RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[Rubios]

First, I'm from Barcelona and a Barça supporter.

Define "gap", and let me explain:

The comparison bw Messi and Cristiano is valid just because of accolades and numbers (and only to a certain extent).
Anyone with eyes can see that Messi is light years above Ronaldo as a footballer.

But.

Messi was God-like in an excellent team, the best in the world in a good team... but he shrugged when surrounded by a bad team.
It's like he was thinking "what am I doing here?" and just walked around the field, eyes down.

Most culés (Barça fans) agree -in a very low voice- that some seasons FCB would have been better with a CR7 than a Messi.
With a CR in your team, Bayern doesn't score EIGHT against you. Never. Not gonna happen.

In his first year with Juve, during the break of a Champions' match, CR (who already had won FIVE) started yelling "we are playing like ****, me first, we must stop being condescending with ourselves and our mates. Show some personality, this is the Champions".

They lost the game and got eliminated. CR, who had won his third Champions IN A ROW the year before, left the field crying.

[Tracymcgoaty]

First, I'm from Barcelona and a Barça supporter.

Define "gap", and let me explain:

The comparison bw Messi and Cristiano is valid just because of accolades and numbers (and only to a certain extent).
Anyone with eyes can see that Messi is light years above Ronaldo as a footballer.

But.

Messi was God-like in an excellent team, the best in the world in a good team... but he shrugged when surrounded by a bad team.
It's like he was thinking "what am I doing here?" and just walked around the field, eyes down.

Most culés (Barça fans) agree -in a very low voice- that some seasons FCB would have been better with a CR7 than a Messi.
With a CR in your team, Bayern doesn't score EIGHT against you. Never. Not gonna happen.

In his first year with Juve, during the break of a Champions' match, CR (who already had won FIVE) started yelling "we are playing like ****, me first, we must stop being condescending with ourselves and our mates. Show some personality, this is the Champions".

They lost the game and got eliminated. CR, who had won his third Champions IN A ROW the year before, left the field crying.

Im surrounded with Barca fans that i know not one has ever uttered those words. And explain shrugged on a bad team. Because last season Messi played for Barca which would probably be considered a bad team he tallied 38 goals and 14 assists in every competition.

LOL at Cristiano somehow being this leader who will prevent opposing teams scoring big against him as if his steel will and resiliance will prevent it.

Same (Leader) who cant even rally a win against Morocco in the knockout stages in WC 2022 when the talent level was superior? Is this the same dude who has repeated APB's on him when it matters for his national team?

Mythmaking.

[Petergrifindor]

When healthy, R9 was way better than both Messi and CR7.

No , and not even close.

I saw him playing live at the stadium with Barcelona. I saw all his games that year.

He was fantastic, unique and memorable, but both Messi and CR7 have several seasons better than Ronaldo’s best.

Complete different levels.

Put pre injury R9 in modern football right now he's averaging 50+ goals in every competition.

I remember watching Messi and Ronaldo having problems with cafu Nesta/maldini when they were ancient. Same R9 who made them crap their pants when they were in their prime.

R9 played against the greatest defenders you could play against and put fear in their hearts the way Cristiano or Messi never did. And i say that as someone who put Messi as the Goat.

there isn't a single scenario where i pick Cristiano over a healthy R9.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YgfhODasIoI

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E1XVqL13GrU

And you're talking about kid Ronaldo who dominated in barcelona. Ronaldo in Inter was the most complete football player you've ever seen in a 9.


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Lm_ZlF78k_0

All of these players were GOAT level defenders in their prime and R9 had them shaking in their boots.

R9 facing todays defenders would score goals for fun. They'd have nothing for him.

No man, that's nostalgia talking.

Ronaldo never, in any era, could do 50 goals. Why? Because he was **** LAZY.

I'm not talking in training, I mean in the games. People remember his best plays, and yeah they were absolutely mind blowing. They also remember that when he catched the ball, no matter where on the pitch, you raised your bottom from your seat, because something special might happen. All of that is true.

What they forget is the other 80 minutes of every game were he was walking. Just walking.

I have seen CR7 and Messi on the stadium live a lot of times. Messi was intervening in the game at all times, and CR7 was a one man army, the guy never stoped attacking and trying. It was something to behold.

Ronaldo didn't do that. He has no real argument for the GOAT, even without injuries.

Now, most spectacular, or most amazing mixture of power plays and technique finesse... sure. The guy was a miracle.

[Tracymcgoaty]

No , and not even close.

I saw him playing live at the stadium with Barcelona. I saw all his games that year.

He was fantastic, unique and memorable, but both Messi and CR7 have several seasons better than Ronaldo’s best.

Complete different levels.

Put pre injury R9 in modern football right now he's averaging 50+ goals in every competition.

