I doubt the data is derived from a previous generation, it would not make that much sense to be honest since the advent of these statistics are far later and would likely be a database that is ongoing. That is the most probable course of action.
What about the absolute amount of CLs Ronaldo won as compared to the absolute amount for Messi? Where do we draw the line
Huh? What’s your point? I was pointing out that, even without his best tournament, Messi has a strong NT resume—one that very few players would match if you take out their best tournament. There’s no relation whatsoever to Ronaldo winning the Champions League. Unless you’re asking if Ronaldo would have a great CL resume even if you took out his best CL campaign—and the answer to that is, of course, is yes. But that is not a particularly meaningful point, since no one was arguing that, whereas you were arguing that Messi’s NT resume was weak without WC 2022.
This is probably right about the data set, but we aren’t talking about a model that’s so simple that it would just take as the xG the percent of exactly similar shots in the data set that have been scored. It’s a regression model with a whole bunch of variables and a ton of underlying data on the effect of each of those variables. So it is capable of spitting out a sensical xG estimate even if an exactly similar shot has not been taken all that many times. In any event, even if, for argument’s purposes, we assumed the model is wrong for some shots from miles away due to limited data and that it is somehow consistently wrong about those shots in a way that actually incorrectly increased Ronaldo’s xG, it’s not like the model is going to be wrong by a huge amount. It’s not giving a FK from a mile away a high xG, meaning that even being wrong by a lot in percentage terms wouldn’t change Ronaldo’s average xG much, because the numbers involved are so small. For instance, even if you thought the model wrongly gave a few free kicks a 0.02 xG when it should’ve been 0.01 xG, it’s not like that’s going to radically change Ronaldo’s average xG—even though 0.02 is actually twice 0.01 (so that would actually be a very big error for the model). For example, in that data set I showed, Ronaldo had shot 105 FKs, with an average xG that looks like about 0.0575. Now let’s say 15 of those free kicks were from miles away, and that the model is somehow wrong about them and that it overvalues the xG of those and gives them 0.02 xG when it should actually be half that (i.e. 0.01 xG). Again, to be clear, all of that is a massive assumption and it is much more likely that the model is quite accurate and that any “errors” that that did exist wouldn’t all go in one direction anyways (such that they’d cancel out and not really affect the bottom line). But we’ll assume the above for argument’s purposes. How much would that affect Ronaldo’s bottom-line overall xG? Well, that “error” would have made Ronaldo’s xG go from 0.0561 to 0.0575. So, this really isn’t something that’s going to have a big effect on the bottom-line average xG—which means it’s not something that could possibly have a meaningful affect on the conclusions we are discussing.
This won't be to do with indirect free-kicks will it Primo? Probably not, but it just crossed my mind when I was skipping through everything posted on the thread. For example, on this video, the shot of Zico being a 'free-kick' but the shots of Platini and Maradona being from 'open play'? Like I say I doubt that is what is happening and I haven't looked into it at all, but I guess it'd be easy to check for Pirlo, for you, or you'd instantly know if that's not what is going on and it's really a data mis-input situation (I don't think mis-input is a word but you know what I mean I guess lol!).
So, you find facts amusing. Cool! Well, I did not list the Argentines because with all the scrutiny going on about the timing of Pele's hattrick and the strength of his touch for an assist, I thought such intense scrutiny of Argentina's dubious World Cup victories would render them worthless. But clearly, the level of scrutiny is different for different sets of players.
Not at all. Just that I think Ricardo giusti and olarticoechea are way better world cup players than Messi. They took just two tournaments to achieve what Messi has taken five for. You'll agree with me I suppose.
In fact without a little bit of scrutiny the perpetual fanboyism and bad logic you put in time to time are hard to refute(of course not saying all your points are bad ).cheers.
Bad logic and fanboyism? I resort to the data, and draw conclusions based on the data. You don't do that (probably because the data doesn't suit your arguments). In any case, I don't need to invent imaginary scenarios to denigrate other players.
So 'Brazil was struggling' in 1958 was concluded from data? Problem is whenever I resort to data you call it intense scrutiny.. I guess messi failed in several tournaments despite being MVP was also concluded from a lot of deep data.
Brazil 1958 was already explained with data...draw against England + must-win situation against a strong Soviet Union + player revolt = signs of struggle. If you want to use data to scrutinise Messi's failures and MVP awards, I'm game. Should we start with knockout stage performance data (which was championed in this thread)? Success percentage? Performance in final matches perhaps? No need to invent counterfactual scenarios here.
