Perfomance at the WC: Maradona `1986 vs Messi 2022?

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by Gregoire1, Dec 20, 2022.

?

Better perfomance

  1. Messi 2022

    8 vote(s)
    13.8%
  2. Maradona 1986

    50 vote(s)
    86.2%
  1. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Yeah, I agree (and did address that in the last paragraph in that long post). It’s a valid point. But he had really great performances against the Netherlands and France in this past WC, and a lot of the amazing NT performances from other all-time greats were against lesser teams too. There’s not many players with tons of truly amazing NT performances against top-tier opposition. For instance, Maradona really only has his match against England in 1986 (the Belgium game was amazing and was a semifinal, but like some of Messi’s great knockout-stage matches in the Copa America, Belgium was not a top-tier team).

    It’s also worth noting that matches against lesser teams in major tournaments still matter a lot. Really good teams get knocked out by lesser opponents all the time, since football is not even close to a game where the best team on paper wins every time. For instance, I bet Spain and Portugal wish they had one of these Messi performances from someone on their team when they faced Morocco in this past WC. Heck, there’s a bit less randomness in getting knocked out in the group stages (compared to knockout stage rounds) since it’s not just one single match, but top teams also get knocked out in group stages pretty often (think: Germany and Belgium 2022; Germany 2018; Spain, Italy, England, and Portugal 2014; France and Italy 2010; France & Argentina 2002, etc.). All the matches in major tournaments matter a lot, and there’s enormous value in having incredible performances in any of them. So, while it’s true that Messi isn’t clear of others in terms of number of amazing NT performances against top-tier opposition, him being well clear of others in terms of number of amazing performances against less-than-top-tier opposition is still a very big deal. Indeed, practically speaking, this is one of the reasons that Messi managed to make six NT tournament finals. Perhaps because he was so often amazing in these sorts of matches, he was never knocked out in the group stages, and never was knocked out by a team that wasn’t really great. Indeed, in his entire NT career, Messi only lost one major NT tournament knockout-stage match against a team that didn’t ultimately win the tournament—the 2010 WC loss against Germany. Being so consistently good against lesser teams that your team never stumbles in the group stage or against lesser opposition in the knockout-stages is really enormous and should be valued quite highly.
     
  2. Isaías Silva Serafim

    Real Madrid
    Brazil
    Dec 2, 2021
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    #752 Isaías Silva Serafim, Jan 29, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2023
    Of course the matches against smaller teams are also important and I never said otherwise. But that doesn't go against my point that you're comparing Zidane's 8.5 against Brazil 2006 with a low 8.5 against a considerably weaker team. Can I consider Ronaldo v North Korea 2010 a "super ATG performance"? He did what was expected of him against such a weak team. The same goes for Messi having an 8.5+ against a weaker team. I think a big part of being a "super ATG level performance" is being up against a strong opponent. I think Argentina's only real opponents in the Copa America are Brazil and maybe Uruguay. How many 8.5+ did Messi have against these teams in the Copa America? For the world cup probably the biggest powers are Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, France and maybe Uruguay and Netherlands. How many 8.5+ performances did Messi have against these teams?

    EDIT: For reference:

    Ronaldo vs strong teams in WC/EC:

    Euro 2004
    1G+1A vs Netherlands

    Euro 2008
    1 assist vs Germany

    Euro 2012
    2 goals vs Netherlands

    World Cup 2018
    3 goals against Spain

    Euro 2020

    1G+1A vs Germany
    2 goals vs France

    Total: 8 goals and 3 assists

    Messi vs strong teams in WC/CA:

    Copa 2011
    1 assist vs Uruguay

    World Cup 2018
    2 assists vs France

    Copa 2021
    1 assist vs Uruguay

    World Cup 2022
    1G+1A vs Netherlands
    2 goals vs France

    Total: 3 goals and 5 assists
     
  3. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    He's a smart enough man to know that a Messi vs Nigeria, Bosnia etc. do not belong in the same sentence as some of the all-time performances previously mentioned. Secondly, judging historical performances based on an obscure, random stats calculator is a farce.
     
