Celtic GK Joe Hart 19 April 1987 (age 25) 26 0 Manchester City GK John Ruddy 24 October 1986 (age 26) 1 0 Norwich City DF Leighton Baines 11 December 1984 (age 27) 12 1 Everton DF Ryan Bertrand 5 August 1989 (age 23) 2 0 Chelsea DF Gary Cahill 19 December 1985 (age 26) 11 2 Chelsea DF Steven Caulker 29 December 1991 (age 20) 0 0 Tottenham Hotspur DF Phil Jagielka 17 August 1982 (age 30) 16 1 Everton DF Glen Johnson 23 August 1984 (age 28) 43 1 Liverpool DF Ryan Shawcross 4 October 1987 (age 25) 0 0 Stoke City DF Kyle Walker 29 May 1990 (age 22) 4 0 Tottenham Hotspur MF Tom Cleverley 12 August 1989 (age 23) 5 0 Manchester United MF Steven Gerrard (c) 30 May 1980 (age 32) 99 19 Liverpool MF Aaron Lennon 16 April 1987 (age 25) 20 0 Tottenham Hotspur MF Leon Osman 17 May 1981 (age 31) 0 0 Everton MF Jonjo Shelvey 27 February 1992 (age 20) 1 0 Liverpool MF Raheem Sterling 8 December 1994 (age 17) 0 0 Liverpool FW Theo Walcott 16 March 1989 (age 23) 30 4 Arsenal MF Jack Wilshere 1 January 1992 (age 20) 5 0 Arsenal MF Ashley Young 9 July 1985 (age 27) 26 6 Manchester United FW Wayne Rooney (vc) 24 October 1985 (age 27) 78 32 Manchester United FW Daniel Sturridge 1 September 1989 (age 23) 3 0 Chelsea FW Danny Welbeck 26 November 1990 (age 21) 13 4 Manchester United
Real Madrid has 2 portuguese players, that's not a base for comparison. Benfica plays on the Champions League.. That's the base for comparison. Compare it to Porto if you would like... Portuguese NT is still stronger than Porto. You're looking at only 2 players (which are equally talented) on a team when it comes to Bayern... There are a lot of other players in the field that will outweight Bayern's roster. If Juve is not equal Italy, again best Juve Players are pretty much on the Italian NT... along with the other best Italian players from other teams! Chelsea is not even close to Brazil. Brazil mostly has better pieces all around, and some of the Brazil pieces are the best Chelsea pieces! Man Utd.. I just put the roster of both for comparison on my above post.
Needing the club to be from the same country as the NT in order to compare them is missing the point. I'm merely comparing the top few clubs in the world with the top NTs to show that club football is more top heavy. I chose clubs/NT's with some overlap just to make the comparison easier (since then some players can be cancelled out). And many of those are also on Germany's squad so they are "cancelled-out". Yeah, I couldn't see that post clearly. Anyway, no-way is England better than (or even equal to) Man Utd. So many more scoring options for Man Utd, while defensively it comes down to Cole v Evra (since Terry retired) which is pretty close.
CL 2012 teams (32 teams) Bayern Napoli Man City Villareal Inter Milan CSKA Trabzonspor Lille Benfica Basel Man. U Otelul Galati Real Madrid Lyon Ajax Dinamo Zagreb Chelsea Bayer Leverkusen Valencia Genk Arsenal Marseille Olympiacos B. Dortmund Apoel Zenit Porto Shaktar Barca AC Milan Viktoria Plzen Baten Borisov 7 teams considered to be top tier teams (Bolded) On a group stage you have 6 games to prove your superiority, a high % the best teams comes out on top. 2 didn't qualify for the next stage (not as good as people think they are) First Stage of Knockout Phase you see a clear dominance of the top tier teams that made it, while some of the "top tier" had difficulty getting past their teams No difficulty - Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona. Difficulty - AC Milan, Chelsea Again on the following stage you see a clear dominance of the top tier teams, only Milan got left behind because the reality is... it's not on Barca's lvl. No Difficulty - Real Madrid, Barca, Chelsea, Bayern. Difficulty - AC Milan (lost to a much better team So here it's when competition actually starts! Technically you would have to compare the National Teams that Spain plays against vs 3 teams maybe 4 (Chelsea) Barcelona - Spain is getting compared to them. So if Spain is a weaker side they would have more difficulty winning Championships. Real Madrid - Great Combination of players, would challenge top Nat Teams But not sure if they would win 20% of their International Competitions if they were playing the likes of Brazil, Germany, Spain, Argentina, England, Dutch, Uruguay, Portugal, Italy. Bayern Munich - Germany Nat Team Roster is very close to it and likely better. 7 Nat Teamers in their roster only 4 Starters Which means Germany has 7 other players which are better Ribery and Robben are toss up to the German replacement Chelsea - Squad is filled with NT players, but a lot of them wouldn't start on their NT Since you compared them to Brazil. GK - Chelsea LWB - Brazil (Marcelo) CD - Brazil (thiago silva) CD - tie (plays for both David Luiz but is fighting for his spot as a starter) RWB - Brazil (Dani Alves) MID - tie (plays for both but Ramires is fighting for his spot as a starter) MID - tie (plays for both but Oscar is fighting for his spot as a starter) MID - Mata vs (Lucas, Kaka) - Edge Brazil MID - Terry vs (Paulinho, Romulo) - Toss up but I would still edge Brazil because of Paulinho) ATT - Neymar... ATT - Hulk, Damiao, Fred Brazil.... So out of the teams that actually had a chance in the last ECL I see only 4 being serious contenders, while in a World Cup you don't have such dominance over the teams because they are all National Teamers... and we can pretty much compare 3 of those Champions League teams to National Teams (Nat Team being better) While adding a bunch of other NTs that are more competitive than the rest of the Champions League. Your theory is just bad.
Dare to compare! World Cup tournaments - you almost never have knockout stages where teams dominate the opposition. The sample size is smaller but still, difference of about 1 goal for the winner. Copa Libertadores - you make it past the group stage you have a chance to win, there are very little teams which are complete duds in the knockout stages. (once in a while they make it past) Champions League - Because of the 3 Super teams (Barca, Bayern, Real) which can be compared to National Teams, all real competition starts at the semi finals. With that said.. Spain has a harder time to win Championships
Money can distort parity in club football, but not so much in international football. So that's why club football has super teams. If you are a big club you can fill holes in your squad. If your NT has a hole in it, there is nothing that can be done.
How much would it cost to buy the Brazilian NT? Spaniard? Argentinean? German? Depth in certain countries makes up for the not being able to purchase players