That is one stupid article.
Thatâs not a retraction. Messi has been a failure at international level, the media think he has been shit and a true pro in Nico Burdisso called him out for being a fraud in the 2011 Copa. He is not rated in Argentina and is viewed as an overhyped Catalan guinea pig.
Thatâs because most Argentinians are coke snorting simpletons.
[quote=âIl Bomber Destro, post: 688385â]
Thatâs not a retraction. Messi has been a failure at international level, the media think he has been shit and a true pro in Nico Burdisso called him out for being a fraud in the 2011 Copa. He is not rated in Argentina and is viewed as an overhyped Catalan guinea pig.[/quote]
Youâre so keen to be seen as some kind of alternative football hipster that youâre making a fool of yourself here. It would lead one to think your opinions are probably similarly ridiculous on the numerous threads where you talk to yourself and people leave you at it.
I am speaking in facts, you are proving once again how deluded you are and your head is buried so deep in the sand you canât think rationally. You were on here last week saying how Messi makes in an impact in every game, referencing the Celtic match as an example - a game where he was snuffed out by a bosman from Cardiff City playing out of position. You then went on to criticise Ronaldo for his performance against Manchester City.
The facts prove Iâm right. I rarely get in wrong on footballing matters as Iâm a real football philosophiser and the intricacies of the game come natural to me - you are a naive young folly whose mind is there to be capitalised on by spoofers. When you come to debate with me do your research.
Sure the FACT is Messi has a better international goal scoring record than Ronaldo. 31 in 75 as against 37 in 100. Anything else is just opinion. And almost everyone - fan, players and media have the opinion that Messi is the better player. Stick to talking to yourself. :lol:
Which fans, players and media?
His own media back in Argentina are very dubious to his credentials. Ronaldo has had a much more successful international career than Messi despite coming from a weaker footballing nation - thatâs a FACT, Ronaldo has been a talisman for his country and is pretty much the man Portugal rely on . Messi has been a failure for his country and has even been called out by his teammates and questioned by the media, he also has some highly lauded players playing along side him yet he canât deliver. You seem to have problems differentiating between things that are relative and things that are quantitative. Messi hides in the light blue and white stripes of Argentina, without the system he relies on he canât function and looks a lesser player.
Great players like Totti, Zlatan, Pirlo and Ronaldo have all carried their form onto the international stage.
To paraphrase a famous philosopher Messi has three World Player of the Years/Ballon Dâorâs Ronaldo has fuck all (1).
Messi has flopped in four major international tournaments. Youâre really failing to grasp the point here, Messi relies on a system and growth hormones - Ronaldo relies on his ability and his character. The Argentines donât appreciate Messi because heâs a fraud. If Messi came to Serie A he would struggle badly, playing in a joke league in Spain where his side playing boring keepball so they can lull teams into switching off and playing him in behind is apparently âgeniusâ to the masses of his and Barcelonaâs gullible fans.
Look everyone knows Messi hasnât been as good at international level as he has been at club, I just think he hasnât been as bad as is made out and his goalscoring record bears this out, albeit a lot of goals against quality opposition in friendlies. I reckon he will find his best form at this level in time too.
I completely disagree with ya on everything else youâre saying and it just makes you sound like a bitter fool but letâs just leave it at that. Iâll just let you seethe as Messi continues to destroy teams and win personal and team honours for the rest of the season and the rest of his career. Every other football fan I know is just enjoying it.
The World Cup is the biggest prize of them all, if Messi canât win one with a footballing superpower like Argentina then he is not a great. Messi is boring - as a player and personally - he has no character. You can talk about his efficiency - I wonât disagree with people on that point but he is not exciting playig 100 short little passes and running in behind defences who have switched off due to the utter cowardice of the Barcelona side is not exciting. Could you imagine him doing something like what Zlatan did two weeks ago? Could you fuck. Zlatan is a superstar, Messi is an annoying little bookworm who has stolen the answerbook. Lets not forget that Barcelona pumped him full of hormones to make it in the game either.
Gola why do you let yourself get dragged into this tired old banter?
Home-grown talent showing youth is served for Vilanova, Barcelon
Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova recently announced that the day was not far off but even he didnât plan for it to come quite so soon. Fourteen minutes into his teamâs trip to Levante on Sunday night, Dani Alves departed injured, to be replaced by MartĂn Montoya. It was 0-0 at the time; by the final whistle, Barcelona had won 4-0, climbing three points clear of AtlĂ©tico Madrid and eleven points ahead of Real Madrid at the top of the league table. But that was not what made it such a significant moment.