  4. PMFmdf

    PMFmdf Member

    May 15, 2016
    On the flip side of the coin, is there any legend´s performance worse than this in a KO WC match? Even the pk he produced was a terrible dive...

     
    Gregoire1 repped this.
  5. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #755 lessthanjake, Jan 29, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2023
    As I mentioned, you can quibble about whether certain particular matches should or shouldn’t count. Indeed, it’s not at all surprising you might disagree about whether that Bosnia match should count, since it got exactly an 8.5 from SofaScore, so it was obviously borderline even by that measure. But there’s so many of these performances from Messi—many of which aren’t at all borderline—that there’s really no possible way to slice this such that Messi doesn’t have an exceptionally high number of amazing NT performances.

    I agree that having a great performance against a top-tier opponent is more important than having a great performance against a lesser opponent (though the latter is still really important too, as I mentioned).

    Messi only really has two amazing NT performances against very top-tier NT opponents (QFs and Finals of WC 2022). But there’s really not many players that have lots of amazing NT performances against really top-tier NT opponents. As I mentioned, for instance, Maradona only really has one—against England in WC 1986. You can look at the others I mentioned and see that they generally don’t have more than between 0 and 2 either. Zidane is one player that actually does have more than 2. So this is a specific area where he’s above Messi. But having been abnormally good in several matches against top NT opponents is also the primary thing that makes Zidane be considered a top-tier all-time great. He wasn’t consistently great in his other NT matches (not to mention getting suspended and sent off in major tournaments a lot), and we know from DBS Calcio ratings (and just from his club trophy cabinet) that he wasn’t consistently great at club level either. So yes, Messi is below Zidane in a very specific inquiry that is looking at the exact thing that is Zidane’s main claim to all-time-greatness. That’s more a testament to Zidane really excelling above like anyone else in this one particular way than it is Messi not being in line with virtually everyone else in this regard. Having amazing performances against top-tier NT opponents is very difficult and quite uncommon, even by all-time greats.

    I don’t think SofaScore should be taken as the gospel, but it’s a pretty good objective baseline for discussion, and does actually line up quite well with our general conception of these players’ matches (for instance, Maradona and Zidane got their 8.5+ scores in the exact matches we’d expect). And at the very least, Messi having gotten such an enormous number of 8.5+ scores is a very strong indication that he is certainly not lacking in number of amazing NT performances.

    The issue then becomes the fact that many of those amazing NT performances were against opponents that weren’t top-tier opponents. And that’s something that I’ve been discussing here, and indeed explicitly discussed upfront in my original post with these scores, so it’s hard for me to understand you seemingly suggesting here that I’m hiding the ball regarding that. As I’ve repeatedly said, it’s a valid point, but it’s also true that matches against lesser opponents in these tournaments are still a really big deal, that Messi’s great performances in those matches are a huge reason his team has gotten so far so many times, and that even most very top NT players don’t have a greater number of amazing major tournament performances against top-tier NT opponents than Messi does.
     
  6. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
     
  7. carlito86

    carlito86 Member+

    Jan 11, 2016
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    I actually agree with this

    9/10 should be the starting point
    And anything less than a 9.5 is still very questionably super ATG level material
     
  8. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    @PDG1978

    Just to go back to one minor thing, in relation to amazing matches in tournaments with no ratings, I mentioned earlier that Messi’s CA 2011 match against Costa Rica would *probably* qualify. But honestly, I’d forgotten how good it was. It would *definitely* qualify. And honestly, I’d recommend watching many of Messi’s Copa America performances. The Copa America obviously isn’t as highly watched as the World Cup (and I’m sure is even less commonly available for live viewing in England as opposed to for me in the United States—I don’t remember ever seeing it when I lived in England a couple decades ago), but Messi really does have some truly amazing performances there.



