Does Lionel Messi have too many failures to be considered the greatest footballer of all time?

Messi going to Miami as a 36 years old after a WC Winning season and A Ligue 1 Trophy is totally fine i don't understand why people are so shocked about this.

 

Okay with Messi officially going to Miami today where does he rank all time for u Guys?

 

Second. Pele has a better career

 

First place for me
I saw his highs and lows in real time and he is the best player I personally saw
He is also better than the Pelé that exists on YouTube compilations


Compilations don’t trick me
I know that many of the highlights,dribbles and goals they include occurred in non competitive environments

However I am willing to be open to the idea that Pelé was possibly a better a player in his prime due to the vast majority of his career not actually being recorded (some estimates say only 30% of his goals are recorded)
Every year or so new archives are uncovered so in 10 years we may have an even better picture of Pelé then we currently do

 

Deeply disappointed in Lionel Messi. He could have tried to win the Champions League with another European team and establish himself as his all-time top scorer. Then, perhaps, go play Newells and try to win the Libertadores. But he chose money and peace of mind, just like Ronaldo.

 

I really like boxing. Manny Pacquiao was the undisputed pound for pound in the first decade of the 21st century. But later in his life he gave more importance to his family and religion; and then his legacy declined quite a bit. I think it is the same case of Messi, who according to his statement, chose to play in the USA for the peace of mind of his family and put aside his record in football history. Although I think he is the best in history, I think he could have continued writing more golden pages in football (as I mentioned in the champions league and libertadores). I repeat, as a fan of this sport, I am deeply disappointed.

 

Disappointing that a guy who is still arguably the best player in the world joins a minor league. He still has 2-3 more years at a high level.

As for where I rank him I think he's #1. Compared to Maradona he really has such a massive edge in longevity. Since I've hardly watched Pele only a few grainy reels I'll be diplomatic and say Messi is the greatest footballer of the last 50 years.

 

Messi already won the World Cup,Copa,CL etc

If he won the champions league at this age with a different team(PSG)
And then went back to South America and ended his career with the copa libertadores as a main protagonist playing for Newell’s

At that stage It would be a disservice to describe him as being a footballer
He would be closer to something like this

 

Messi´s Key catalgoue
2 Goat Level UCL campaigns( 2014/15, 10/11)
2 All timer UCL campaigns ( 08/09, 18/19)
1 All Timer WC campaign ( 2022)
1 Elite WC campaign (2014)
1 Goat Level Copa America Campaign (2021)
2 Elite Copa campaigns( 2015 and 16)
Best La Liga perfromer of all Time
atleast Top 3 UCL Performer of all time
Best Copa Performer of all time
Top 10 World Cup Performer of all Time

 

It would be Interesting to know what South American posters here consider to be the greatest Copa America campaigns of all time


How does Messi 2021 compare to let’s say Francescoli(his best) or even R9 at his best


A rough idea of his peak/best moments and still widely considered the greatest Uruguayan player since the 1980s
https://beyondthelastman.com/2020/10/02/the-genius-of-enzo-francescoli/



Was batistuta too specific in his role to be compared to Messi 2021?
How great was Rivaldo really in the 1999 Copa?



Would be interesting if anyone had thoughts or maybe even different choices
Riquelme perhaps in 2007?

 

There is quite a lot of material in the thread linked below.

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/c...l-all-star-teams.2031461/page-9#post-39367431

 

He’s 1st place for me. As @carlito86 says, there’s some uncertainty with regards to Pele, since we are so limited in the footage we have. So it’s possible Pele was better. But from what I’ve seen I just don’t think so.

What does it for me is to just think about the primary facets of attacking play broadly speaking: (1) goalscoring; (2) passing; (3) dribbling. I think there’s just one player in history that is clearly one of the top few of all time at all three things, and it’s Messi. And this is where I end up putting Pele below Messi. The numbers we have (often from newspaper reports, rather than footage) say Pele did get a lot of assists, but in the footage I just haven’t seen anywhere near the level of passing from Pele that we saw from Messi (or from other maestro passers, like Maradona, Platini, Laudrup, etc.). From what I’ve seen, I conceptualize Pele as being more of a Thierry Henry level passer—someone who is definitely a really good passer and gets lots of assists, but is not an all-timer in that facet of the game. So, to me, this leads to a conclusion that Messi is the better player.

