Let's agree to disagree about Livakokic on Alvarez. To me that's a clear pen. I agree that Muani play is not a yellow card but it's not a pen either. The contact is much less than the other two pens in that game.
The only penalties I think that were debatable were the one against Croatia and the other vs Poland(which Messi missed by the way and it was obvious it wasn’t a pen.) the others are soft penalties but a pen is a pen. One can cry rigged tournament all they want to but it is what it is.
"Pen is a pen" - it is not so simple. If you see that Saudi Arabia penalty, given inside the first 10 minutes of the game (that's what I mean with the "first possibility"), then this is simply not always given. See the euro 2024 semi final for instance. Or the 2022 quarter final. It is simply not always awarded but here they did, the VAR did, inside the first 10 minutes. Argentina could go into energy saving mode. This was long before Argentina reached the final. Pepe with all his experience, but safely playing back home at Porto, making a statement. He could say that because he had nothing to lose any more and was playing at home again. Pepe: 🗣 "It's inadmissible that an Argentine referee was in charge today after what happened yesterday, with Messi complaining. After what I saw today, they can give the title to Argentina now.” pic.twitter.com/kty9Ppg17S— SPORTbible (@sportbible) December 10, 2022 Ignore the childish presentation, pictures but here an overview of all pens. (The Poland penalty.... the Curaçao fraud Danny Makkelie again) It has to be said, Croatia has like us now a long track record of being wronged. The euro 2012 game against Spain, the 2018 final, 2024 vs Italy etc. Though I also feel it is 'cheating' a bit when you happily naturalize Brazilians and consistently 7-10 of your squad isn't born or raised at home.
Pepe is actually looking like an alien in that video . Btw how in this whole universe could you post a video that says penalty vs france was genuine. You should sue them mate so that next time they are more careful of not saying a single word in argentina's favour.
This is not true. In 2019/20 he was easily the best player in the world as well. It is a slight step bellow 2018/19 season, but that is an unfair comparison because a lot of things need to come together for a player to put on such season.. if you are talking about decline, Messi is physically declining since injuries in 2012 so to put a hard line between 2019 and 2020 is quite arbitrary and convenient. Declines are not steady and they are not just physical in nature... issue is much mrie complex. And to put 8-2 loss vs Bayern on Messi walking on the pitch is a superficial analysis. Apparently it didnt hurt Argentina in Copa, then WC, then again in Copa. It only hurts Messi's teams when they lost... not to mention Barcelona kept getting trashed by Bayern and other teams in years after Messi's and (Suarez's) departure. What is about that? Messi's serious "decline" has started in 2020/21 season, after the Bayern match, due to psychological reasons. These dips in form for Messi in Barcelona, then PSG, are mainly psychological with a steady physical decline in the background.
Are you serious with this clip? Lol Only the pen vs Poland is a clear mistake. No other penalty is a clear mistake.
Which is also logical after so many games (in the select group of 48 people with 1000+ games), not having quite the same freakish professionalism as Cristiano, the explosive body type he had and the age. Besides, one known side-effect of HGH treatment (that he still had as adult, it is said, by fanboy Guilem Balague) is faster ageing. What macro_football shows is pretty clear and there is little ground to put him there with Lewandowski in 2019-20. Although Lewandowski didn't do a lot in the semi-final and final to be fair. I'd think it is also a factor La Liga lost the status as world's best (or joint-best) league and the changed money distribution, resource sharing, made other La Liga teams better equiped and more competitive. It didn't hurt the Argentina national team, no, but it is already discussed why that is (in Copa America: only one elite team played and the likes of Uruguay and Chile are simply in a lull). If you take out those France and Netherlands games then it is still very good but a marked decline, still. Not like the Nigeria games of 2010, 2014 and 2018. Van Gaal had plans to play around Argentina, and replicate the sort of goals as against USA, but the officiating, stop-start and the fouling made it simply impossible and also France couldn't do it for obvious health-related reasons (but once they put pressure on Argentina and dug deep in their reserves, it hurted Argentina and Messi made dangerous turnovers). I really do think yes Argentina got their penalties at the first possibility. Inside the first ten minutes vs Saudi Arabia, for the type of shirt pulling that is often not called. That was immediately a signal and message to the other competing teams; be careful, it might be a quick penalty. The remarks of Infantino and the organizers themselves are also no secret. Other teams thought 'okay...'
You should stop looking at players as summable to performances in 4, 5, 6 games. There are abilities and then there are performances. Two separate concepts. Messi in 2020 is head and shoulders above Lewandowski in terms of abilities as a football player.. performance is extremely variable because it depends on many things including team perofrmance and luck itself. In no universe is any version of Lewandowski near 2020 Messi in terms of ability.
Messi has a talent Lewandowski does not have. But with age, his ability to effect a match with this talent regresses. Otherwise, 60 year old Diego is the best in the world
Hence the VAR shouldn't have intervened right? But they did. If what you say is true then the VAR should have done nothing. All on the first 'possibility', in general.
