Were France that much better given Portugal beat them in the final, lets not forget Germnay totally dominated France in the semi finals and two mistakes helped the French (yes Griezmann benefited from that) also Iceland had their worst game of the tournament in the quarters by a long way.
Yes, he has. I find it peculiar that of lot of you call out the poor games of Ronaldo, but don't do the same when discussing Griezmann or Messi... Messi and Griezmann had multiple poor games, but unfortunately for them these poor games cost them the titles. Ronaldo has season long been more pivotal for his teams than both Messi and Griezmann, plus he has the added advantage that he didn't mess up in key games, even if he wasn't the game changer. Meanwhile both Messi and Griezmann have massive title-costing penalty misses in cup finals. Messi may have scored multiple goals and had many assists in the Copa Centenario, but he was never the game changer in any single game. He was basically padding stats. Griezmann at least made a difference at the Euro, albeit not as much as CR7 for his team. Sure, Griezmann made a difference vs Germany, whilst CR7 vs Wales, but both games were semis, while you can only play what is in front of you. At Barca Messi was second best to Suarez, who was their key player this season. Meanwhile CR7 set further CL records and was the key RM player. Anyone claiming Messi over CR7 this season is being a fanboy. I can understand people prefer the way Messi plays to how CR7 plays, but CR7 has obviously been more decisive, pivotal and better the entire season.
To put this discussion to bed: Bookie odds: CR7 - averaging ca 1/6 Messi - averaging 5 Griezmann - averaging 5 Suarez - averaging 7-8 The rest is fantasy land. That basically means anyone other than CR7 will be a shock.
Well again, this goes back to the other side of the coin. Is Real Madrid that much better than Atletico given that they've beaten them consistently in the league?
Ummm, he scored or assisted 3 goals in a 4-1 win against Venezuela. Explain to me how that's not being a game-changer? He was literally directly involved in as many goals as the margin of victory. That is, by definition, game-changing contribution. And that's not even mentioning the fact that he basically finished the semifinals off with a fantastic assist and then a breathtaking goal in the first half. Yes, Argentina ultimately got one goal in that match that Messi did not score or assist. But it's a bit bizarre to call the 1-0 assist and the 2-0 goals stat-padding, IMO. Meanwhile, you clearly did not watch the Panama match if you think that Messi was "never the game changer in any single game." Yes, Argentina was ahead 1-0 when he came in, but that lead did not seem secure based on how the match was going, and then Messi came on and the game completely changed to Argentina utterly dominating. Messi's presence objectively had a huge effect on all of these matches. Barca fans--who are the people who actually watch the team the most--don't agree with you on this. Suarez was fantastic, but Messi was superior. Arguments otherwise really just come from people who look at goals and assist stats instead of actually watching the matches. And any legitimate argument that Suarez might have had more influence than Messi last season is premised on the fact that Messi was out for a couple months (and Suarez helped Barcelona maintain good results during that time). But that two-month period did not occur in the 2016 calendar year and is therefore irrelevant for the 2016 Ballon D'or. Suarez has been fantastic so far in 2016. In fact, in terms of individual performances, he has probably been second in the world behind Messi. But he is behind Messi. The penalty misses weigh against Messi and Griezmann. I'd say Griezmann's miss probably weighs more highly, because a non-shootout penalty miss in a close match is worse than a shootout miss (the non-shootout miss likely determines the outcome of the match itself, while the shootout miss is just one of 5 kicks; I'll note that this isn't a position borne from bias. I also think Messi's 2012 CL pk miss was worse than Ronaldo's 2012 CL pk miss). But they're both bad. However, I think it's a bit odd to say that Ronaldo has been more pivotal for his teams all "season long" or to talk about key games as being some big benefit for him. Ronaldo was legitimately bad in the CL finals. His team played without him in one of the CL semifinal matches and he contributed little in the other one. Meanwhile, he was essentially a non-factor on the pitch in the Euro finals (which was the first match of the tournament that his team was disfavored in), due to injury. Ronaldo was either bad or absent from most of his teams' most important matches this year. So the idea that he has been "pivotal" all season long for his teams rings a bit hollow to me. It would be much more accurate to say that he has been pivotal in a few select moments along the way (Hungary, Wolfsburg, and Wales, basically). Meanwhile, I think you are blowing penalty misses out of proportion, especially Messi's miss in the Copa America finals. Messi actually played a good match in the finals. Not a legendary performance, but he was arguably the best player on the pitch. Contrast that with Ronaldo's 2016 CL finals, in which he was one of the worst players on the pitch. Messi missed his penalty in the shootout and Ronaldo did not. That is, of course, important. But those penalties aren't the only thing that happened in those matches. Messi was significantly superior to Ronaldo otherwise. You have a higher chance of winning without penalties when your star player is playing like Messi did rather than how Ronaldo did. The fact that Messi's team nevertheless was still taken to penalties does not completely erase this fact. Obviously, once it got to penalties, Ronaldo scored and Messi didn't. Again, that is important. But so is the fact that Messi was undeniably superior in normal play.