Of course, “greatness” is also about team achievements, so theoretically Messi could be a better player but not be the “greatest” of all time if he lacked the team achievements to back it up. That’s where I conceptualize a difference between “best” and “greatest.” But I don’t really see the distinction mattering in this case, because Messi had a huge amount of team success—winning the World Cup, the Copa America, multiple champions leagues, a boatload of league titles (many with outrageous point totals, while in a league with the generation’s other best team), and a ton of more minor titles. There’s arguably no one in history with as much overall team success as Messi. Again, Pele is a comparator/competitor here, since he won three World Cups. The club success wasn’t quite on par with Messi IMO, but it’s also kind of comparing apples to oranges because the club landscape was very different back then. So ultimately I think it largely comes down to a question of whether Pele winning three World Cups is enough to elevate him over Messi, despite Messi being probably a better player (see above paragraph). My answer to that is no. Part of that is that I personally put little value on the 1962 World Cup for Pele, since he barely played. So, to me, we’re basically talking about 2 World Cup wins vs. 1 World Cup win. And when we consider that Messi made the finals of another World Cup and also won a Copa America (at a time when it’s treated as a major tournament), I just don’t think that the extra World Cup win as a main protagonist is enough to elevate Pele’s “greatness” above a player that I see as better. Again, though, this is an inexact science, since my assessment of who is “better” between the two must inherently rely on somewhat limited footage of Pele.

 

Libertadores (COMEBOL president wants messi in it, and he's open to MLS team invites), another Copa America, another World Cup are all still in the realmst of possibility. Depending on how serious he takes it, and starts getting back to his competitive roots and stop being a complete family man, he could do it.

His European career, top scorer and another CL are done, but he can open other avenues and opportunities. International and Copa Libertadores are a new front for him, that depends on him though. There are still players in their 30s who want to reach new heights, I don't know his mindset. Maybe after some rest and enjoyment he'll get new pleasure in going for more hardware.
Right now he seems sad and defeated because of how people treated him. Like he said, he wanted this to be his decision. I hope his decisions are to be like competitive Maradona was at 34 before the ousting of the World Cup broke him (fifa screwing him up).

It's up to Messi, but for our sake, I hope he get new fire in his eyes.

 

Glad you are ‘brave’ enough to say this
And to be fair Thierry Henry was actually a underrated passer of the ball himself

His assisting peak(2002/03) didn’t directly coincide with playmaking peak(2005/06)

11:39 Playmaking
19:26 wing play
But yes the equivalence you draw isn’t outrageous at all IMO


It’s not like long ball compilations lasting 30 minutes of players who were semi contemporaries of Pelé don’t exist


You have to wonder why an even more documented player has no videos that even remotely resembles this

 

Wait, nobody here watched the 1970 world cup? I saw every game afterwards. they're easy to find!

Pele is number 1.

Pelé and Messi share the same characteristics of scoring a lot of goals and giving a lot of assists for 10 years or more. Maradona, Cruyff and others did it for much less time. Or they didn't give as many assists (cr7)

Pelé has a more dominant career. From the age of 17 until he was 30, Pelé missed a Copa América (1959) in which Brazil scored the most points, a World Cup (1966) and some national titles with Santos.

Messi has several disappointing performances, especially with Argentina (world cup 2010, 18, copa america 2011, 2015, 2016, 2019).

In addition, we still have the OPTA numbers, which put Pelé above as well

 

Nothing like Henry. Watch this video of Pele vs Czechoslovakia. With every touch on the ball, including the wrong ones. See the high IQ, and the way Pelé really built the game, it wasn't casual assists

Pelé is more like Messi himself in the way he looked for the ball from behind, came through the middle and took it to the goal with one-two and dribbling.



Pelé seems tougher on the ball (this is Messi and Maradona's advantage), but beyond his ability as a playmakerhe, pelé was capable of finishing with both legs and scoring many goals with his head.

 

Is Pele degraded for playing in the US?

 

Different than people think Pelé had a great playmaking mind, and he was actually in most of his prime the main playmaker in the last third of the pitch and the go-to guy, that puts him in another different stratosphere than Henry who was more of a secundary playmaker in his prime and most of the time not even that, but more of Mbappe creative-forward type, whereas Pélé could really act as a 10, dominating ball possession and dictating the play, more like Messi definitely than Henry, and Pelé did it in more central areas too rather than Henry (and Mbappe) who was more creative on the sides. Pelé was a through ball machine, a zone 14 machine.

Exactly, Pelé "completed" football in 1970 with almost 30 years old, Messi completed almost in 2023 under suspects circunstances with 35.5 years old. Pelé's 5 years prime is still intact and Pelé was a first time hit in both club and NT and not a miss failure like Messi was with Argentina (arguably Messi become actually a net-positive for Argentina just around 2017 with 29 years old). Pelé was superior in terms of stats, impact, big games, and beyond the subjective, easily more complete than Messi as a footballer, just his ambidextrous capacity and aerial game puts Pelé in another level already.

For me at the end, Messi showed strong enough power to edge Cruyff though.

