clyde21 wrote:The-Power wrote:clyde21 wrote:
It explains why his club play has always been at a much higher level than his national performances.
Not to take anything away from Messi, but having Iniesta and Xavi spoon feeding you offense over and over again is a huge luxury.
You must not have watched Barça very much then if you believe he was ‘spoon fed‘ by anybody.
Not a Barca fan but I've watched them plenty (they're everywhere), and if you don't think Xavi/Iniesta contributed hugely to Messi's club success, then we'll agree to disagree.
They're probably the GOAT midfield duo.
You're suddenly changing the topic. Saying ‘Xavi and Iniesta were spoon-feeding Messi‘ is entirely different from saying they ‘they hugely contribute to their team's success‘. The last one is a notion I'd never reject but I feel like it's quite obvious that in an 11vs.11 setting the teammates are going to play a huge role in the success a player has at the team-level. There's not a single modern player for whom this is any different, so your argument is absolutely pointless in a comparison of individual players.
Re: Success with the national team. The Argentinian team is heavily flawed. Great collection of individual offensive talent but the fit is quite poor and the team behind the three or four attacking players is really limited. By the way, in 36 WC and Copa América games Messi recorded 13 Goals and 19 Assists (32 Total). I'm not sure who wrote but someone said Messi can't be the GOAT without winning a World Cup and that's silly. Aside from the fact that it's a team game and that there are only win-or-go-home games after the group stage, Messi has played in three (3!) World Cups in his entire career. One where he was 19 years old, so that should hardly count as anything, and in one they lost in overtime in the Finals. People look at 12 WC games and act like they mean very much in the grand scheme of things when we have years and years of data of competition at the highest level in club football. Oh, and in four Copa America competitions Messi participated in, Argentinia reached the Finals three times and they lost in a penalty shootout twice.
Using the success or lack thereof with the national team against Messi is something I'll never understand because it makes little sense to overstate its impact on Messi's individual legacy – or let's say the impact it should have on his legacy based on what can be reasonably justified. With a little more luck Messi could have three major titles with his national team and everybody would praise him for what he's done. But two lost penalty shootouts and one lost overtime and suddenly he hasn't proven to be able to win anything with the national team. Please, give me a break. That's beyond silly. And that's even before digging deeper into how much impact a single player can have, consistently, on winning titles in a soccer setting. Messi's impact is quite large but no player came ever close to having similar impact on winning titles as superstars in basketball have – to nobody's surprise (I hope).
Note that the last two paragraphs are only partially directed at you. Your post just triggered my more general ‘rant‘.