I remember watching Messi and Ronaldo having problems with cafu Nesta/maldini when they were ancient. Same R9 who made them crap their pants when they were in their prime.

R9 played against the greatest defenders you could play against and put fear in their hearts the way Cristiano or Messi never did. And i say that as someone who put Messi as the Goat.

there isn't a single scenario where i pick Cristiano over a healthy R9.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YgfhODasIoI

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E1XVqL13GrU

And you're talking about kid Ronaldo who dominated in barcelona. Ronaldo in Inter was the most complete football player you've ever seen in a 9.


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Lm_ZlF78k_0

All of these players were GOAT level defenders in their prime and R9 had them shaking in their boots.

R9 facing todays defenders would score goals for fun. They'd have nothing for him.

No man, that's nostalgia talking.

Ronaldo never, in any era, could do 50 goals. Why? Because he was **** LAZY.

I'm not talking in training, I mean in the games. People remember his best plays, and yeah they were absolutely mind blowing. They also remember that when he catched the ball, no matter where on the pitch, you raised your bottom from your seat, because something special might happen. All of that is true.

What they forget is the other 75 minutes of every game were he was walking. Just walking.

I have seen CR7 and Messi on the stadium live a lot of times. Messi was intervening in the game at all times, and CR7 was a one man army, the guy never stoped attacking and trying. It was something to behold.

Ronaldo didn't do that. He has no real argument for the GOAT, even without injuries.

Now, most spectacular, or most amazing mixture of power plays and technique finesse... sure. The guy was a miracle.

This is the biggest load of gahbage. YES Ronaldo who has scored 414 goals in 600 games a BIG chunk of it being post his **** knees being blown up...YES THAT GUY! Wouldn't score with ease if he was healthy against modern defenders??


Same dude who came back from said knee being blown up going into WC 2002 and winning the top scorer with 8 goals? THAT guy?

My god man to think this is nostalgia talking. Ronaldo was THAT good
Ronaldo most def would have had a GOAT case had he been healthy.

Eerling **** Haaland who doesn't even possess 1/3 of R9s talent is crapping in goals for City

Mbappe who many consider the closest thing to R9 (he isn't) has 34 goals in all competition this season.

Give me a **** break. 50+ goals easily.

i just shared videos of Alessandro Nesta who has faced all three of those players say R9 was the best. He faced R9 when he was 22 years old and got murdered. He faced Messi and cristiano when he was close to 40 and held his own.

[Petergrifindor]

Put pre injury R9 in modern football right now he's averaging 50+ goals in every competition.

I remember watching Messi and Ronaldo having problems with cafu Nesta/maldini when they were ancient. Same R9 who made them crap their pants when they were in their prime.

R9 played against the greatest defenders you could play against and put fear in their hearts the way Cristiano or Messi never did. And i say that as someone who put Messi as the Goat.

there isn't a single scenario where i pick Cristiano over a healthy R9.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YgfhODasIoI

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E1XVqL13GrU

And you're talking about kid Ronaldo who dominated in barcelona. Ronaldo in Inter was the most complete football player you've ever seen in a 9.


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Lm_ZlF78k_0

All of these players were GOAT level defenders in their prime and R9 had them shaking in their boots.

R9 facing todays defenders would score goals for fun. They'd have nothing for him.

No man, that's nostalgia talking.

Ronaldo never, in any era, could do 50 goals. Why? Because he was **** LAZY.

I'm not talking in training, I mean in the games. People remember his best plays, and yeah they were absolutely mind blowing. They also remember that when he catched the ball, no matter where on the pitch, you raised your bottom from your seat, because something special might happen. All of that is true.

What they forget is the other 75 minutes of every game were he was walking. Just walking.

I have seen CR7 and Messi on the stadium live a lot of times. Messi was intervening in the game at all times, and CR7 was a one man army, the guy never stoped attacking and trying. It was something to behold.

Ronaldo didn't do that. He has no real argument for the GOAT, even without injuries.

Now, most spectacular, or most amazing mixture of power plays and technique finesse... sure. The guy was a miracle.

This is the biggest load of gahbage i've seen someone write to be honest. YES Ronaldo who has scored 414 goals in 600 games a BIG chunk of it being post his **** knees being blown up...YES THAT GUY! Wouldn't score with ease if he was healthy against modern defenders??


Same dude who came back from said knee being blown up going into WC 2002 and winning the top scorer with 8 goals? THAT guy?

My god man to think this is nostalgia talking. Ronaldo was THAT good
Ronaldo most def would have had a GOAT case had he been healthy.

Eerling **** Haaland who doesn't even possess 1/3 of R9s talent is crapping in goals for City

Mbappe who many consider the closest thing to R9 (he isn't) has 34 goals in all competition this season.