I guess Brazil needed a draw against Soviet, going by the goal differences of all teams in their group. I haven't read anything about the player revolt matter. One fact known to me is pele repeatedly said in various interviews that 1958 world cup was the best time of his life. The atmosphere on and off the ground, team bonding,the crowd everything was so much in tune that one month in Sweden was like a dream for him
This discussion is not one I am super invested in so I don't want to get deep in the weeds on it, but I do want to point out that it's overly reductive to say that a team wouldn't have won without a forward simply because they got goal(s) and/or assist(s) that provided the margin of victory. After all, if that player didn't play, they'd be replaced by someone who certainly might do good stuff too (and, in a team like Brazil, that's actually fairly likely). For instance, after Pele got injured in 1962, he was directly replaced in the roster by Amarildo. Obviously, not as good of a player as Pele, but he proceeded to score both goals to beat Spain and to score Brazil's opening goal in the finals (and may have had assists too--I don't know off the top of my head). Mechanically comparing Pele's goals and assists to the scoreline and saying that proves the team couldn't have done well without him essentially amounts to assuming that whoever would've replaced Pele wouldn't have done anything good--and we can be almost certain that that's not the case (and it's probably not even close to the case). I realize that's not the entire argument being made, but just wanted to make that minor point.
Is that correct? I guess they needed a draw to go through without a playoff, but given that England and Austria drew their match, I'm pretty sure Brazil could've gone through even if they lost to the Soviet Union. It's just that, based on that WC's tiebreaker rules, I think they would've needed a playoff match against England in that scenario. When you look at the group stage points, remember that back then a win only got you 2 points, so even with a loss to the Soviet Union instead of a win, Brazil would've had 3 points total (level with England, which, in that WC, would've triggered a playoff match to determine which one went through). Obviously, a playoff match is something to be avoided, but just wanted to clarify this.
C'mon guys, enough of counterfactual analysis of Pele. Let's now focus our scrutiny on Messi (this is a Messi thread after all)...the timing of his semi-final hattricks , hattrick against France...nee Panama , the weight of his assist in the final and so on. Go...
It’s not really my discussion with you (rather, you’re primarily discussing things with @Praasen), but it’s worth noting that the discussion actually started with you scrutinizing Messi, suggesting “it would still be difficult to argue Messi being an all-time top performer for NT” and that many players, including R9 and others, have had better NT careers than Messi if you take away their best NT tournament (since I’d said his resume minus WC 2022 is better than virtually any player’s NT resume without their best tournament). It only veered into a discussion of Pele when @Praasen pointed out that the logic of your comparison of Messi to R9 might also leave Pele looking below R9 as a NT player. You then started quibbling about in-the-weeds stuff about Pele, presumably trying to justify why you weren’t demonstrating a clear double standard. But the primary point being made to you is that your scrutiny of Messi is unfair. So, actually, I’d say it’s always been about scrutiny of Messi, and the discussion you were having only veered away from Messi because people were trying to explain to you that your attempts to diminish Messi didn’t make a lot of sense when taken to their logical conclusion, and you went into the weeds about Pele to try to defend that.
Actually in the movement of the de Maria goal the two touches messi played were far better than the 'near no touch' pele assist(?) to vava in the 58 final
Just to put some data/information behind Messi’s NT resume, the following is a list of all players that have been player of the tournament in more than one major tournament (i.e. World Cup, Euro, or Copa America). There are only seven of them, and no one else has done it as many times as Messi: Players Who Have Been Player of the Tournament in Multiple Major NT Tournaments:* 4 Times: Lionel Messi (WC 2014; CA 2015; CA 2021; WC 2022) 3 Times: Jose Nasazzi (CA 1923; WC 1930; CA 1935) 2 Times: Ronaldo (CA 1997; WC 1998) Zinedine Zidane (Euro 2000; WC 2006) Enzo Francescoli (CA 1983; CA 1995) Pele (CA 1959; WC 1970) Manuel Seone (CA 1925; CA 1927) On top of that, Messi also won the Best Young Player award at Copa America 2007. While I note that the best young player award has only been given sporadically in the Euro and Copa America, Pele is the only other player who has won a major tournament best player award and also won a major tournament best young player award (Pele having gotten the WC 1958 best young player award). So this is an addition to his NT resume that other top NT performers besides Pele do not have. And for what it’s worth (which, to be honest, I don’t think is a whole lot), Messi has also distinguished himself quite a bit in more minor NT competitions. For example, he won the man of the match in the 2022 Finalissima. Considering the King Fahd’s/Confederations Cup/Finalissima together as one entity, only one other person that has won a major tournament best player award has also been given the best player award at that competition (Adriano: CA 2004 & CC 2005).