    Obviously, the above is just a group stage match against a team that isn’t particularly great (though they did make the QFs of the next WC). So I’m not posting this specific match to suggest it’s some career-defining performance. More just posting it since it was a match I mentioned as *perhaps* being a notably amazing performance that, upon reminding myself of what happened in that match, I can say *definitely* was one.
     
    Sexy Beast repped this.
  9. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Messi is the only player with 2 golden balls at WCs and he has 2 player of the tournament awards at CAs (should have been 3). Those were not necessarily the most dominantly won awards in history but none of them are controversial.

    Even the biggest skeptic would admit that Messi was at the very least deservingly top 3 in every of those tournaments.

    So which players in history of NT football have been top 3 in 5 different tòurnaments in their career? Who?

    And Messi has truly great performances outside those 5 tournaments like vs Nigeria in 2018, Italy in finalissima, etc.

    Thats btw 5 tournaments being the best player out of:

    WC06
    CA07
    WC10
    CA11
    WC14
    CA15
    CA16
    WC18
    CA19
    CA21
    WC22

    11 big tournaments overall in his career. So even in percantages, Messi was the best player in nearly a half of the tournaments he has played in for Argentina with some great performances in other 6 as well.

    This convo is too long. Messi is undeniable for Argentina at this point.

    He doesnt have one iconic performance that you can pinpoint to as his best, legendary performance, none stands out like that, but thats semantics rather than anything.

    Btw, imo Messi performance against Australia is his best at WCs in absolute sense despite sofascores rating.
     
    Gregoire1 repped this.
  10. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    If you want the cutoff to be 9/10 in rating instead of 8.5/10, then Messi has 9 such performances in the tournaments we have ratings for, and would essentially certainly have at least two more such performances in the tournaments we don’t have ratings for (i.e. the two matches I identified from CA 2011 and CA 2015). That’s at least 11 total.

    That’s more such matches than the other players I listed plausibly would’ve had even at the 8.5+ level. And they’d of course have fewer at 9+. Indeed, talking about just matches with a 9+ rating would leave Maradona with 4 WC matches (and maybe one more at the Copa America), Zidane with just one WC match (and maybe one or two more Euro matches), R9 with just two WC matches (along with maybe 3 Copa America matches), etc. There’s no way to slice this where Messi doesn’t have a really high number of amazing NT performances. The argument against Messi in terms of having amazing NT performances really just has to be that not a lot of his are against top-tier teams (a fact that I’ve addressed in other posts).
     
  11. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    His 2014 Golden ball is the most controversial in the history of the game. Even Diego spoke against it. You are grasping at straws claiming games like Nigeria in the group stages is some all time performances that the footballing community lauds. No commentstor or person on the real world references that match.
     
  12. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    But he has played top tier teams.
     
  13. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Who should have won 2014 golden ball? Nobody in Germany stood out as an individual. Neuer has his own award. Robben is inferior to Messi in every apsect of tournament, James lost in quarter finals and Neymar didnt play past quarter finals.

    I dont know what you mean by great that is certianly not a superlative that i would use to describe 10/10 performance. Messi showed up that match under pressure in surprisingly even match up. First half was absolutely amazing. 2nd half was just good.

    Neither is R9 vs germany final great performance.. and i think zidanes performance vs brazil is overrated. Overblown.
     
    carlito86 repped this.
  14. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Thats easily 10/10 performance and amongst the greatest displays of playmaking in football history.
     
    Gregoire1 and lessthanjake repped this.
  15. SayWhatIWant

    SayWhatIWant Member+

    Jan 10, 2015
    I am positively shocked we are talking about Messi ve Nigeria as an all-time performance while discrediting an all-time finals performance and knockout stage performance.
     
