Messi (1 Viewer)

fair play to him was always going to beat it this year with the form he has been on 86 goals aint it in 2012?

With 3 games still yet to play this year! He'll get into the 90's easy! Best player the World's ever seen in my opinion.

How many matches has he played?

kg82 said:

With 3 games still yet to play this year! He'll get into the 90's easy! Best player the World's ever seen in my opinion.

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Great player for sure, amazing record, but the best ? Not so sure, pele, johan cruyff and george best spring to mind.

You can add Ronald to that list too.

How many has he got?

To be God he has to prove himself in the premiership like so many great players do. Playing in Spain against poor teams for a large part in front of low crowds is not the same as the culdron of the Premiership in England I would argue. He has come unstuck on several oaccsions when faced by British sides in the Champions league. I would like to see if he would be afforded the time and space to score as often over here? Not to mention he has a big helping hand with the players he has around him at present.
It can be argued Rinaldo did just that at Utd and a younger age too and continues to do so at Real.

The Premier League's UEFA coefficient is far behind La Liga's, and is close to being overtaken by the Bundesliga as well. Playing in England is not a high barometer like it was 5 or 6 years ago.

As for Spanish sides being poor, I seem to remember Bilbao (who finished in mid-table) dominating against Man United at Old Trafford last season. And I also remember Messi running a Wembley Champions League final against Man United not too long ago.

And as for English grounds being 'cauldrons' that's pretty laughable. The atmospere's about as sterile as it gets.

I wouldn't have a single Premier League player in my world XI at the moment.

derbyskyblue said:

Great player for sure, amazing record, but the best ? Not so sure, pele, johan cruyff and george best spring to mind.

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The best out of them was cruyff in my my opinion and again, I believe messi is better then he was! To be honest I would say maradona is ahead of them also.

I also think the premiership arguments rubbish! So many of the games greats haven't played in england - 3 of them being mentioned above. Like I said though, its all my opinion! I know what I see with messi and I go away every time thinking "best player ever"!

The Spanish game is different to our own, They are all about possession football and tend to lead to boring games, Our football is a lot more exciting IMO. I don't think you can compare the Spanish and English games as they are so different at the moment. The Bundesliga is very similar to our game though and I think they'll surpass us in the coming few years. The amount of talented players coming through the ranks is unbelievable.

Wow at Paxmans comments.

Now this proving yourself in the Premier league, in my opinion is absolute tripe. The greatest footballers of all time are generally considered to be Pele, Maradona or Cryuff, what do all 3 of them have in common? Neither of them played in England.

Another point, the Spanish league being poor. Do you watch the Spanish league, and by that I mean do you watch the so called 'poorer teams' but not against Barcelona or Real Madrid where they are going to look poor? Like Sutty says, Bilbao dominated Man Utd home and away, Atletico Madrid absolutely spanked Chelsea 4-1 when they had started the season so well.

Come unstuck on several occasions against British teams? Erm I've never seen that, he's played Man Utd twice, 2 goals in 2 CL finals and 2 MOTM performances to go with it. Against Chelsea last season, okay he never scored but in both games he played well, not his usual exceptional standards but still, his overall performance was good. He's also torn Arsenal apart on more than one occasion, he's scored 6 goals in 4 appearences against them.

End of the day if Aguero can come over here and get 30 goals in his first season, why wouldn't Messi be able too?

The answer is simple. Lets see him do it in the premiership. I've been a to one or games in Spain where it felt like a league one fixture at Carlisle. You just can't say the same about the premier league. the circumstances of your surroundings have a major effect on the game.
Pounding around the premier league all season through mud and rain and cold with more than one other team on your trail is no picnic.
Would love to see how he coped with that.

Paxman II said:

The answer is simple. Lets see him do it in the premiership. I've been a to one or games in Spain where it felt like a league one fixture at Carlisle. You just can't say the same about the premier league. the circumstances of your surroundings have a major effect on the game.
Pounding around the premier league all season through mud and rain and cold with more than one other team on your trail is no picnic.
Would love to see how he coped with that.

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Why would he want to move to the PL? It would be a step down to him. Typical English arrogance.

The quality of some of the games in the lower end of the PL is absolutely appalling. As for having one team on your tail, in the last 10 years of the PL only 3 teams have won the league, exactly the same record in La Liga. This year it's a two horse race in the PL, it usually is every season.

Pounding around in the mud? Every premier league pitch is absolutely perfect, were not in the 80's any more.

kg82 said:

With 3 games still yet to play this year! He'll get into the 90's easy! Best player the World's ever seen in my opinion.

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I just don't get this comment, he is well in his comfort zone at barca, its too easy for him there..no physicality in that league at all.great player yes.greatest ever....no? No world cup medal .people ignoring the fact that Muller scored 85 in 60 and messi 86 in 66.for me mess I needs to move from barca and produce the goods elsewhere other than Spain to show he's the greatest.
Ronaldo 80 odd goals for united in 180 odd games.
120 odd goals for Madrid in 110 odd games.
The league is tooooo easy

Reynolds_121 said:

Why would he want to move to the PL? It would be a step down to him. Typical English arrogance.