So much writing on Ronaldo's CL final performance yet you choose to exclude the very pertinent information of him being injured towards the end of the season and being doubtful to even play the final. He clearly wasn't fit. Similar to when you stated Ronaldo was "worthless" in the Euro final before being subbed out, failing to include that he was injured in the 8th minute.
errr... the post you were responding to literally said "Messi and Griezmann have failed during clutch moments while Ronaldo has..... somewhat. " How is that not calling out poor games by Messi and Griez? Melania Trump's speech was more different from Michelle Obama's then this statement from you is from the one I quoted above by the poster you're vehemently "disagreeing" with. Generally speaking I don't like the word "fail". I think its just a lazy argument by people who want to make it seem like individual performances varied greatly between a player whose team lost a game compared to a player whose team won a game. That said, Barca won the domestic double last season which last time I checked is more than Madrid won.
I suppose this is a question more for the Portugal fans. Isn't the team captaincy based purely on number of international appearances? This is how Spain and Italy decide who wears the armband. Nothing to do with leadership ability. Strictly the number of caps won. Quite certain Real Madrid and Barcelona - perhaps all Spanish clubs - use this method. Unsure on Serie A clubs.
Why are you discrediting Cristiano's leadership inside his NT? - I don't get it. I am not his biggest fan but stuff like this really says more about you than anything else. Cristiano Ronaldo's 'unbelievable' half-time speech inspired Portugal -- Soares "In half-time, Cristiano had fantastic words for us. He gave us a lot of confidence and said 'listen people, I'm sure we will win, so stay together and fight for it... Asked whether Ronaldo was downbeat after having to go off, Soares said: "No, he was fantastic. His attitude was unbelievable. Always he helped a lot our teammates, he always had a lot of motivational words and all the team of course reacted to them, so it was very good." "Yes, he had fantastic words for each player in each moment of the game ... I'm really really happy to be part of this group and be champion."
Sure, he made some key input vs Venezuela. But Venezuela is CONMEBOLs weakest side and they were never a threat to Argentina. Argentina would have won with or without Messi. And Panama was down to 10 men and losing 1:0 when Messi came on. Even Panama knew it was game over after the red card. Second behind Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi is fourth, behind Griezmann. Ronaldo was injured during the CL finals. And no - he wasn't bad, just mediocre. Even the stats show he wasn't poor - he had a 7.8 rating at Whoscored. Don't make stuff up. No, he wasn't. Real's most important games in 2016: Wolfsburg, Barcelona, Athletico, Roma, Manchester City - he wasn't at his best due to injury vs Manchester City and Athletico, but dominated the other games, not to mention having a spectacular run to the end of the club season, when there was hope to overtake Barcelona (Meanwhile Messi had a very dry patch and Barcelona almost threw away the title - Messi strongly to blame for that). Portugal: Hungary, Wales, Poland, France - he was very good in three of those games, while injured vs France. Same can be said about Ronaldo vs Athletico in the CL final. But unlike Messi he scored his penalty... Pure fiction. No point in discussing something where you obviously have a skewed perspective. I'll put it down to fact: Ronaldo CL Finals Whoscored rating = 7,8 Messi Centenario Finals Whoscored rating = 8,2 Messi marginally better, but failed when it counted.
