Agreed it was a close game across the 2 legs. Barcelona just happened to have the greatest footballer in history lining up for them and he made all the difference.

Jed wrote:

Agreed it was a close game across the 2 legs. Barcelona just happened to have the greatest footballer in history lining up for them and he made all the difference.

Messi needs to win a World Cup before this is fact. Right now Maradona is still the greatest, I appreciate this is subjective but how can you be conidered the goat if you haven't really played well in a World Cup and not even dominated let alone not having a medal?

Same reason you can be considered GOAT if you haven't won the Champions league

Sicario wrote:

I appreciate this is subjective but how can you be conidered the goat if you haven't really played well in a World Cup and not even dominated let alone not having a medal?

I'm not saying he deserved it - every single person who watched knew that James Rodriguez was the player of the tournament - but Messi did get the golden ball last World Cup, and that's what's gonna go down in the history books.

Why does he need to win a World Cup? Idiotic opinion.

At any rate I don't think he's the greatest of all time either. He's definitely the greatest one from his generation though, by a far cry. Ronaldo's not even on the same planet.

World Cup argument is weird. You need to win a knockout tournament that you will play two or three times in your career with a bunch of guys you rarely play with who might not even be good in the first place.

Yeah I don't see why it's held up as this holy grail for players who want to be in the GOAT discussions. Messi is doing something that no footballer has done before him in terms of goal scoring and creating. He is unique in the sense that he is best in the world at two different disciplines within the game. He's also ridiculously consistent having done this for about ten years now without dropping a beat. He's the man basically.

I mean, why should Portugal winning the Euros with Ronaldo injured in the final count anymore than Argentina losing the Copa final with Messi on the field? Messi lost the final, but Ronaldo didn't have anything to do with Portugal's result in their final, yet some use that as an argument.

It's stupid. Messi has taken Agentina to numerous Copa finals and a WC final. I hope he wins it this year just so people can stop holding it against him. I really do worry for grown men who believe Ronaldo is better than Messi.

I think the "go and win the World Cup if you want to talk" argument has been engineered to make players who already come from powerful football nations appear more important than they are. Like you'd have to be born in Spain or Germany to be a really, really top class player.

If Yaya Touré's skin were any thinner they'd have to carry him around in a bucket, but he's not wrong when he claims that he's been somewhat overlooked because of his nationality. I think it's for the same reason that people very rarely count George Weah in the company of Romario and Baggio and those guys, even though he and Ronaldo (the real one) were the two players that completely rewrote the rules for how a striker was supposed to play.

Of course in Weah's days the tv cover was also a lot worse. People usually didn't know much about players in other leagues. And it wasn't like Liberia were going to do anything in the one big tournament everybody in the world had access to, which was the World Cup.

Yeah the WC argument is bollocks. Messi has done it all at club level. Broken every record there is. That should count for more.

Messi's goals and assists carried a poor Argentina side to the final in the last World Cup where they lost a close game to arguably the best side on paper anyways, a game in which they had more chances. It's a frivolous argument.

I think Messi is the GOAT. For the longest of times I had Maradona ahead of him, but the little guy has just kept on trucking, year after year, producing spectacular stuff.

Maradona is not even in the top 10. He is basically the opposite of that world cup argument.

Not necessarily disagreeing but which ten players do you have ahead?

This is all very subjective of course, but for me I see Messi as number 1 and Maradona as number 2. You obviously do not agree with that, and that's fine.

Messi is number 1 GOAT all things considered, which ever way you look at it. Whether it's longevity, his ceiling or his ability to turn it on in big games, he has done everything. Who cares about all the major trophies with Argentina that Higuain has taken it away from him?

jones wrote:

Not necessarily disagreeing but which ten players do you have ahead?

Cruyff, Van Hanegem, Messi, Puskas, Santamaria, Van Basten, Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, Pelé, Bergkamp, Litmanen off the top of my head and in random order. Heavily biased of course and I always find comparing individual players a bit silly.