When Montoya ran onto the pitch, he joined VĂctor ValdĂ©s, Gerard PiquĂ©, Carles Puyol, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Xavi HernĂĄndez, Cesc Fabregas, AndrĂ©s Iniesta, Leo Messi and Pedro RodrĂguez. Together, they passed another milestone, one of huge emotional and practical importance. For the first time in Barcelonaâs history, its entire team had come through the clubâs youth system at one stage or another. Eleven players: eight Catalans, ten Spaniards, and all eleven of them from La MasĂa. An entire team, home-grown.
La MasĂa is a traditional, Catalan farmhouse that stands alongside the Camp Nou. Constructed in 1702, during the 1950s it was a works headquarters for architects and builders constructing the stadium. It became Barcelonaâs social center in 1966 and then, in 1979, a residency for kids in the youth system. Almost five hundred footballers lived there until Barcelona moved to their new HQ at San Joan DespĂ and even those who did not actually live there are invariably referred to as La MasĂa graduates: La MasĂa became shorthand for the Barcelona cantera, their entire academy. A symbol.
A symbol of a philosophy of football based on technique and possession, where the rondo â or keep ball routine â is central. A philosophy that Pep Guardiola described in simple terms, his use of English giving it even more of the feel of a mantra: âI have the ball, I pass the ball, I have the ball, I pass the ball, I have the ball, I pass the ball.â
There is a stylistic continuity, a conceptual clarity, that can be detected amongst those players who have come through the system, inspired by Dutch Total Football, the Ajax school and Rinus Michels and passed down through the work of Laureano RuĂz, the systemâs creator, Johan Cruyff, Charly Rexach, Louis Van Gaal and Pep Guardiola. So clear is the identity that Xavi described himself and Iniesta as âsons of the systemâ and the former Liverpool striker Michael Robinson, now Spainâs most famous pundit, insisted: âshow me 20 kids in a park and I can pick out which ones are at Barcelona.â
Go through those who came through that system and it makes for quite a list. In recent years, all the more so. Under Pep Guardiola, Barcelona had a coach who had been an academy graduate himself and one who shared the philosophy of Cruyff; a coach, moreover, who had coached Barcelona B and had the nerve to give kids a chance in the first team. Few had heard of Pedro and Busquets before Guardiola put them in. A year later, they had won the World Cup.
They were not alone. In 2010, Joan Laporta insisted: âFC Barcelona won the World Cup, only they were wearing the wrong shirts.â Laporta is a Catalan nationalist and was Barcelonaâs president at the time, so perhaps it came as no surprise he should say so, while the exaggeration was obvious. But of Spainâs starting XI in the final, six were Barça players â PiquĂ©, Puyol, Busquets, Xavi, Pedro and Iniesta (plus David Villa, whoâd just signed from Valencia) â and all six of them had come through the youth system. They were, to use the Spanish title, canteranos.
A few months later, the 2010 BallĂłn dâOr results were announced and all three men standing on the podium were Barcelona players who had come through La MasĂa: Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. No wonder newspapers superimposed them over a picture of the farmhouse. The three best players in the world, all from the same youth system.
Now with Montoyaâs introduction, Barcelona have taken another step. Louis Van Gaal had once expressed his dream that Barcelona would one day win the European Cup with a side made up entirely of home-grown players. When Barcelona won the 2009 Champions League final, 7 of the 11 had been through La MasĂa and the same was true when they won it in 2011. Now Van Gaalâs dream is plausible.
Inevitably, there are those questioning the validity of the claim â and notably in many case they are the same people, often Real Madrid supporters, who claim the obsession with youth teamers is pointless. Some rebel against the moral tone that sometimes comes with home-grown success. Others see a political desire to bring back canteranos, one that leads to pointless pursuits and over-paying. Was Cesc, they ask, really worth almost 40M euros? Did he really have a place in the team and would Barcelona have really chased him if it had not been a case of bringing him home?
Then there are those who question the definition of âhome-grownâ and others question ownership of certain playersâ development. Still more point to the fees that Barcelona have paid for some of them. Then they point at the money Barcelona have spent on non-canteranos and the fact they pay bigger wages than any other Spanish club bar Madrid.
Pedro did not arrive at the club until he was 17, Sergio Busquets joined at the same age, and Cesc, PiquĂ© and Alba were re-signed by the club from Arsenal, Manchester United, Arsenal and Valencia respectively. Together, they cost Barcelona almost 60 million euros. Alba was released by Barcelona at the age of 15. PiquĂ© joined United at 17, Cesc made his Arsenal debut at 16. Some argue that makes them more a product of Highbury and Old Trafford than La MasĂa. Others suggest that Busquets and Pedro arrived already developed.