What are you talking about? I literally said the words "due to injury" with regards to the Euro final, and then you say that I "fail[ed] to include that he was injured." Huh??? I think this is the second time you have made this exact criticism, and I'm honestly baffled regarding why you keep saying it. As for the CL finals performance, here's what I'll say. Most importantly, your argument is largely tangential. The thrust of that portion of my post was an objection to the idea that Ronaldo was "pivotal" all season long. Whether he was injured in the CL final or not, he certainly was not "pivotal" to his team. And that was the point. Notice I specifically said he wasn't pivotal because he "was either bad or absent" from so many big matches. So you are making a point that does not defeat my argument at all. As a sidenote, I also think the idea that he was unfit is a little overblown. He hadn't missed a match for a month and had scored 4 goals in his last 2 matches prior to the CL final. Maybe he was quite unfit, or maybe he just didn't play well. For the purposes of addressing whether he was "pivotal" to his team, it is a distinction without a difference. I'll note though that what I saw from CR7 in the CL final could not simply be attributed to being unfit. He had a very sloppy touch on the ball many times in the match, which is not something is really just a result of being unfit (though it doesn't help, of course). That's more just indicative of a player having a bad match.
Lol, ok. You did bring that up for the Euro final. Which is why I didn't note that in my post. You didn't note that for the CL final. They are different competitions, and the matches were nearly two months apart.
Yeah, pretty much. Someone on the post-match show to the Euro final that I was watching ( I believe on ESPN) put it nicely when he said "This was one of the least dominating seasons (since 2007) from an individual standpoint for Ronaldo, yet ironically he won more than any other season." A very fair statement IMO. And the truism of the first part of that sentence is unaffected by whether he was less fully-fit than in most previous seasons or not. Of course the first part of the statement also doesn't negate the second part, which is why he'll win Ballon d'Or by a landslide. Plus he was only like a notch below his usual standard, not five. So its not a big deal...
Sorry, but you did not watch the Venezuela match if you think that they were never a threat to Argentina. They scored a goal, got a penalty that was saved, hit the post, forced two fantastic saves from Romero, and generally looked quite dangerous for a lot of the match. They dominated a significant stretch of the match at the end of the first half actually. It's all well and good to say that on paper Venezuela is not nearly as good as Argentina, but the reality of the match was that Venezuela was quite dangerous and Messi was the difference maker (with Higuain being very good too). You plainly did not watch the match if you are trying to say otherwise. You also plainly did not watch the Panama match. Otamendi scored very early off of a set-piece, but the match was pretty even otherwise before Messi came in, despite Panama's red card. Argentina's lead did not really look safe, because they did not look like they'd score again and it wasn't too hard to imagine Panama clawing one back based on how the match was going. Again, it's all well and good to say that on paper Panama a man down is not threat to Argentina. But the reality is that the result was not safe, as Argentina did not have control of the match. Messi came on and it turned into an utter rout for Argentina. Yet you say he never changed the game. You obviously simply did not watch the game. Ronaldo hadn't missed a match for a month after having an injury that kept him out only a week, and he had scored 4 goals in his last 2 matches prior to the CL finals. He had had a knock in training that no one thought was a big deal. He may not have been fit (neither of us really know, of course), but you're not talking about a player who circumstances indicate would clearly have been unfit. You're just making a very generous assumption after Ronaldo had a bad match. As for his WhoScored rating, their rating is wonky when there are penalty shootouts, because they seem to count a goal scored in the shootout the same as they would a goal from normal play. Notice, for instance, that they gave Messi an 8.2 in the 2015 Copa America finals, despite everyone saying he did nothing. The fact is that any unbiased person who watched the CL finals would say Ronaldo had a pretty bad match. He provided essentially zero danger and lost the ball a staggering number of times with bad touches. What in the world??? Did you just try to claim that he was "very good" against Poland!?!??!?! You also ignore the Croatia match where he wasn't very good (and don't say you didn't mention it because it was Round of 16, since you counted Roma in the CL). You also ignore the fact that Ronaldo was abysmal in the first match against Wolfsburg. The fact is this. Ronaldo was fantastic in one match against Wolfsburg. He was fantastic against Hungary. He had a good match against