  16. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #766 lessthanjake, Jan 29, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2023
    You’re free to have your own opinion about a player’s performance, but your view is outside of the mainstream here. I just surveyed a ton of published match ratings online for the 2022 WC final. I must’ve looked at about 20 of them. I didn’t tally up each one, but the average rating given to Messi in the ratings I looked at was roughly a 9 out of 10 (there were basically roughly equal numbers of 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s). Meanwhile, validating those scores as not being unduly inflated by excitement for Messi, the devoid-of-emotion SofaScore and WhoScored ratings gave Messi’s performance a 9.2 and 8.9 respectively. So, whatever you want to look at, the general consensus is pretty squarely that this was about a 9/10 match. Which is to say, it’s not Maradona vs. England, but it was a truly great match. Talking about Mbappe scoring a hat trick is beside the point—Mbappe had an all-time great match too!

    Please inform everyone what other amazing NT performance Maradona had against a really top-tier NT opponent. He was amazing against Belgium in 1986, but they weren’t a top-tier opponent, just like many of Messi’s major-tournament knockout-stage opponents haven’t been. He was not amazing against Brazil, Italy, or Germany in 1990. He was not amazing against Germany in 1986, and was good but a bit short of amazing in the group-stage match against Italy in 1986. He was not particularly good against Italy or Brazil in 1982. He played Brazil twice in the Copa America and did not score or assist in losses in both, so I’m fairly certain those weren’t amazing either (though I haven’t watched, so it’s theoretically *possible* that’s wrong).

    If you’re going to call something “patently false,” then you better be able to show that, and if you can’t then you should at the very least clearly admit that.

    You say this without providing anything further, which is telling. Please name a bunch of all-time greats who had a ton of amazing matches against top-tier NTs, and identify the specific matches. Because I named a whole lot of the greatest NT players ever and went through their matches, and virtually none of them have more than 2 amazing matches against top-tier NTs. Besides Zidane, the best shout in the names I listed is Gerd Muller—a player I love, who I think is perhaps the greatest big-game player ever. He’s definitely got two (against Italy in 1970 and against the Soviet Union in 1972), and then he’s got several performances against top tier teams where he nabbed a goal, but he didn’t actually do a whole lot else in those matches so I wouldn’t exactly classify them as meeting the bar we’re talking about.

    Interestingly, despite not being considered a top NT great, one other example of this might actually be Cristiano Ronaldo. As @Isaías Silva Serafim pointed out above, Ronaldo actually had several very good matches against the likes of the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and France (albeit all but one such match I’m thinking of was in the group stages, and all but one match was in the Euros rather than WC, so these matches are mostly not really remembered so much). That’s actually a real credit to him, and I genuinely think his NT performances in group stages have often been really great, and that he’s been a really great performer overall in the Euros. In any event, perhaps as a Ronaldo fan, you’re thinking that Ronaldo did very well against top-tier teams several times and he’s not considered a top-tier NT great, so most top-tier NT greats must have done it many times. But they actually didn’t.

    You say this as some kind of insult, but performing great against lesser opponents is actually a *really important* thing, in a sport where lesser opponents can absolutely get results against better teams (and pretty often do). Performing great in such matches is not some kind of ribbon that doesn’t matter. Consistently performing great against lesser teams is a major reason why Barcelona won 8 La Liga titles in Messi’s final 13 years there, while Real Madrid won only 3. It’s a major reason why Barcelona won the Copa Del Rey 7 times in those years, while Real Madrid won only 2 times. It’s a big reason why the Real Madrid Galacticos only won La Liga twice (and the CdR zero times). And, more pertinently, Messi performing great against lesser opponents for Argentina is a big reason why Argentina was able to make an amazing 6 major tournament finals in the span of 10 tournaments, never crash out in the group stages (which is actually legitimately fairly common for top teams to do—with WC’s typically averaging about 2 big teams crashing out in the groups), and why Messi has only lost a major tournament knockout-stage match one time to a team that didn’t ultimately win the tournament. Performing great against lesser teams is a huge part of winning trophies, and it’s just plainly short-sighted to deny/mock that. I’m sure, of all the great matches in his career—including against many great teams—Cristiano Ronaldo is perhaps most pleased that he played great against the lesser opponents of Hungary and Wales in Euro 2016.

