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Lionel Messi

The CL is an exciting competition but people still need to cut through all the marketing crap. It's a competition that heavily favours the clubs from big leagues i.e. those league with the highest tv revenues.

Napoli are a club that won the league twice in their history and both times while Maradona was player there.
 
barcelona have won the european cup 4 times in their history 3 of those team included messi and he played in 2 finals(scored in both) but lets hate him cos its cool to hate sucessfull people and lets just say someone random like michael essien is best player ever?
 
You are all forgetting the single most important aspect of all this - playing for the greatest team OF ALL TIME
 
You are all forgetting the single most important aspect of all this - playing for the greatest team OF ALL TIME

Pele played for some decent Brazil teams

i wonder why he never showcased his talents in European football
 
Pele played for some decent Brazil teams

i wonder why he never showcased his talents in European football

Different era. Talent wasn't just playing in the Spanish, English and Italian leagues, Brazil itself was big time back then and the economic climate was also different so Santos could keep hold of him. Even in the 80s Maradona was playing for Napoli, not exactly the greatest team in the world. Teams from the Dutch, Portuguese, Yugoslavian leagues etc... were winning big trophies back then.
 
Di Stefano managed to leave the comfort of his Argentinian home and help Real Madrid become one of the greatest sides ever and i think Pele could have been a little braver and tried something similar
 
Different era.

I think this is important in comparing the players too. Can we really say that Messi is better than Pele was? Or Maradona?

Maybe today, Pele would be "flat track bully", or back then maybe Messi would have been chopped in half too many times, and reverted to a "clogger"!
 
Maradona went to an average / poor Italian team and transformed them into Italian and European greats for 5 years.

Messi plays with some of the best players in the world


Comparisons as such can never be drawn in parallel
 
so many of Messi's goals are exceptional

unbelievable talent, still only 24
 
and what a level headed young man.

for all his talent and fame, he keeps himself to himself, not one for hanging out in clubs, getting pi$$ed, doing lines of coke, beating up women

exceptional young lad
 
so many of Messi's goals are exceptional

unbelievable talent, still only 24

This is part of the point of why I think he's the best ever.

The way Messi is lifting over keepers heads at the moment means you could have Shaq in goal and he still would't be able to save it. The ball from Alves for the record breaking goal wasn't anything that spectacular but once Messi controlled it there was never any doubt that he'd put it in the back of the net.

Maradona jinking his way past a load of slow English workhorses like Terry Butcher, Terry Fenwick and Peter Reid is hardly spectacular but he gets praised for scoring the best goal of all time for that. Messi's been doing that since he left primary school.

Granted having Xavi and Iniesta around helps but a lot of what Messi does is solo skill, meaning you can't let the quality of his team-mates overshadow him.
 
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