According to UEFAâs definition, âhome-grownâ refers to any player who, regardless of their nationality, played for their club for at least three years between 15 and 21. On that definition, PiquĂ©, Alba and Cesc, who returned to the club aged 21, 23 and 24 years, respectively, do not count as âhome-grownâ Barcelona players. But that is a working juridical definition designed to fit 6+5 proposals aimed at encouraging the development of players and to oblige clubs to give them a chance in their starting XI, preventing them from buying expensive foreigners, not designed to undermine a claim to successful youth team.
To seek to disqualify players from home-grown status is petty. There is no real reason why a player cannot be considered a canterano of more than one club. And why wouldnât Barcelona pay bigger wages than the rest or big fees for players? There can be no doubt that the money spent on PiquĂ© and Alba is justified in footballing terms. Even the question marks over Cesc appear to have been erased this season, despite some doubts and his high price. There was certainly some emotional need in bringing them home, but there was also a footballing one too â these are players who, because of their past, their footballing education, were more likely to be able to fit into a Barcelona team that has a very particular, very rigid style.
Besides, however you look at it, however much you try to look for flaws, what Barcelona did this weekend was hugely impressive. Eleven players who have played for Barcelona before first team level; eleven players who owe their development and/or discovery to the club. Compare that to Manchester United and Newcastle United who played four, more than anyone else in the English Premier League.
As for Spain, Athletic Bilbao can claim to have fielded a side made up entirely of youth team players (and entirely of Basques, according to their definition of Basque). But this is Barcelona: the league leaders and arguably the strongest side in Europe.
Yes, Cesc Fabregas cost Barcelona money and he owes much to Arsenal â Pep Guardiola himself noted that âif he is the player that he is, that is thanks to Mr. Wengerâ â but this development is also a product of his time at Barcelona. He played for Barcelona at 13. Leo Messi and Gerard PiquĂ© were amongst his teammates. Their coach back then had also been a resident at La MasĂa. His name was Tito Vilanova.
Read More: http://sportsillustrâŠl#ixzz2DeaSkg5U
jesus fuckin christ Gola offer nothing to this forum
Ballon dâOr should be objectionable but Ronaldo and Messi are irresistible
All awards ceremonies prompt revulsion but Fifa knows it is pretty much impossible to be interested in football and not also be drawn towards the epic two-hander that is Messi-Ronaldo
There are, of course, many reasons to hate the Ballon dâOr award, many of them robust and persuasive. Most obviously there is the basic problem with all awards ceremonies, the paralysis of inauthenticity that inevitably overwhelms all human beings present, driven at the top end by the necessity to appear both humble and magnanimous in victory, and below this by the spectacle of your peers being publicly celebrated, an experience that must out of necessity induce very human feelings of shock, hurt, revulsion, impotence and creeping death.
Many such terrible moments are standard issue across any awards ceremony: from people at adjacent tables who leap up and do look-at-my-extrovert-humility applause when someone else wins something, to any kind of soulful filmic montage along the those-not-as-fortunate-as-us lines, to the moment just before a really big award envelope is opened where the host must lower his voice and adopt an expression of transcendental yearning reminiscent of the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark just before their faces melt.
The Ballon dâOrâs three-man main award shortlist was announced this week, with the ceremony due to take place on 7 January, an occasion that carries its own more specific horrors. Following 2010âs aggressive takeover, during which the venerable old European Footballer of the Year was merged with Fifaâs own golden whatnot, this is now an entirely Fifa-dominated occasion, and hence must be characterised not just by tearful corporate insincerity but by a grasping sense of ownership: in part the award is now essentially an advert for Fifa, an organisation that must strive constantly to overcome the fact it only exists in any meaningful form every four years.
Naturally the ceremony will involve another sensuously messianic public appearance by Sepp Blatter, trembling as ever with magisterial condescension, a man who with each passing year increasingly resembles the World Cup itself: gleaming, burnished, perfectly rounded, palms raised in a cartoon of glazed and perma-tanned personal wonderfulness, and seizing here his chance to pet and cosset like a knee-stroking stepfather the Fifa top three â Lionel Messi[/url], [url=âhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/ronaldoâ]Cristiano Ronaldo and AndrĂ©s Iniesta â plus many other excellent footballers who have absolutely nothing to do with him but who are on this occasion presented to the world as evidence of his enduringly bounteous despot-virility.