    Diego Maradona was a truly great footballer, but he’s not exactly a model of reason and thoughtfulness whose personal views on anything should be weighed as having any particular value. So it’s not clear to me why you keep harkening back to a random comment from him. While it wasn’t some dominant WC from Messi, he was a fairly clear Golden Ball choice in that World Cup. Thomas Muller could’ve conceivably gotten it I suppose, but he wasn’t even clearly his team’s best player, and there was a strong sense that Germany was a team effort with no true standout player. The other person who had a shout for it was Arjen Robben—who played very well (about as well as Messi IMO), but his team didn’t even make the final. If the Netherlands had won that SF penalty shootout instead of Argentina, then Robben very likely would’ve gotten it (assuming nothing crazy happened in the final), but that didn’t happen.
     
  17. TomNeil

    TomNeil Member

    São Paulo FC
    Brazil
    May 7, 2021
    I have little time to organize my research...and I am very dispersive, it is a big problem. And I don't speak English. But that doesn't stop me from reading some funny things... "the 2014 Golden Ball is the most controversial in the history of soccer"...that was pretty hilarious.
     
  18. Doc_Exec

    Doc_Exec Member

    Jul 7, 2004
    What are you saying man? I clearly said I would put R9's NT achievements slightly below that of Pele and Garrincha. I showed that Pele won 10 trophies with Brazil, including 3 World Cups (he was excellent in all 4 World Cups he played in, albeit playing a few matches in 2 tournaments). Garrincha won 6 tournaments, including 2 World Cups. R9 won 5, including 2 World Cups (he did not play in one and was runners up in another World Cup). All 3 players excelled in almost all the tournaments they played in. However, since the World Cup matters far more than trophies like Copa America, Confed Cup etc., I'd rate Pele and Garrincha's 2 World Cup triumphs slightly higher than that of R9's 1 World Cup triumph plus 1 runner up. That is just my subjective opinion (which also takes into account the fact that Pele/Garrincha got Brazil over the line for the first time, which they were struggling to do earlier). However, R9 has been great at World Cup level. If R9 won in 1998, it would have been a different conversation. He was World Cup's highest scorer ever for a period of time. He won the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball. Golden Ball is a subjective award; however, it is easy to claim that if the Golden Ball voting in 2002 would have been held after the final, rather than before, R9 would have easily won it. He clearly deserved 2 World Cup Golden Balls along with his Golden Boot.
     
  19. Doc_Exec

    Doc_Exec Member

    Jul 7, 2004
    Where is the scrutiny of the awards Messi received? Player of the tournament is a subjective award. Did Messi deserve all of those awards, especially 2014 after doing practically nothing in the knockout stages? What about 2015? No goals in the knockout stages either and 1 in the whole tournament. He even rejected the award as he clearly did not deserve it. Just like a few of his Ballon d'Ors, these awards were merely handed to him. R9 on the other hand would have clearly won his second Golden Ball in 2002 if the voting was held after the final. Fairness of assessment and scrutiny doesn't seem to be one of your virtues.
     
    SayWhatIWant repped this.
  20. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    #770 lessthanjake, Jan 29, 2023
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2023
    Just for reference for everyone, I want to just note the rate of failure for top teams in the WC group stages—which is higher than one would think, and has gotten higher in recent years. Leaving aside Argentina itself, I will define top teams as being: (1) Brazil, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, England, and Netherlands; (2) Belgium from 2014 onwards; and (3) other teams when they won a major NT tournament within one tournament of that (i.e. Portugal WC 2014 & 2018; Uruguay WC 2010 & 2014; Chile WC 2014).

