How will you describe Messi in the year 2040 to young people?

613 goals in 701 games in the toughest league, La Liga. What will you tell your children and grandchildren about the great man? Here are some comments to ponder;

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Pep Guardiola said:

He's the best [ever], there is no other like him. The numbers speak for themselves. One day he'll score six. We'll never see a player like him again.

We witnessed one of Messi's special nights tonight, it's a gift and I will always be able to say that I coached him.

The only credit I can take is that I always put him in the team and we just try to make sure he gets the ball. After that our task is done.

The throne belongs to him and only he will decide when he wants to relinquish it.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic said in his autobiography that Messi was the reason that he'd failed to make an impression at Barcelona;

It was a childhood dream and I was walking on air. It started well but then Messi started to talk.

He wanted to play in the middle, not on the wing, so the system changed from 4-3-3 to 4-5-1. I was sacrificed and no longer had the freedom on the pitch I need to succeed.

So I asked for a meeting with Guardiola—for a discussion, not an argument. I said I was being used in the wrong way and that they shouldn't have bought me if they wanted another type of player.

I told him what a friend had said to me—"you bought a Ferrari but drive it like a Fiat."

Ronaldinho said;

No, because I have played for some of the biggest teams in the world and won everything. The only regret is not playing more seasons with Lionel Messi.

He is my good friend. I could see even at a young age he was going to be the best. It was exciting to see this kid who could do things most players can only dream of.

Messi for the last three or four years has been the best player in the world—he has been at a level of consistency I don't think the world has seen before.

Zidane said;

He makes the difference most of the time. In particular, he is always going forwards. He never passes the ball backwards or sideways. He has only one idea, to run towards the goal.

So as a football fan, just enjoy the show.

Diego Simeone said;

Diego filled us with emotions. But between the cracks, without doubt, Messi is better than Maradona.
 

repo

Bantu Liberation Movement
VIP
I think the Premier League is much tougher cause the teams have more equal footing. La Liga has been dominated by 2-3 teams.
 

Helios

Certified Liin Distributor
AQOONYAHAN
VIP
EPL is harder in my opinion but its marginal. La Liga has teams that will give all of the top 6 difficulties on any day. Valenica, Bilbao and Sevilla would warrant proper preperation from any Prem team. Its just that Barca and Real are just leagues ahead of the rest that makes it look like a joke of a league.
 

Exodus

Alienist
La Liga is NOT the toughest league, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Physically and Mentally, the Premier League is far harder to succeed in, the fact there are no Christmas breaks adds to this as well. This is a well-documented fact.

While Messi is the much better player, if he does not win a trophy for his country before he retires, the GOAT status has to go to CR7, who also has proved himself in 3 different leagues as Legacy > Ability
 
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Tukraq

VIP
overrated, didn't win when it counted in the World Cup, and plays for a stacked OP team in a 2 team league that buys all the stars
 

Karim

I could agree with you but then we’d both be wrong
HALYEEY
VIP
Messi is undoubtedly the greatest ever and Barcelona will eventually be a midtable club if they don't immediately change their absurd over-reliance on MESSI. Without him they would've been in the 10th place this season in La Liga.
 
Eden Hazard was a superstar in the EPL but an average player in La Liga sums up the difference.

The same could be said about Gareth Bale. Premier League is tougher imo

La Liga is boring as hell. Always the same two teams with all the buying power and talent, with a third team somewhere in the mix (Sevilla, Atletico, Valencia, or Bilbao depending on the decade)

Real Madrid 57 - Celta Vigo 0
Barcelona 35 - Levante 0

Booooooring

Any bottom-tier premier league team would run riot in La Liga and consistently finish top 6. The reason Spain dominated Champion's League for so long was because the big clubs play trash 90% of the time in Spain, then are rested up. Try being an English club playing mid-level Tottenham, United, Leicester, Wolves, etc. and then playing PSG

As for Messi, I think he's one of the greatest, but I won't consider him the greatest until he wins a continental trophy or even a league trophy in another country
 
Guys

This debate has been raging for a while now, let's see what the British sports (football) journalists have to say about this issue.

Guardian Sport Network Football

La Liga could teach the Premier League about being competitive.

Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool are disproving the theory that ‘anyone can beat anyone’ in the Premier League

By Martin Laurence

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There are many factors to consider when assessing what makes one league better than another, but over the years the Premier League has been held up as a competition where anyone can beat anyone. That is, of course, true of any league, but it is an increasingly ill-informed assumption when applied to England’s top flight. The notion that the Premier League is more competitive than its competitors is being put to bed this season.

There are currently six unbeaten teams in Europe’s big leagues and half of them are from England, with Juventus, Borussia Dortmund and PSG all matching the unbeaten records of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea. This is the first time in the history of English football that three top-flight sides have made it through their first 12 matches of the campaign without losing. To have three unbeaten teams is unprecedented but even having two is highly unusual. This is the 27th season of the Premier League and only once before have two clubs reached this stage of the season without losing – back in 2007-08, when Arsenal and Liverpool still hadn’t lost after 12 games.

Funnily enough, neither of those clubs went on to win the league that season. By the end of the campaign they had both fallen below Manchester United and Chelsea – the two teams who met in the Champions League final that spring. Arsenal and Liverpool may have been difficult to break down at the start of that season, but they were in no way as dominant as the current elite.

The Premier League was more competitive in the early days. In its very first season, 1992-93, the top three at this stage – Norwich, Blackburn and Coventry – had already picked up five defeats between them. It wasn’t until the 1995-96 season that a club reached this stage of the campaign without losing – and that team was Nottingham Forest, who finished ninth that season and were relegated the following summer.

The state of the league table this season – with three unbeaten sides at this stage – is in huge contrast to the early days of the league; there were only three unbeaten sides in the first decade of the competition: Nottingham Forest in 1995-96, Arsenal in 1997-98 and Aston Villa in 1998-99. And Arsenal were the only one of those sides who went on to be champions.

The picture is just as alarming at the foot of the table this season. None of the bottom seven clubs in the league – Newcastle, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Cardiff, Huddersfield and Fulham – has earned more than nine points from their first 12 games. The points they are winning are coming from games against each other. Their record against the top teams is terrible. This group have played 29 matches against last season’s top six and picked up just one point between them from the 87 available – a point earned by Crystal Palace in their 2-2 draw against Arsenal. Their collective goal difference in these 29 matches against the top teams is -69.

The teams at the bottom are not just coming up short against the very best sides in the league. They are struggling full stop. None of them has won more than two games; they have played 12 games each (a total of 84) but have just 11 victories between them (most of which are against each other); and none of the bottom five sides in the league has beaten a team from the top half.

The disparity between the best and the rest in the Premier League looks even starker when the division is compared to its competitors elsewhere in Europe. La Liga in particular has been written off by many in England for its perceived lack of competition, but fans in Spain are enjoying an unpredictable and highly entertaining season. Every team in La Liga has lost at least once this season.

Reigning champions Barcelona are top of the table but, after their 4-3 defeat to Real Betis at the weekend, their points tally would only be enough to put them fifth in the Premier League – just above Arsenal on goal difference. While the top five in the Premier League have suffered just five defeats between them, the top five in Spain – which excludes European champions Real Madrid – have been beaten 12 times so far.

The top four in Spain are separated by just one point, with just a 10-point gap between leaders Barcelona and 14th-place Valencia, who finished in the Champions League places last season. The gap from Manchester City to 14th-place Newcastle, for comparison’s sake, is 23 points.

The disparity between the best and the rest in the Premier League looks even starker when the division is compared to its competitors elsewhere in Europe. La Liga in particular has been written off by many in England for its perceived lack of competition, but fans in Spain are enjoying an unpredictable and highly entertaining season. Every team in La Liga has lost at least once this season.

Reigning champions Barcelona are top of the table but, after their 4-3 defeat to Real Betis at the weekend, their points tally would only be enough to put them fifth in the Premier League – just above Arsenal on goal difference. While the top five in the Premier League have suffered just five defeats between them, the top five in Spain – which excludes European champions Real Madrid – have been beaten 12 times so far.

The top four in Spain are separated by just one point, with just a 10-point gap between leaders Barcelona and 14th-place Valencia, who finished in the Champions League places last season. The gap from Manchester City to 14th-place Newcastle, for comparison’s sake, is 23 points.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...etitiveness-manchester-city-chelsea-liverpool

EPL Ladder

Liverpool 46 points
Leicester 38
Man City 32

La-Liga

Barca 34
Real Madrid 34
Seville 31

Which League is more competitive?
 

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