The quality of some of the games in the lower end of the PL is absolutely appalling. As for having one team on your tail, in the last 10 years of the PL only 3 teams have won the league, exactly the same record in La Liga. This year it's a two horse race in the PL, it usually is every season.

Pounding around in the mud? Every premier league pitch is absolutely perfect, were not in the 80's any more.

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Not at all its the truth

Let's put it another way how good would mess I be playing at Zaragoza for example.its on a plate for him at barca feeding off one of the greatest midfield line ups the world has ever seen. Its all too easy for him.maradonna looked great in an average argie team and a half decent Napoli team. Against big physical teams messi has at times been poor( Chelsea) .he's in his element

Evans020 said:

I just don't get this comment, he is well in his comfort zone at barca, its too easy for him there..no physicality in that league at all.great player yes.greatest ever....no? No world cup medal .people ignoring the fact that Muller scored 85 in 60 and messi 86 in 66.for me mess I needs to move from barca and produce the goods elsewhere other than Spain to show he's the greatest.
Ronaldo 80 odd goals for united in 180 odd games.
120 odd goals for Madrid in 110 odd games.
The league is tooooo easy

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You don't get it because it's not your opinion, it's mine. All these arguments - hasn't played in another league, hasn't won a world cup, playing with a great midfield - so what?! Barcelona, maybe the best team to ever play football and he is the lynch pin of all that. Hasn't won a world cup? I really don't see how that's a guide to best player ever. Cruyff never won a world cup, Eusebio never won a world cup, George Best didn't even play in a world cup and as far as I know Ronaldo hasn't won a world cup either. And playing with a great midfield. Are you telling me that other candidates of best player in the world did not play with other great players? You can make arguments up for and against till you're blue in the face, it's a personal opinion and I'm going to stick by it as I know what I've seen and what I've been watching.

Messi is never leaving Barca whilst he is in his prime so people going on about prove it in the premier league aren't going to get there wish

Messi regularly tears apart English clubs in the champions league, Man Utd and Arsenal games spring to mind. Ok he has struggled against Chelsea with there park the bus approach

Last season Messi scored 14 goals in 11 champions league games and in 2012 he has 12 goals in 9 caps for Argentina, so he has scored regularly outside of la liga

Also excellent point made earlier about a mid table spanish side completely outplaying the most successful team in English football last seasonw

Messi is the best player in the world at the moment and probably the best player of all time. It takes someone special to be able to score that many goals but also he is a great team player.

On the English/Spanish league argument, the Spanish league is far superior at the moment this is why the English league loses a lot of its good players to the Spanish league i.e Ronaldo, Beckham, Henry, Fabregas etc Not many top players come the other way

Sorry guys, looks like Godfrey Chitalu is the new best player in history

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/thetoepoke/id/1030?cc=5739

When Lionel Messi stuck in his second goal of the night and his 86th of 2012 against Real Betis on Saturday night to break Gerd Muller's long-standing 'goals in a calendar year' scoring record, the vast majority of the Earth's population assumed we would never in our lifetimes see the new total surpassed.

Turns out the dissenting minority were the good folks of the Zambian FA!

The Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) are claiming that the record doesn't belong to Messi, nor did it belong to Muller, but that Zambian striker Godfrey 'Ucar' Chitalu holds the record having scored 107 goals over the course of 1972.

A spokesperson for the FAZ told Zambian newspaper Soccer Laduma:

"We have this record, which has been recorded in Zambian football, but unfortunately it has not been recorded in world football.

"Even as the world has been looking at Lionel Messi's record, breaking Gerd Muller's, the debate and discussion back here has been why Godfrey's goals are not being recognised.

"What we are doing is, we have commissioned an independent team locally to go back into the archives and record minute-by-minute each of those goals. The team that we have put together is going to calculate all of those goals, recording whichever game or tournament they were scored in.

"We will then send that to CAF [Confederation of African Football] and FIFA so that we can show that, while Messi's record is there, while Muller's record is there, the actual record holder in terms of goals per calendar year is actually an African. It's actually Godfrey Chitalu."

Apparently Chitalu (a former five-time Zambian footballer of the year who sadly died in 1993), set his "goalvalanche" in motion in 1968 when he scored 81 goals for Kitwe United for the year, before besting his own record four years later by sticking away 107 in all competitions during the same 12 months that Muller set his 'record' in 1972 -- the only difference being that Chitalu's feat was never officially recognised by FIFA.

While we're on the subject; if it would please FIFA and the FAZ, Toe Poke have some very interesting stats from our Monday night five-a-side league that may just usurp the whole bloody lot of them.