Messi has carried this entire Barca team for two seasons now, once you come up against top quality opponents you need others to step up too, that hasn't happened for a long while, well other than Ter Stegan, thought he was brilliant in the first leg.
@celito isn’t saying Messi wasn’t a monster, or whatever. He’s simply saying the only important games are not confined to just UCL KO ties. La Liga has plenty of important fixtures as does the UCL group stage and (yes) the Copa del Rey. As one former NFL coach once said, “Tell me it’s not an important game BEFORE kickoff.” Messi has come through in numerous important matches.
He comes through in most of the important matches. Problem for Messi is that the last few years the narrative is never on his side when he loses. If you look around the net, he's a meme and gets the most blame for our loss among other teams' fans.
Messi is rated as best player of semi final( 2 legs) by whoscored. but its two days since that disaster,still no word from him. As a captain and super ace,his words are valueable
Messi may lose the European Golden Shoe to Mbappe. Of course it's not important because both PSG and Barca have meaningless league matches left but it could factor into the Ballon D'Or race and hurt Messi's chances.
Since Ronaldo cried and said he wasn't going to the ceremony if he didn't win. It certainly became a bigger thing with Messi and Ronaldo winning year after year. Basically another point of discussion on who's better.
Messi won European golden shoe and pichichi last season so I dont think it matter for FIFA even he win it. This time Messi is already guarenteed to be League and CL top scorer. Everyone's using quardruple standard when rating Messi's performance. Player like Salah or Modric might only need to do a quarter what Messi does to win individual award. That's the truth that everyone knows.
https://en.as.com/en/2019/04/30/football/1556639114_762789.html Leo Messi to be given prestigious Catalan award Lionel Messi, Barcelona's star forward, is to be awarded one Catalonia's highest distinctions, the Creu de Sant Jordi (Cross of St. George in English). The award was created in 1981 by the Catalan government to recognise individuals who have successfully contributed to the identity of the region. 👏 Leo Messi receives the Creu de Sant Jordi 2019, one of the highest civil distinctions awarded in Catalonia. pic.twitter.com/yLsDDNWIjB— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 16, 2019
With 36 La Liga goals this season, Leo Messi has equaled Telmo Zarra as the player with the most Pichichi awards 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/FVVfWHmG6v— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 19, 2019
Taking nt into account 8th season and 5th in a row over 50 goals. 57 10-11 82 11-12 69 12-13 62 14-15 50 15-16 57 16-17 52 17-18 50 18-19
Everytime Messi win CL people goes "best player ever" Everytime he doesnt win , he's not scoring in big games lol So I guess for haters , only his latest season performance that really counts.
Career official goals at senior level. 757 Pele 734 Romario 721 Gerd Müller 706 Puskas 686 Cronaldo 678 Messi Next season should see push in top 5.
I think this was probably his best season, so I can't see him losing the edge anytime soon. If he keeps out of nt-friendlies and pointless games, to forties perhaps?
Hopefully he does play at this level at least for the next 5 years. These days athletes seems to have much better longetivity, perhaps modern diet and training regime played big role, I dont know. Even in mma, boxing and tennis, many of them still at top level throughout their 30's, back in the day, 32-33 was considered old and past prime.
That depends, football is nowadays physically more demanding I think which evens it out, and there seems to be more and more games added every season to the calendar. Gordie Howe played 51 years old in NHL and I don't see anyone topping that anytime soon. If you rely on your skill you could play pretty old, but physically, I don't know. Federer too is a skill player, so he can stay on top later in life than physical players.
Mayweather and Pacman are still dominating younger guys in their late 30's and early 40;s and boxing is very phsyical sport. Ok that might be only two people as example but it proof its possible. I think Zanetti won treble with Inter at almost 37. Michael Jordan didnt even start to win championship until almost 30, yet he managed to win 6. So many UFC fighters becoming champ and still very competitive in their mid 30's . If you look back in the day, top athletes started to declined physically in their early 30's . Messi is still having similar statistic as he does in past 10 years despite having to play with many new teammates every few years thus I dont think he'd suddenly drop significantly within 1-2 seasons. Even yesterday he's still scoring his typical goals.
Hey Bada Bing, I have always read the Czech, Josef Bican, being the top goal scorer ever with something like 805 goals. Are those not official goals?
Hmm, Foreman was a champion at 45. I would need to see statistical correlation before agreeing that players nowadays have better longevity on average. Messi still is in good position though as he's a skill player before physical one, and that's something that you don't usually lose, but can maintain, and even learn to be better, like in freekicks lately.