There are further reservations, most notably about the awardification process itself, the sense of further stratification towards the sportâs oligarchical peak. Awards are by their nature elitist, but this really is the icing on top of the cherry on top of a cake the size of Pluto. How much more pleased about Lionel Messi is it really possible to be? Plus there is a more generalised unhealthiness to the debate, a false sense of involvement for footballâs distant consumers.
People in offices in Swindon will punch the air with glee in January when news emerges that Ronaldo, who exists only on a television screen, has won Fifaâs Ballon. And in this regard the award now seems like just another strand in the wider urge to break all human life down into what is currently its single most important unit: a vast widescreen televised face of a weeping brave famous person â Lionel, Cristiano, AndrĂ©s â whose journey is an inspiration to everyone who has ever dreamed of a new dawn of a fresh vision of a special dream inside.
With this in mind, there is perhaps one remaining obstacle to simply disregarding the Ballon dâOr altogether as a fat-lipped beano of corporate selfâinterest. Specifically, this is the fact that it remains completely, moreishly irresistible. Lionel or Cristiano? You may feign a weary indifference but, blessed by the accident of twin generational genius, Fifa knows full well that it is pretty much impossible to be interested in football and not also be drawn towards the epic two-hander that is Messi-Ronaldo. Even in their basic physical mechanics they complement one another beautifully. Ronaldo, despite his restless toes, seems a footballer of the upper body, all upright shimmy and feint, propelled like a shark by those flaring neck muscles. Whereas Messi is a footballer of the lower body, at times appearing physically incapable of actually falling over, driven by the scurrying woodlouse-genius that resides in his impossibly adhesive feet.
For all their similarities as insideâoutside forwards there is also a textural contrast in the way they affect a match: Ronaldo is a staccato footballer, each moment in possession a movement towards a restart, a provocation that is destined to end in a free-kick, a goal or a lip-curling tumble by the corner flag. Messi meanwhile is a force for continuity, geared to connect and link, finding space often by concerted momentum rather than explosive moments, that Ronaldo-style football from nothing.
Perhaps an element of Messiâs near-universal popularity is that his is a more televisual style, a linking together attuned to the easy-access rhythms of the Barcelona possession fetish, the kind of good football that tells you insistently and often that it is good football, football for the purist or the expert but also for people who donât necessarily like or understand football, each well-ordered movement decked out with signposts and quality assurances for the confused or the wavering. There is no doubt that Fifa are blessed to have these two all-time great footballers performing at a simultaneous peak.
If neither existed, perhaps the gameâs massed marketeers might now be trying to conjure a sense of epic head-to-head out of Iniesta versus Ozil or fan-faring Didier Drogba (who might have won this year) as the African PelĂ©. Instead we have the paradox of two great individuals in an era of team play, two wonderfully sinuous dribblers in the age of the pass completion ratio. If Ronaldo and Messi do not represent their era particularly, they also donât embody to an overwhelming degree their own geographical backgrounds.
Of the two Ronaldo seems the more South American, more favela-boy in his imaginative improvisations, whereas Messiâs thrusts are a miracle of Velcro-touch and gliding running angles. A bespoke Barcelona product, he seems more European than Ronaldo, who retains something of the street footballer, gorgeously egotistical, pausing before each minutely staged free-kick as though what we are about to witness is not simply the most important individual contribution to a football match ever, but a moment of orchestral beauty, adopting the pinched and censorious facial expression of a precocious head girl waiting sternly for the morning assembly hubbub to die away before launching very deliberately into a minutely rehearsed bassoon solo.
Together they represent nothing more than the surprise of individual genius, and also of contrasting sporting personalities. Personally Iâm a Ronaldo man, if only because he seems strikingly unmanufactured, where Messi is perhaps what you might end up with if a team of elite and highly imaginative engineers sat down in a large minimalist office to design the perfect footballer.
I would like Ronaldo to win because he would also have the decency to look sickly and furious if he loses, where with Messi I fear there may be tearfully magnanimous congratulations, the appearance of that familiar guileless child-genius quality, an excess of shrugging, baffled, transcendental niceness, as though youâve just killed his guinea pig and heâs quite sad but at the same time itâs also one of the best things thatâs ever happened to him.
Ronaldo, on the other hand, wants to win for the sake of one thing only: Ronaldo. This unabashed quality (and the La Liga title) gives him an edge for me. But either will do, really, in a football-genius photo finish that not even Fifa, oleaginously possessive as ever, can stain with its grubby fingermarks.
odd that sports journalists dont go into details about messi being a drug cheat
+1
It is disgusting.
Just thought it was an interesting comparison between the two greatest goalscorers in football history
Good article on one of sportâs greatest ever rivalries, parts of it are rico-esque though