All Time overrated Player´s

Yeah, yeah, all talk.
These are Ronaldo's penalty box touches / 90 (2017/18 to present day)

These are Messi's penalty box touches / 90


I am not sure these are meaningfully different numbers beside Ronaldo's last year at Real Madrid (9.33) - He played as a CF, so understandable.
Everybody can now decide on their own if these are radically different numbers.
We already know Messi has far more touches in the final third.
And we know Juventus was a possession-heavy team contrary to what you tried to say.

 

I genuinely don’t know what you’re arguing. If Messi “has far more touches in the final third” while simultaneously actually having slightly lower touches in the penalty area, then obviously touches in the penalty area make up a substantially smaller portion of his attacking-third touches than they do for Ronaldo. This is clear as day. You can run the math on that on FBref. It’s just objective fact. And obviously looking at G+A output per touch in the attacking third is stupid when we know one player’s attacking-third touches were substantially more likely to be in the penalty area.

To the extent you’re instead trying to challenge the per-penalty-area-touch values I provided, my numbers were completely correct, and the reason Messi is much higher in that regard is primarily because he had substantially higher non-pk G+A output in those years you pulled those penalty-area-touch stats for.

And no, Juventus was not as possession-heavy as Barcelona. You already posted general possession numbers that made that clear, and you can look up total passing numbers or other data on this. Every top team these days is possession-based to some degree, but some are more than others, and the more possession-based a player’s team is the more biased against them the measure you’re espousing would be. I don’t know why you’d fight this. And it’s particularly wild that you’re trying to say there’s no meaningful difference between Barcelona and Juventus in this regard when Juventus’s possession numbers in those years were extremely similar to Real Madrid’s possession numbers, and you have made countless arguments centered around the idea that there was/is some massive incomparable chasm between how possession-based Barcelona and Real Madrid are. FBref possession data tells us Juventus averaged 56.97% possession in the years Ronaldo was there. Meanwhile, FBref has possession data for Real Madrid starting in 2014-2015, and Real Madrid averaged 57.48% possession in the years until Ronaldo left (and 58.77% in all the years from 2014-2015 onwards). According to you, the difference between those numbers and Barcelona’s are sometimes super meaningful and sometimes not meaningful at all, depending on which point of view will help whatever argument you’re making.

 

Messi = 2022 WC

Ronaldo = ?

 

Varane = 2018 WC

Maldini = ?

 

Isn't better than Ronaldo 2006

 

Come on EyeTestMerchant. Ronaldo were near/at his footballing peak

 

For the 2019-20 season provided, Juve avgd 59 percent posession and Barca 66. They were 2nd most posession dominant team in the lrague. Serie A stats. No need to twist.

As for the proportion, your point is thoroghly meaningless. We are examining goal opportunity which is measured by volume of touch - aka volume of touches in the surface of the area (and perimeter). A percentage is a silly statement for reasons you or any normal person now. The whole point is to examine goal opportunity and we know Messi had moor.
As for ball reception, we know for a fact that Ronaldo received the ball further from the goal than Messi that season. So we can ressonably be confident thay Messi had more goal opportunity, but was overall less efficient.
Given this is the route you want to take, I am disengaging this convo as I do not entertain blatant data manipulation.

 

I think he was quite ineffective tbh. The question is what was he doing after a dribble. A forc but ineffective imo.

 

I agree, but you are hyperbolic in how bad it was. It showed promise and he seemed threatening, but he was more show pony than making good decisions with regularity.

 

Beckenbauer> Muller, só Beckenbauer and Muller > Cristiano?I don't think you are being fair. That proves my point, Cristiano is underated I think.

 

unfortunately, Wins matter in sports.

A player can be a great player based solely on the heights of his abilities (and how high he/she reached) but you can't argue that a player had a great career without the wins.

Based on that, we can all agree that CR7 was a great player, but his career didn't reach what Messi did. And we have indisputable empirical evidence for that; more Balon d'Or, WC title, more titles in general.

For me, there is now an indisputable 3 player list for the all time GOATS. I don't get angry or argue with the order anyone has Pele, Diego and Messi.

