Lionel Andres Messi

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A God.

Yet he has two world cup medals.

In 2002 he carried a Brazil side to a World Cup after both his knees had blown out and had barely played in 2 years.

The World Cup is the only stage on the planet where it matters for greats.

Messi is an excellent player but he can’t conform, we’ve seen him with Argentina and he is an absolute shadow of what he is at Barcelona. We’ve only ever seen the Barca Messi at Barca, the only other stage he has had has been with Argentina and he he looks a million times inferior.

Yet another infantile game of top trumps after a great sporting performance.

The need to constantly categorise, classify and list everything is baffling to me

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Messi’s a fraud but he was good in the last twenty minutes last night.

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Agreed.

I asked you what was Ronaldo’s haul of Serie A titles and European Cup wins from his time at Internazionale and AC Milan. Stay on point please.

Tbf to Messi that’s a fair auld pack of jokers Barcelona have assembled around him.

Top 5 players I have seen.

Messi
Zidane
Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo
Maldini

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The hipsters will be in now to give us their list of obscure players

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I hate obscure references trying to look cool.

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every time @anon61878697 watches messi play against an EPL team he comes onto the forum with the insightful analysis that messi is a great player

FFS

Messi
Ronaldo
Iniesta
Zidane
Maldini

One of the hipsters took issue with a comment made in commentary last night that Pique and Van Dijk were the two best defenders in the World. Apparently neither are even in the Top 10. Presumably (at a conservative estimate) at least 9 of top 10 are playing in the Mickey Mouse Serie A.

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The other format works better mate … 22/5/12 CM … 02/05/19 CM…

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His World Cup medal surpasses everything else in football. 2 years out of the game, knees of mush and he carries his country to a World Cup.

Phenomenal.

Ronaldo
Baggio
Redondo
Nesta
Totti

Honourable mentions:

Iniesta
Pirlo
Ronaldinho
Romario
Baggio

Ronaldo much like his fellow country man Ronaldinho was head and shoulders the best player in the world during their pomp. The problem was that both players pomp was not all that long compared to that of Messi.

Ronaldo was an utterly transcendent player who had every quality you want in a centre forward and deserves huge credit for giving the performances he did given how bad his knees were. He was utterly unstoppable and I think deserves to be in a discussion as one of the greatest players of all time.

Messi is also in that conversation and the fact he has been consistently doing this for 13 or 14 seasons now with very little drop off makes him such an extraordinary player and it the discussion for the greatest of all time. Much like Ronaldo in his pomp he is close to unmarkable the vast majority of the time.
It is impossible to pick just one player as the greatest though as it is all subjective and valid arguements can be made for the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Pele, Cryuff, Maradonna et al.

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Messi, original Ronaldo, Ronaldo, iniesta and ronaldinho.