    Here’s the number of top teams that lost in the group stages in recent World Cups where Messi was a key player:

    WC 2022: 2 out of 8
    WC 2018: 1 out of 8
    WC 2014: 4 out of 12
    WC 2010: 2 out of 9

    That’s a total failure rate of 9 out of 37 (24.3%). That rate would suggest there being a 67% chance of going out in the group stages of the WC at least once in that timespan (the math regarding that probability is: (1-(1-0.243)^4)). I also note that Brazil went out in the group stages of the Copa America 1 time out of 6 starting with CA 2007 (16.7%).

    Meanwhile, let’s map out the percent of the time these same top teams have lost in the knockout stages to teams that weren’t top teams (including, for these purposes, teams that won the tournament as being in the top-team category). Here’s the numbers for these teams in knockout-stage matches against non-top teams:

    WC 2022: 7 wins and 3 losses
    WC 2018: 6 wins and 3 losses
    WC 2014: 7 wins and 1 loss
    WC 2010: 7 wins and 0 losses
    Brazil in CA 2007-2021: 4 wins and 2 losses

    Overall, that’s a knockout-stage win-loss record of 31 wins and 9 losses. That’s a 77.5% win rate for top teams in knockout-stage matches against not-top teams. From 2007 onwards, in WC and CA, Argentina went 13-0 in these sorts of matches.

    _____________________

    Now, let’s combine these. Argentina didn’t crash out in four group stages of the WC when other top teams had a 24.3% chance of doing so. Argentina didn’t crash out in six group stages of the WC when Brazil did so 16.7% of the time. And Argentina went 13-0 against non-top teams in knockout-stage matches, when other top teams had a 22.5% chance of losing such matches. Given the numbers for other top teams, we would expect a total probability of just 0.4% that Argentina would be able to manage all of that (the math is: (1-0.243)^4*(1-0.167)^6*(1-0.225)^13)). In other words, given what happens to other top teams, we’d expect Argentina to have had a 99.6% chance of having either crashed out in a group-stage match or lost to a non-top team in a knockout stage match at least once—and we would expect them to, on average, have crashed out in these ways about 5 times in those matches/groups (a little bit less realistically, though, if we account for the fact that crash-outs would’ve prevented later matches against lesser teams from even happening—so maybe we’d expect about 3 actual crash outs). But they never did. This is actually quite anomalous, and is highly suggestive that the sort of great performances by Messi that others want to discount actually prevented Argentina from crashing out multiple times in groups or against lesser teams.

    So, while individual matches against top teams matter more than these sorts of individual matches, we really shouldn’t discount these matches. They matter a lot, and a lot of Argentina’s success in this era can be traced back to Messi’s great performances in such matches.
     
    Gregoire1 and Sexy Beast repped this.
  21. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Messi deserved both of those awards you speak of. You can make arguments for other players in those tournaments (for instance, Muller or Robben in 2014) since Messi wasn’t historically dominant, but it was pretty obvious Messi was going to win both of those, since there wasn’t anyone with a better case for it.

    And if you want to talk about “fairness of assessment and scrutiny” based on the notion that R9 would’ve won the Golden Ball in 2002 if voting was held after the final, you should be honest and acknowledge that Zidane or Thuram probably would’ve won that award in 1998 if voting for it was held after the final. You can’t have it both ways on that.

    I’ll let @Praasen address this (if he wants to), since this relates to a point @Praasen made to you, and is veering into subject matter that I’m not particularly interested in at the moment.

    I will note, though, that saying Pele won 10 trophies with Brazil involves counting wins that were things like single-match events against Paraguay. And meanwhile, Messi won things like the Finalissima and the Olympics—which no one is spending much time talking about. The NT environment was different in Pele’s era—and Pele was a ridiculous NT player—but I don’t think we should go too overboard about the value we put on some of this stuff.
     