** Moreover, Messi won the Olympics in 2008, and while there was no best player award, he is generally considered the one who would’ve been most likely to get it if such an award had been awarded (Riquelme being the only other plausible option). He also won the best player award at the 2005 U-20 World Cup. Neither of these three things are very important IMO, but they do add at least a little bit to his NT resume. There’s really no one in history who has earned as many individual accolades/awards for their NT performance as Messi. _____________________________ * Note: There was no Player of the Tournament for the Euros until 1984. However, before that, there was a team of the tournament, and there is no player that made a Euro team of the tournament in that timeframe that also won a major tournament player of the tournament otherwise (i.e. a WC golden ball or a Euro player of the tournament from 1984 onwards). That said, there were four players who made two teams of the tournament in that timeframe: Beckenbauer (1972 and 1976); Zoff (1968 and 1980); Yashin (1960 and 1964); and Ivanov (1960 and 1964). So, in theory, it’s possible that if Euro player of the tournament awards had been given in that timeframe, those guys could’ve won it twice. Given Ballon D’or voting in those years, I think it’s very unlikely that any of them would have, though, except that it’s possible Beckenbauer would’ve won it in both 1972 and 1976 (he won the Ballon D’or both years), and there’s an outside chance Yashin could’ve won it in both 1960 and 1964 (I think he probably would’ve won it in 1964, but 1960 very likely would’ve been Amancio or Luis Suarez). Beckenbauer is the best shout for potentially having won it twice, but IMO it’s more likely than not that either Netzer or Gerd Muller would’ve won it in 1972, and a good chance Ivo Victor would’ve won it in 1976, so I’d say it is pretty unlikely Beckenbauer would’ve come away with it twice (see this thread for prior discussion from people on this topic generally: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/european-championship-players-of-the-tournament-1968-2006.2028211/). ** Note: The Nations League is another minor tournament—which I’d classify as a bit below the Confederations Cup in prestige. But FWIW, the two players who have won best player at that (Busquets and Bernardo Silva) have not won any other player of the tournament award with their NT. I also note that, similar to the Nations League, there were in the past some glorified NT friendlies that were made into “cups.” For instance, Pele played in a bunch of these—as did others, of course. There are not best player awards for these, but it is certainly possible that players who won best player awards in major tournaments would’ve also been named best player at one or more of these competitions too. Seems fairly analogous to Messi’s Finalissima man of the match.
Lol! All these responses are a joke. What about Pele's touch to Tostao for the Jairzinho goal against Uruguay in 1970? No assist for him.
The information I just posted in the post right before you said this was absolute fact. You’re free to add more nuance to it (for instance, to point out that not all player-of-the-tournament performances are the same—a fact which I’ve plainly acknowledged when discussing the precise topic of this thread), but you’re not free to label facts as “rewriting reality.” Try to come forth with something of substance, rather than having another periodic childish conniption characterized by unfounded attacks. Because otherwise you are just being a manifestly toxic and worthless poster.
No, no. If you look at the broad picture, I simply summarized it as it is. We can argue back and forth ad nauseam, but the basic premise for some here is to list nonending arguments and essays as to why Messi is XYZ and then nonending arguments and essays about why Pele / Diego / Ronaldo etc. are not quite what we think they are. There is no limit to the rhetoric and logical arguments that one can raise, it just spirals the conversation into non ending circles, because posters have basic premises and then find ways to defend or attack accordingly.
I want to say that I really enjoy most of your posts.. you have a very sensical perspective on things. As for the thread because I dont think Ive shared my view.. Maradonas 86 peformance is celarly better than Messis 22 even taking in consideration that football has drastically changed and improved therefore we will never see individual performance like in the past. I would say that Messis 22 performance is not even his best performance in interlantional tournaments. Copa 16 still remains his best imo (funny enough, he didnt get player of the torunament for that one). Regardless, Messis body of work for Argentina is undeniable at this point. Perhaps not in terms of a single peak performance, but he has sooo many great performances and tournaments at every stage of his career that I dont see anyone has. I would say probably only Pele has better international career and even thats up to debate given that Pele never won Copa(?) and played for all time great Brazil sides. Multiple golden balls in WCs and in Copa. Nobody has done that.
The thing with Messi is that he does have his successes now - CA win, WC win, and multiple best player awards in each tournament - sure, nobody else has all these things. But nobody else, to my knowledge, played 5 WCs and 6 CAs. Yes, his successes are now there, but there are also many NT failures throughout where Messi didn't show his best self or shirked at the big occasion. The is distinct from Pele, who in all honesty, probably can't be said to have a single NT failure. Until 2021, Messi was considered by most to have had an underwhelming NT career for a GOAT-contender. He at times played splendidly for Argentina is his tournaments, and with big moments in some, but he often disappeared too. Now that Messi has his 2021 CA and 2022 WC, that enhances his NT career significantly. But just because it looks great on paper next to many others doesn't necessarily make it better or equal, because before 2021, Messi actually struggled to perform at GOAT levels when it mattered most for Argentina on the pitch. His struggles and successes need to be weighed simultaneously rather than just looking at one or the other. .