Cruyff's lack of 1978 WC participation denies him as well (Cruyff's Barcelona's time doesn't look a immediate sucess in the first look, but you can still see his impact on his team results when Barca had around 0.95 more goal difference with the him on the pitch in league compared with him off - which is 'perhaps' higher than the Messi's best 5-years timelapse, certainly higher than Messi's best 7-years timelapse.. and higher than Maradona's best season for Barcelona 82/83)....
... and is a legit blow for Pelé too being injured in 1966 and especially in 1962 (when Brazil's team performed in line with the expectations, 1966 was just awful).

Overall, tho, I am of the opinion Messi is closer to Cruyff than he is to Pelé, with the ones of Puskas, Di Stefano, Cristiano Ronaldo, Beckenbauer, Platini and Maradona falling behind.

 

Messi was among the 3 best players in the world between 2007 and 2023 (except for the 2021-22 season)
A total of 15 times on the world podium. Has anyone achieved that in the history of football? I think nobody.

 

Messi has no idea what he's gotten himself into.
Inter Miami has averaged only 1 goal per game in the last 4 seasons, unless they sign several players and make significant changes, he won't be able to barely play. I predict a disaster.
Forget about Messi scoring goals, maybe 0.2-0.3 goals per game.

 

From my point of view, Messi is objectively the best of all.
I have never seen a player so effective and precise in absolutely everything he does, his decision making is always correct, which shows you that he has an incredible reading and vision of the game.

He is easily the best dribbler in history. As a passer he is extraordinary, has excelent precision and timing. And as a scorer he is also outstanding.

Probably has the greatest career in history in terms of titles, being decisive in winning them all.

He has maintained a high level for 15 years, being tremendously consistent. And he has played in a very competitive football, where the best players in the world are concentrated in the same leagues. Therefore, the level of his rivals has also been the highest possible.

I don't think any other player combines all of this at once. Only Pelé comes close.

 

Pelé 70 had many key passes like this(midfield pass to jairzinho who dribbles half the team and scores LOL)

Most of his key passes were short ones

 

I'm not having a go at you about it mate, but did you have a massive swing/change of mind on your thoughts about Pele vis a vis Messi lately (I think the post below is not the only one I could cite, but it's one I found just now)?

 

On some days I really doubt how competitive those tours really were


Playing for a team ranked 500+ cristiano Ronaldo Scored two goals against PSG(top 10 in the world)

From what I remember not a single person on planet earth gave value to those goals


If cristiano doesn’t get credit for this(and he shouldn’t) then why the hell do I give credit to Pelé for destroying elite European sides whilst playing for a dominant Santos side

Teams that Santos could dismantle in friendlies with or without him

I refuse to do that because it is illogical and hypocritical

Those tours Santos took part in had a massive financial incentive
Still no where comparable to what the Saudis were probably paying under the table for PSG to put on a show in their country
(The Saudis are order of magnitude more richer than the Qataris by way)


maybe in 50 years people will refer to this and use this as ‘evidence’ for Cristiano being some sort of demi god not in need of a big team
A team on his own etc

But if is dumb now it will be dumb then (and forever)

 

I'm not wanting to involve myself too much (especially as under the weather with Covid right now!), but I'm thinking maybe it's just a case of because you like to give a strong/definite opinion then when you see things slightly differently to before, or take an adjusted perspective, it can seem quite an extreme swing.

Areas where I would give Pele an advantage myself though would include two-sidedness but also imagination/creativity I'd say though. I think it seems potentially reasonable to suggest Netzer had/showed more passing capability overall than Pele, but I feel like also more than Messi actually (that does seem a really thorough compilation of clips of Netzer you posted by the way - I can't remember to what extent I looked through that one before but it's a good choice). Pele, I think, was a very good final third passer, who could play the ball into favourable positions for team-mates (and as you allude to of course it won't be possible to see close to all of his assists).