After those three, for me its the next list of "almost GOATS but not really" - that's were we have Zidane, DiStefano, Cryuff, Ronaldo, Beckenbauer, Best, Madlini, CR7, Best.

 

So based on your logic, Varane > Maldini

 

This logic makes no sense given you would have said the same thing if Messi had not won the WC. Ronaldo and Zidane and Beckenbauer have WCs and great campaigns for that matter - so your criteria is confusing as hell.

 

Of course, I completely agree

Yes and we are talking about one of the most successful players in the history of this sport. Ronaldo won 5 Champions Leagues with 2 different clubs, won the first Euro in Portugal's history and won league titles in 3 different leagues. Being top scorer and protagonist in all the Champions League titles he won. I guess "winning" isn't the issue here, right?

Where is your consistency man? You say that "winning" matters and that a player can't be an all-time great based solely on his skills, but you put Maradona on top 3 based on what? 1 WC and 1 UEFA Cup? If so Bobby Charlton would be ahead of Maradona. In the revaluation of France Football they gave 2 Ballon d'Ors to Maradona. Ronaldo won 5 UCL, 1 euro and 5 Ballon d'Ors so by your logic, that is an "indisputable empirical evidence" of Ronaldo being greater than Maradona.

Again. Beckenbauer Won the euro, the Champions League 3 times in a row and were Ballon d'Or. So why Maradona is in the top 3 and Beckenbauer not if Maradona's career "didn't reach what Beckenbauer did"? Zidane also "won" the Ballon d'Or, the Champions League and the world cup so why is he on the "almost GOATs but not really" list since he "won" more than Maradona?

Be consistent man

 

No one with any sense of serious historical knowledge can take France Football’s retrospective awards seriously. For decades now their editors and correspondents are a far cry compared to previous journalists — even then in the 1960s they had political aims to swim with the tide that was surging in favor of the demographic and social changes that was transitioning in civil rights movements in the western world — and it cannot be overstated that their crop of personnel are mediocre and mostly anything they print with modern lens from past events must be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Agree 100% I was only exposing the logical fallacies from @Loco

 

If you want to go that way, than Xavi and Iniesta with a strike of Euro, WorldCup, Euro should won the Balon dor. Messi never won a champions league wihtiou Xavi and Iniesta, thats is really concerning. People are talking like Messi won the world cup palying with norway. WC is my favourite tournement, the most enternatining one, but it is not the most imparcial one when it comes to decide the best player in the world. Halaand doesnt have the same chance as any argentinean or brazilian player has. Champions league is the best one for that reason. Funny that the last 15 editions of Ballon Dor the World Cup never had any importance.

 

Iniesta or Sneijder probably should have...

 

Seems to me like there’s always a balancing test when assessing greatness. A player’s abilities matters and a player’s raw team achievement matters. And we just weigh both of them together when making an assessment. So like, everyone will sometimes ignore raw team achievement in a comparison when they just think one guy is clearly better than another. For instance, none of us are going to say that Julian Alvarez is better than Harry Kane, even though Julian Alvarez has already won more (including starting in the WC Finals). Team achievement doesn’t really matter in the comparison because we just know that Harry Kane is a different level of player (at least at the moment—obviously Alvarez is young). Similarly, we just kind of know Maldini is better than Varane, even if Varane won a World Cup. Basically, I think the general way people think through these things is to generally put players in tiers based on an assessment of their ability and then how much players won gets a lot of weight in ordering the players within any given tier.

 

Had me until here. Just because the WC didn't seem to carry as much weight in the last 15 years doesn't mean it "never had any importance."

Do you think Xavi and Iniesta got Silver and Bronze in 2010 for anything but the WC? In a year when Inter won the treble? The 2014 WC helped Neuer place on the podium. And of course, Modric won the BDO in 2018, (significant) partly because of the WC.

 

"Any importance" was in fact too much. Apologies. But had less importance for any other player than it has now for Messi.

 

Tbf, none of the Spaniards or Germans were seen as being as influential as Messi in their team's success. The fact that both Xavi and Iniesta made podium and it was the GK that made podium for Germany imply this to be the case. Both 2010 and 2014 were seen as very much collective efforts. Modric was seen as the talisman and he won the BDO (the UCL definitely helped as well, of course).