Wales, and was good in the Roma tie. That's 5 matches. He was bad in the CL final. He was not there in the first leg against Man City. He was not good in the second leg against Man City. He was bad in the first leg against Wolfsburg. He was bad against Poland. He was not good against Croatia. And he was injured against France. That's 12 matches. Ronaldo was good or great in 5 of them, not good or legitimately bad in 5 of them, and injured for 2 of them. As I said, he was either not good or absent for most of the big matches. If you want to count the one Clasico in 2016, then fine. I think that that is quite silly, because at the time it didn't seem like a big match, as Barcelona was far ahead. It wasn't nearly as consequential to a title as the above matches. Even if you did count it, though, it remains true that Ronaldo was either not good or absent for most of the big matches his teams played (it would be 7 out of 13 either not good or absent). No it couldn't. Ronaldo was legitimately bad in the CL final. He provided essentially zero danger, he did not provide chances for teammates, and he repeatedly destroyed promising attacks by taking bad touches on the ball. There is no comparison with how Messi played in regular time of the 2016 CA final. Messi wasn't legendary, but he created a couple chances, advanced play with lots of dribbling, drew a red card by persistently drawing fouls due to putting himself in dangerous positions, and seemed dangerous in general. Whoscored did not do ratings for the Centenario. You are looking at the 2015 CA finals. Which is amusing, since Messi gets heavily criticized for his 2015 CA final performance, which was undeniably a good deal worse than his 2016 performance, outside of the shootouts. What this tells us is that a heavily maligned Messi performance--one that Ronaldo fans here frequently say was a match where he "did nothing"-- was considered better than Ronaldo's CL finals by a decent margin.
It's kind of sad how people just shit on domestic competitions these days. Seems you're not even counting the derby league match against Atletico which had title implications, yet count a second-round CL match that Madrid were always gonna win (and they did win despite playing horribly). Not that you're alone, I just think its sad. Recall also that CR7 got injured late in the season and didn't play and/or didn't score a goal of relevance between the clasico win and the 2nd-to-last match of the season. Yet Madrid still won all 5 of those matches in-between. So "spectacular" down the stretch is a bit of an overstatement. If he was spectacular, what was Suarez who blew past CR7 in the pichichi race down the stretch?
And yet you ignore the clasico against Barcelona, which also had title implications and Ronaldo was tour de force, while Messi was anonymous. Suarez did not blow past him down the stretch, because Ronaldo was suddenly poor. Ronaldo scored 7 goals and had 3 assists in his last 6 games with game winning performances in 4 of those 6 games. The reason Suarez blew past him was because he scored 14 goals (and 5 assists) in his last 5 games, which was a mad / unreal number of goals. Suarez basically save the title for Barcelona, not Messi. You argument is downright selfdefeating.
No, I didn't ignore. League matches constituted one out of the 9 games/5 teams you listed. (ie. 11%) That's basically shitting on the league. Sorry, but did you just start watching La Liga 3 months ago? 7 goals in 6 games is not "spectacular" or unusual in any way. Even someone like Benzema goes on stretches like that a couple of times a year. For guys like Messi and Ronaldo its their normal average scoring rate for the past 5 years.
I could add Valencia and several other games like Sevilla, but basically you're nitpicking now. And Ronaldo kept up that rate, unlike Messi.
Nah, Messi had stretches like that too last season. Like I said, its not that unusual. Goal scorers are notoriously streaky, especially in La Liga. You have a low bar for "spectacular". BTW, I agree that Suarez basically saved Barca's ass at the end there, alot more than Messi. But exact same argument works against Ronaldo in the CL and Euro final. Regarding La Liga, what turned the tide in Madrid's season was more down to Casemiro than Ronaldo.
"Problem is Messi and Griezmann have failed during clutch moments while Ronaldo has..... somewhat" This isnt calling out Messi and Griezmann? I just dont find Ronaldo's overall performances (outside of scoring) to be that impressive. What gives him the edge in this race is he kept his nerves in the big occasions while Messi and Griezmann did not. Suarez sadly just did not manage to play in the Copa America.
You're the one constantly using the term 'spectacular'. If you want to talk to yourself than by all means proceed.
Nah, you used it to describe CR7's league run (see above). Good luck finding the last time I used that word to describe anything.
Is this the same leader that before the WC in 2014 when asked what are Portugal's chances said "Unfortunately we don't more Ronaldos on the team" ?
all three missed crucial penalties in the last three months...Ronaldo's against Austria just turned out to be less costly