Give me a **** break. 50+ goals easily.

And I'm telling you Ronaldo was too lazy to put the numbers that lesser players than him put today.

Now, in world cup, one month with THAT Brasil, sure. But in a whole year...

The guy only won one mayor league in his career (he did with us). The other is one as a kid with the PSV.
I'm telling you his ceiling it's not as high as people talk about, because they only remember the best qualities of him, which are top 1, and ignore what was the real complete pack.

[okboomer]

Crisitano is nowhere close to Messi.

[Tracymcgoaty]

No man, that's nostalgia talking.

Ronaldo never, in any era, could do 50 goals. Why? Because he was **** LAZY.

I'm not talking in training, I mean in the games. People remember his best plays, and yeah they were absolutely mind blowing. They also remember that when he catched the ball, no matter where on the pitch, you raised your bottom from your seat, because something special might happen. All of that is true.

What they forget is the other 75 minutes of every game were he was walking. Just walking.

I have seen CR7 and Messi on the stadium live a lot of times. Messi was intervening in the game at all times, and CR7 was a one man army, the guy never stoped attacking and trying. It was something to behold.

Ronaldo didn't do that. He has no real argument for the GOAT, even without injuries.

Now, most spectacular, or most amazing mixture of power plays and technique finesse... sure. The guy was a miracle.

This is the biggest load of gahbage i've seen someone write to be honest. YES Ronaldo who has scored 414 goals in 600 games a BIG chunk of it being post his **** knees being blown up...YES THAT GUY! Wouldn't score with ease if he was healthy against modern defenders??


Same dude who came back from said knee being blown up going into WC 2002 and winning the top scorer with 8 goals? THAT guy?

My god man to think this is nostalgia talking. Ronaldo was THAT good
Ronaldo most def would have had a GOAT case had he been healthy.

Eerling **** Haaland who doesn't even possess 1/3 of R9s talent is crapping in goals for City

Mbappe who many consider the closest thing to R9 (he isn't) has 34 goals in all competition this season.

Give me a **** break. 50+ goals easily.

And I'm telling you Ronaldo was too lazy to put the numbers that lesser players than him put today.

Now, in world cup, one month with THAT Brasil, sure. But in a whole year...

The guy only won one mayor league in his career (he did with us). The other is one as a kid with the PSV.
I'm telling you his ceiling it's not as high as people talk about, because they only remember the best qualities of him, which are top 1, and ignore what was the real complete pack.

I HATE it when people use team accolades to measure how great a player was.

Maradona who many people consider the Goat has 8 title in his career.

Healthy R9 would absolutely demolish teams in this modern football because his averages showed that he would. Only thing that hindered him was injuries thats it.

He wasn't even supposed to come back from his knee injury. Doctors said he'd never play again. He came back and not only did he come back but he still scored a bunch. Why? Because he was still fantastic with 1 good leg.

Watch on YouTube

All of these legends in this video are clearly overrating him.

[SportsGuru08]

Don't really know anything about soccer but Jordan is miles ahead of LeBron.

[JJ_PR]

I see people all the time criticizing LeBron James for trying to surpass MJ. Shouldn't all NBA players strive to be the best? It's not like LeBron is a scrub, he's already considered the 2nd best player ever. I don't think people realize how competitive professional players are.

Kobe Bryant wanted to be better than MJ. Every aspiring NBA player has a similar mentality; they want to be the best. I'm pretty sure every single player that has suited up in the NBA at one point had the goal to be the GOAT. Some are realistic, some aren't.

LeBron isn't perfect, but that doesn't make him a bad human being like some people claim. I don't know him personally, but he seems like a very good role model. He never gets in trouble off the court.

Longevity must count for something. He's the GOAT longevity player in the NBA and it isn't even close. Kareem didn't enter the NBA straight from high school, he had significantly less mileage once he got to age 40 compared to LeBron.

Hopefully LeBron signs with Cleveland for the vet minimum, adding him to the Cavs would make us instant title favorites while keeping our star-studded roster intact.

[The High Cyde]

They’ve been conditioned to not even entertain the question that someone might be a better basketball player than Jordan regardless of what they accomplish. Nike marketing machine, plus fools like Skip and Stephen A going on television every morning and crapping on him for like 2 decades. Some of it might be warranted, but like…it’s not that serious, get over it lol

[Prince187]

It’s the way he’s gone about doing it. He never had the natural talent to even be in the same stratosphere as Jordan so he tried to rig the system by forming super teams, using PEDs, stat padding, and using the media and PR to artificially build a case for him being the GOAT.