    Praasen repped this.
  22. Doc_Exec

    Doc_Exec Member

    Jul 7, 2004
    Pele's 10 trophies are worth a mention as you have highlighted Messi's Finalissima and the Olympics earlier (despite the fact that the Olympics is not a full senior-level international tournament). In that case, why not start listing Under-20 World Cup and the like? And nobody is going overboard with Pele's 10 international trophies. Most of the discussion is limited to the World Cup, not even Copa America and the like, which most of these players did not feel worthy of playing in (hence the relative lack of participation). Copa America isn't equivalent to the Euros. Euros aren't riddled with corruption, and no player/team would sit it out. Copa America has often been an afterthought for countries and star players alike. Sometimes it was organized twice a year, sometimes every year (in Messi's case), and sometimes every 7 years. Most of the time, teams have sent their B or C squads (sometimes even small clubs were sent to represent countries). You guys are conflating the World Cup with less important tournaments.
     
    carlito86 and SayWhatIWant repped this.
  23. Doc_Exec

    Doc_Exec Member

    Jul 7, 2004
    You do realize that I wasn't talking about “fairness of assessment and scrutiny” based on R9 alone but in general when it comes to Messi vs other greats, don't you? Also, how the heck did Zidane deserve a Golden Ball in 1998 (Thuram has an argument, yes)? R9 was brilliant in the second round and the semi-final (and had a good quarter final). He scored/assisted in all 3 matches. If Zidane deserves the Golden Ball for his final performance in 1998, then surely Mbappe deserves it for his final performance in 2022.
     
    SayWhatIWant and carlito86 repped this.
  24. Praasen

    Praasen Member

    Mohun bagan
    Argentina
    Jan 8, 2023
    By the same logic messi also thoroughly deserves it for his final show.Mbappe sure scored more,but I don't think his overall game was as good as Messi's and he worked less hard.messi of course played a lot more inviting passes that either opened the play up a bit or in turn created chances or half chances for the team mates.(in the final as well as throughout the competition).
     
  25. lessthanjake

    lessthanjake Member+

    May 9, 2015
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    That’s why I mentioned Thuram too. Not clear to me which one (between Zidane or Thuram) would’ve won, but it seems quite likely to me that R9 would not have won if voting happened after the final and that a French player would have (with the winner likely being Thuram unless voters decided to really highly value the finals performance, which is quite possible, hence why I mentioned Zidane). It also seems obvious to me that R9 would’ve won in 2002 if voting happened after the finals, and that Cannavaro would’ve won in 2006. You mention Mbappe, but Mbappe’s great finals performance actually *did* help him leapfrog people in this regard, including his own teammates—it’s why he got 2nd and Griezmann wasn’t on the Golden Ball podium despite having been considered to have been better prior to the finals (Mbappe obviously didn’t leapfrog Messi because Messi actually won the finals and had a great performance in it too—neither of which is true of R9 in the 1998 finals). Zidane might have similarly leapfrogged Thuram and others due to his finals performance. What is fairly obvious to me is that R9 would’ve been leapfrogged by at least one person.

    More generally, there’s pages and pages of discussion here of me assessing and scrutinizing Messi’s NT career vs. other greats. You’ll find that not everything I’ve said has been positive. So I’m not sure what you’re asking for.

    I think we can generally agree that stuff like the Finalissima, Olympics, and a lot of these competitions you’re referring to with Pele simply don’t matter very much. We’ve both mentioned them, and that’s fine, but I think we both agree they’re not that important.

    As for the Copa America, you’re right it hasn’t always been taken super seriously during its entire existence, but it definitely has been regarded as a serious and major tournament during the time of Messi’s career. So I don’t see your point, unless it’s that South American players in the past didn’t necessarily have as many major NT tournaments in their career because the Copa America wasn’t one back then. If that’s your point then I think it’s a perfectly valid one.
     
    Praasen repped this.

Share This Page