Fyki colombia is ranked 3rd in elo at present,,brazil 5th and uruguay 6th..all ahead of holland.in the last world cup argentina in fact deserved to win in 90 minutes but for those fifa officials.a scandalous 10 minutes were added on and guess what, they restored parity in the 10th minute.pretty shameful. I'm gonna create a thread here: 'will holland win a world cup in the 21st century'?' lol
It is not talent per se. Talent is even more abstract.. Playing 90 minutes at a high level every 3 days is also an ability that is lost with age.. ability that Messi doesn't have anymore - fitness is ability, not talent.. So abilities are lost with age as well... but still there is a difference between ability and performance. Let's say you are a manager of a team and have the peak Messi in your squad. He has a certain level of ability, but if in one universe you put him as a right winger for a certain match and in a parrallel universe you put him as a left fullback for the same match, the same ability will result in 2 different performances. It is the same Messi, different performances. Everybody confuses that all the time. Performance is not ability. Performance is the most mallable element of the 3. It depends on many factors. Ability is mallable only through time for various reasons. And talent, as it is thought, is the least mallable of all. If Maradona was alive today, he would still have his talent (more or less, arguably), but he would have near zero abilities and therefore no capacity to put in great performance. There is a difference between ability and performance (and talent). And when someone asks who is the best player in the world, they mean in terms of abilities and look at performances to figure out someone's ability. Performances are indicators of abilities and not abilities themselves.
No. I mean what I said, that one is a clear mistake and others are in grey area where there is a room for interpretation. Any rule book of such sport and activity will be open to interpretation at many points.
Most Penalty taken in the World Cup history:🥇-Messi 🇦🇷 -> 6 penalties (4)🥈-Kane 🏴 -> 5 penalties (4)🥉-Batistuta 🇦🇷 -> 4 penalties (4)4⃣-Eusébio 🇵🇹 -> 4 penalties (4)5⃣-Rensenbrink 🇳🇱 -> 4 penalties (4) pic.twitter.com/MmJ0ASv7vn— Mr.Idolo. (@Puskas1953) July 21, 2024
It's pretty rich to bring up penalties when Messi is possibly the star player who lets his teammates take more more pens than anyone else. For instance in 2022-23 with PSG, Messi had 21 goals in 41 appearances but without taking a single one. He let Mbappe and Ney take 9 pens between them.
Is he? In any case, the point is his one significant achievement in the last 10 years was off the back of an unprecedented string of penalties.
From CL QF onwards (2017-2020) Messi: 4 goals in 810 minutes Blanked in 7/9 games Suarez: 3 goals in 810 minutes Blanked in 6/9 games Since 2014/15: Messi: 6 goals in 1440 minutes Blanked in 13/16 games Suarez: 8 goals in 1380 minutes Blanked in 10/16 games
Well, Messi didn't "let" Mbappé and Neymar take the penalties. It were pre-established that they were the penalty takers. Messi is a below average penalti taker (compare his accuracy with the xG of a penalti). So it's just logical that he weren't taking the penalties especially if the team has Neymar who had a far better accuracy in penalties. Of course he should let his teammates take penalties. He's below average at this so basically any average player can beat him at this lol Maybe if he left the penalties to his teammates, he would already have 3 Copa Américas lol
The Champions League is the big Achilles heel of Luis Suarez (and of Messi since 15/16 to a less extent if you watch the games in which he were knocked out)
The Argentine government doubled down on the racism. The Olympic tournament has started. Game suspended. Argentina involved. Surprise? As hosts I'd prefer this though instead of supporters causing chaos in inner cities (which is the trademark of other countries their fanbases, even now).
Because I say stuff as 'latin liars' (which is often just reality) and banana republics? That Curaçao cannot be trusted and they don't know the word integrity here? Which is just close to reality? Admittedly, in 'return the wallet experiments' Argentina finishes above the UK. https://rogermontgomery.com/switzerland-tops-the-world-honesty-table/ Argentina is around Israel (that they often despise) and Canada (the biggest surprise) in the honesty experiments. The UK is surprisingly almost identical to Greece, Brazil, Italy and Chile. I am not at all racist to proper places and countries. The Switzerlands and the Swedens of this planet. I never approved the type of stuff Argentine football and government is now saying about the French.
The original article: Civic honesty around the globe https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712 The 'no money' wallet still contained keys, grocery list and bank cards. Has that also a bearing on football? The cheating and viveza in football? The gamesmanship historiography and posturing? How fans behave in foreign cities? Not unlikely that it does. That is something where your Simon Kupers have a point. Especially for the lower classes/masses or The Establishment at the top, I'd think. It seems to me that the majority of the experiments in Holland took place in the four big cities: I'd like to know how it is near the borders of this (geographically) small country. Cities included (on alphabet) are Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen, Rotterdam, The Hague, Tilburg, Utrecht. I'd like to see this for Maastricht. Until the early 20th century French was the dominant language there with the newspapers and magazines in French. Until 1866 the province was not part of the country. The country is either number one or number two in the globalisation index and places as Amsterdam/Rotterdam contain 170+ different nationalities. You get served in English there, in a high proportion of restaurants (I and many others absolutely hate that). The French flag is by the way, if anything, a derivative and adoption of our flag. Not the other way around, as is often thought and spread around. UK has 23 cities included (including Belfast), Argentina eight. Page 18 appendix. Congrats, Argentina is more honest and upright than Britain. Not automatically a logical outcome or everyone would expect. Is that racist? Or reality?