I’m off this week Mac.
I’m also off four days in November.
I hope you have a great break mate. You work hard and deserve to enjoy your time off.
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Would you consider Italy a “traditional super power”? hard to argue against them, given they won 4 world cups and contested 6 finals.
Were Paulo Maldini and Roberto Baggio great players?
Yes.
Baggio dragged his team to a World Cup final, Messi has taken a back seat in World Cups and let the lesser likes lead.
I’d say it’s fair to say that Italy will never again have a great player.
This joker is taking the absolute piss, only one player ever has influenced a world cup tournament so much that you could say he was the winning of it, and even then he didn’t influence the final too much.
It’s a very poor reflection on Nembo that he will not credit Messi, he’s a poor poor judge of a player.
Where’s Baggio’s world cup?
Where’s Maldini’s world cup?
Totti, while a very good player, has a world cup medal, but couldn’t be spoken of as a great compared to those two.
Your argument is nonsensical. Messi just dragged a shit Argentinian team to qualification, literally on his own.
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Quite a lot of people in Italy, outside Roma circles as well would consider Totti the greatest Italian player ever. Hard to argue with them either.
Baggio had the type of World Cup Messi never had. Messi is meant to be the best player in the world, he has never stepped above his teammates and showed that in a major tournament and until he does that, he can’t be considered one of the greats.
Argentina are not shit.
Messi did not drag them, he turned up in one game but did not do a lot else really - much like his performances at major tournaments.
But your metric of greatness is a world cup.
Surely you’re not moving the goalposts?
There is an argument that Totti was Italy’s best club player, but you’re having a laugh if you think anyone, let alone Italians, would regard him as the greatest Italian international player ever. He played #10 in the 2002 world cup and was very poor, and #10 in the 2004 euros where he exited in disgrace. He made an admirable return from injury for 2006, but hardly the great you make him out to be considering he was withdrawn in the 61st minute of the final.
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I watched all of Argentina’s qualification games and trust me they were absolute dogshite in every game Messi did not play in. How many did you watch?
Argentina are not a traditional power. In the context of the 2014 final match up, Argentina had a fraction of the pedigree of a traditional power like Germany. Germany are 8 time finalists (winning 4) and 13 time semi finalists.
Argentina are 5 time finalist (winning 2) and 5 time semi finalist. After making the inaugural World Cup Final in 1930, it took Argentina until the 11th World Cup in 1978 (in Argentina) to make it past the quarter final stage. The only quarter final they even made in that 48 year span was 1966 in England. After 1990 they didn’t get past the quarter final until 2014. Messi’s brilliance nearly pulled it offf for them over 2014 finals but ultimately his teammates let him down in the final.
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Good man, enjoy it
My metric of greatness is a player who is meant to be the best in the world, stepping above his teammates and leading them to glory, particularly when he plays for one of the nations traditional super powers.
Messi has failed in 6 tournaments now, he has took a back seat and let the lesser likes of Di Maria and Mascherano lead in the charge in previous tournaments. He has a poisonous sway over management according to a former backroom team member.
You don’t watch enough of Argentina to back up your claims
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I have watched enough of Messi is an Argentina jersey to see that he is performing to the level of his reputation. He’s a one trick pony, when he doesn’t have the players to play little triangles and give and goes with, he’s flummoxed. The great thing about the Brazilian Ronaldo or Maradona was they could take the ball and do it all by themselves. They had that off the cuff quality that Messi doesn’t have.
The original Ronaldo being better than Messi is another TFK sheeps myth, great and all as he was he’s not even the best player ever with his name.
To use a tired cliche device that sports journalists with an interest in pop psychology use (hello Kieran Shannon), @Nembo_Kid needs to read Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”. Pick your battles wisely. This is an uncharacteristically unwise choice of battle from the doughty Ulsterman.
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But has been already explained to you numerous times, being a great player does not guarantee a world cup medal, otherwise Cruyff, Baggio, Maldini, and Zico would have medals. You have called Totti the greatest Italian player ever, and yet he flopped in 2002 and 2004, and by no means led Italy to glory in 2006, he was a cog in an excellent team that didn’t concede many goals. Buffon, Cannavaro and Mazeratti have better claims to greatness for the 2006 win.
Argentina are simply not that good without Messi.
Nothing “off the cuff” about his second and third goals last night? Perhaps you din’t see them.