Maybe you just have varying ideas about some of the bygone legends. I remember you being very much in praise of 'old Cruyff' but then lately of course you made some not so positive posts about his record in certain seasons vs top 10 clubelo teams. On that (apologies if off topic on this thread) I would say though you could have extended the range of seasons you looked at. I had a check on the ranking for the start of June 1966 (before 1966/67) for example (I've bolded Liverpool)
1 1 Real Madrid 1925 1966-05-11 Miguel Muñoz (since 1960-04-13)
2 2 Inter 1902 1966-05-22 Helenio Herrera (since 1960-07-01)
3 3 Liverpool 1852 1966-05-10 Bill Shankly (since 1959-12-01)
4 4 Atlético 1846 1966-04-03 Balmanya (since 1965-07-01)
5 5 Leeds 1836 1966-05-19 Don Revie (since 1961-03-01)
6 6 Man United 1823 1966-05-19 Matt Busby (since 1945-10-01)
7 7 Köln 1817 1966-05-28 Georg Knöpfle (since 1963-07-01)
8 8 Dortmund 1816 1966-05-28 Willy Multhaup (since 1965-07-01)
9 9 München 60 1812 1966-05-28 Max Merkel (since 1961-07-01)
10 10 Burnley 1810 1966-05-09 Harry Potts (since 1958-01-30)
11 11 Werder 1803 1966-05-28 Günter Brocker (since 1965-07-01)
12 12 Bologna 1796 1966-05-22 Luis Carniglia (since 1965-10-05)
13 13 Barcelona 1795 1966-04-03 Roque Olsen (since 1965-07-01)
14 14 Bayern 1792 1966-05-28 Tschik Čajkovski (since 1963-07-01)
15 15 Fiorentina 1789 1966-05-22 Giuseppe Chiappella (since 1963-10-25)
16 16 Rangers 1785 1966-05-04 Scot Symon (since 1954-07-01)
17 17 Benfica 1782 1966-05-01 Béla Guttmann (since 1965-07-01)
18 18 Chelsea 1781 1966-05-16 Tommy Docherty (since 1961-10-01)
19 19 West Brom 1780 1966-05-07 Jimmy Hagan (since 1963-04-01)
20 20 Zaragoza 1774 1966-04-03 Ferdinand Daučík (since 1965-07-01)
21 21 Milan 1771 1966-05-22 Giovanni Cattozzo (since 1965-11-30)
22 22 Juventus 1767 1966-05-22 Heriberto Herrera (since 1964-07-01)
23 23 Celtic 1766 1966-05-07 Jock Stein (since 1965-07-01)
24 24 Leicester 1758 1966-05-09 Matt Gillies (since 1958-11-08)
25 25 Vasas 1748 1966-05-29 Ferenc Machos (since 1965-01-01)
Lajos Csordás (since 1966-01-01)
And I did the same for the same point in 1974 (and bolded Feyenoord)
1 1 Liverpool 1884 1974-05-08 Bill Shankly (since 1959-12-01)
2 2 Bayern 1876 1974-05-18 Udo Lattek (since 1970-03-14)
3 3 Leeds 1871 1974-04-27 Don Revie (since 1961-03-01)
4 4 Feyenoord 1863 1974-05-29 Wiel Coerver (since 1973-07-01)
5 5 Ajax 1852 1974-05-12 Rob Haarms (since 1974-04-13)
6 6 Gladbach 1817 1974-05-18 Hennes Weisweiler (since 1964-07-01)
7 7 Derby 1811 1974-04-27 Dave MacKay (since 1973-10-24)
8 8 Benfica 1806 1974-05-19
9 9 Arsenal 1796 1974-04-30 Bertie Mee (since 1966-06-20)
10 10 Stoke 1793 1974-04-29 Tony Waddington (since 1960-07-01)
11 11 Tottenham 1793 1974-05-29 Bill Nicholson (since 1958-10-11)
12 12 Ipswich 1790 1974-04-27 Bobby Robson (since 1969-01-01)
13 13 Juventus 1781 1974-05-19 Čestmír Vycpálek (since 1971-02-16)
14 14 Wolves 1781 1974-04-27 Bill McGarry (since 1968-11-28)
15 15 Magdeburg 1764 1974-05-08 Heinz Krügel (since 1966-07-01)
16 16 Twente 1760 1974-05-12 Spitz Kohn (since 1972-07-01)
17 17 Leicester 1757 1974-04-29 Jimmy Bloomfield (since 1971-07-01)
18 18 West Ham 1756 1974-04-27 John Lyall (since 1974-04-16)
19 19 Barcelona 1748 1974-05-11 Rinus Michels (since 1971-07-01)
20 20 Burnley 1745 1974-04-27 Jimmy Adamson (since 1970-02-16)
21 21 Man City 1745 1974-04-27 Tony Book (since 1974-04-12)
22 22 Celtic 1742 1974-05-06 Jock Stein (since 1965-07-01)
23 23 Birmingham 1741 1974-04-27 Freddie Goodwin (since 1970-07-01)
24 24 QPR 1737 1974-04-30 Gordon Jago (since 1971-07-01)
25 25 Everton 1737 1974-04-27 Billy Bingham (since 1973-07-01
Barcelona only appeared in that ELO list due to the great resurgence after signing Cruyff of course too (they were 48th in the same list the previous year)., while Ajax slipped from 1st to 5th....

I know you've pointed out Pele's wide skillset (those videos about "Pele did it first" etc) and great record in actual big games vs European teams (I know you might feel the AC Milan games go against that but he did score in Milan, and the refereeing in both venues was said to have seemed biased to the home teams I believe, so home advantage was really quite extreme probably) so I guess you're just having a phase redressing the balance (i.e 'against Pele') a bit or something (or against bygone legends in general), including vs Messi (while after Pele's death and/or after the World Cup maybe it was the opposite way).