[zimpy27]

Hahaha you can’t even defend this performance. The idiotic he’s still a top 10 player despite an absolute sieve defensively. Horrific in so many fourth quarters in this series with one series costing turnover after another.

Incredible player, nice career even if tons of players won titles at his expense. But this face planting is really really bad. To go out with a whimper.

Maybe he’ll have more time to buy real estate since playoff basketball isn’t it anymore

It's telling that the expectations for him are still so high as a 40 year old. That's why he's the GOAT though. He had the 2nd best playoff BPM before tonight.

No other player was expected to play like the #1 player in the league at 40. GOAT expectations for the GOAT player though. Comes with the territory.

nobody said play like the #1 player in the league, just don't have multiple games of multiple fourth quarter no shows with turnovers costing your team the series. It's over Taj, second best all time, adding more and more dubious laker records by the day.

You are in absolute shambles right now, the whole series was a nightmare for LeBron. One of the worst defenders in the league.

I mean this is horrific, period

Read on Twitter

?s=46

Read on Twitter

?s=46

Read on Twitter

?s=46

Tell me you don't watch LeBron without telling me you don't watch LeBron

[zimpy27]

Because he's already surpassed him.

He's not trying to pass him at all.

[SportsGuru08]

They’ve been conditioned to not even entertain the question that someone might be a better basketball player than Jordan regardless of what they accomplish. Nike marketing machine, plus fools like Skip and Stephen A going on television every morning and crapping on him for like 2 decades. Some of it might be warranted, but like…it’s not that serious, get over it lol

No, it's because Bron, his fanboys, and his paid media shills can't make their case for him without coming up with a litany of excuses and narratives while also degrading last legends so he looks better. And these tactics were taken up to eleven when his Finals losses started to pile up like corpses as Auschwitz. Your arguments are disingenuous, so we call you out on them.

You're the ones who started this. We're just responding in kind.

Obvious strike for this disgusting post.
- ccs

[SportsGuru08]

Because he's already passed him.

He's not trying to pass him at all.

If that's the case, his paid media shills wouldn't need to bend over to create narratives and do anything they can to absolve him of blame when his teams lose.

The reason they do this is precisely because he hasn't surpassed MJ.

How else do you explain a marketing campaign that claims he's "Risen above winning?"

[zimpy27]

Because he's already passed him.

He's not trying to pass him at all.

If that's the case, his paid media shills wouldn't need to bend over to create narratives and do anything they can to absolve him of blame when his teams lose.

The reason they do this is precisely because he hasn't surpassed MJ.

How else do you explain a marketing campaign that claims he's "Risen above winning?"

Who are the shills? Were you around to watch Jordan play?

If you think LeBron has shills, you'd think Jordan was the media.

[FarBeyondDriven]

It’s the way he’s gone about doing it. He never had the natural talent to even be in the same stratosphere as Jordan so he tried to rig the system by forming super teams, using PEDs, stat padding, and using the media and PR to artificially build a case for him being the GOAT.

I disagree, he absolutely had the natural talent to be the GOAT. It's his personality and temperament that prevented him from doing so. Ending up as arguably a top 10 player (where he lands in the top 10 differs and usually depends on when you started watching basketball) is a major accomplishment.

[OriginalRed]

What are you talking about? Whose criticizing Lebron for trying to surpass MJ? I've seen people criticize him for saying he's better then MJ when he declared himself the GOAT but I've never seen anyone criticize him for just attempting to be the best.

[SportsGuru08]

Because he's already passed him.

He's not trying to pass him at all.

If that's the case, his paid media shills wouldn't need to bend over to create narratives and do anything they can to absolve him of blame when his teams lose.

The reason they do this is precisely because he hasn't surpassed MJ.

How else do you explain a marketing campaign that claims he's "Risen above winning?"

Who are the shills? Were you around to watch Jordan play?

If you think LeBron has shills, you'd think Jordan was the media.

Sharpe, Cowherd, Perkins, Redick, Wright, just to name a few.

The media in the '90s didn't need to bend over to create narratives for MJ. Huge difference.

[MrPainfulTruth]

He failed to get close to Michael or even Kobe, despite all the super team and stacking the deck. At this point there is no race any more. Longevity is the last thing his bubble can brag about but here's the thing. Either longevity matters - then these empty seasons hurt his legacy - or if they are just "the icing on the cake", they cant count as "longevity" either. So basically not even that is a very strong thing in his favor. You cant look up to someone who carries himself like LeBron did as the "GOAT". Its just not possible if you have seen what real greatness looks like. But all hope is not lost because the next generation promises to be more competitive and less narcissistic. Even if you are too young to have witnessed MJ, Kobe or Bird, you will soon see guys who are much, much greater than LeBron James, and by then - if you are open minded - you will understand why we laughed about your hype.