Phil Neville Superstar
Player Valuation: £35m
I don't see any of you slating Ronaldo, Rooney, Ribery, Kaka, Lampard, Gerrard, Tevez or any other so called superstars.
Lionel Messi - the ultimate 'flat track bully'?
- Thread starter davek
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Alio
They call me Avocado Baby
Best thing about that goal, was that just before, he just got t****ed on the sidelines and didn't role around like Torres, Ronaldo etc , just got up and went and hurt them in the best way possible
Columbia6
Player Valuation: £8m
Johnny Giles did an absolutely brilliant bit of analysis on Javier Mascherano for RTE earlier, showing him constantly running back to within 2-3 yards of the CBs to get the ball, and then once he had it only ever passing it sideways or backwards. This was all Mascherano seems to do for Argentina, and it is a completely redundant role because the CB himself can quite easily make such simple passes. The effect was that play never moved forward with Mascherano, only ever sideways or backwards, and showed Messi repeatedly having to drop back into his own half to do a proper creative job by passing the ball forwards. Messi can hardly set the world alight if he's only ever in his own half when he's given the ball.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
That's all well and good, but you have to ask yourself one thing: why was Mascherano doing that? It makes no sense. The answer has to be that Messi at the tip of the diamond was being well shepherded by players like Schweinsteiger and Khedira and it wasn't a good option.
Sometimes you really do have to give credit to the opposition and say 'job done'. If Messi couldn't find sufficient space then that's something he has to look at. Week after week in La Liga and the CL he's squeezed. The WC is a step up both in terms of intensity and quality. I wished people would realise this.
It wasn't as if it was close, it was four f*cking nil.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
If only they'd let Messi play his football. Damn those Teutonic monsters <shakes fist>
ToxtethBlue
Player Valuation: £50m
Dave really went stale during this thread, disappointing showing from a solid/potentially world class poster.
We probably have other definition of "pulling wide", but first, I shouldn't make a mistake of discussing something with person on "agenda run".As an explanation as to why Messi was misfiring, that's a nonsense mate. Tevez and Higuain were not shackled to the centre of the park as you insist, they were pulling wide. Going back on myself a bit, it might not have been quite up their with E'to and Henry from a couple of seasons back, but these are top quality forwards he had in front of him today. You just have to, inevitably, come to the conclusion that (contra the nonsensical line being peddled by some here) the World Cup is a tough nut to crack. It's the mental weight as much as the inability to assert your game. Messi simply didn't have the shoulders broad enough for the job. Simple as that. Or maybe it was his 'virus'?
Argentinian problem was strictly tactical, their tactic and setup was a disaster. Feel free to continue your anti-Messi agenda, when overlooking more important elements.
And to finish it, let's look together at this balanced Argentinian line-up.
How many times did he hit the post?
How many times was he directly involve in the route to goals?
All these are not important at all?
What is the expectation here? To see him dribble pass the whole team including referee and score? Take him out of this Argentina team and their goal count will drop by half.
How many times was he directly involve in the route to goals?
All these are not important at all?
What is the expectation here? To see him dribble pass the whole team including referee and score? Take him out of this Argentina team and their goal count will drop by half.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
We probably have other definition of "pulling wide", but first, I shouldn't make a mistake of discussing something with person on "agenda run".
Argentinian problem was strictly tactical, their tactic and setup was a disaster. Feel free to continue your anti-Messi agenda, when overlooking more important elements.
And to finish it, let's look together at this balanced Argentinian line-up.
Oh no, he's pulled out a team board. Game over.
You seem to have abandoned your premise that Tevez and Higuain offered only the prospect of two statuesque figures hovering on the edge of the D for the bulk of the game providing little movement. That's something at least.
Look, footy isn't Football Manager or whatever other software nonsense that's out there to make people feel like their Marcello Lippi for half an hour. The set up of a team is not rigidly set in stone for 90 minutes - it's more fluid than that. Matches take place in real time with all the huffing and puffing and pulling out of shape and instantaneous reappraisal of a given situation you get in football. Bottom line is this: Messi was well boxed in by the opposition from the forward CM role he started off with (credit the Germans with something at least), he then had to vary his approach to the game by going deeper to pick the ball up than he'd have wanted. He had plenty of the ball and did precisely fcuk all with it in and around the box for much of the second half. Messi is subject to crowding out week in, week out in his career. As I've pointed out previously, the difference here has been the intensity of pressure and (yes, to the WC detractors) quality of opposition in this tournament, and the fact he hasn't gotten himself out of jail with a couple of goals from distance (as he, amongst many others, have not mastered this WC ball), something which he relies on an awful lot more than people acknowledge in his club football. All the talk of playing Messi in a 4-1-3-2/4-4-2/4-3-3 and the upside and downside of these formations for him simply wont do.
Not 'an agenda run', just a non-rose tinted hero worship re-appraisal.
Well hes pretty much the best player on the planet at the moment, WHEN HES ON FORM, clearly as was seen with 99% of the worlds top players, the month of June was not a happy one for top class football.
And no I didnt write month twice, its a bug that happens from time to time.
ToxtethBlue
Player Valuation: £50m
Ofcourse positioning matters, a midfield player has certain responsibilities and doesn't perform the role of a winger/wing forward, Messi's natural role. Messi is at his best in the final third, push him into a deeper central position and you aren't playing to his strengths, and if you want to get the best out of a player, that's what you do. It's like us using Arteta as a wide player, yes he can drift inside and come centrally, but it's completely different to playing as a centre midfield position. The position you take up, the role you have to play. Messi's was taking up a certain area of the pitch that was probably the easist for opposition players to negate his presence and cut off his space in and around the box.
There's no doubting Germany did a good job on Messi and Argentina as a team, credit to them, but people are giving you sensible reasons why Messi and Argentina weren't as successful as some people predicted them to be. And the positioning of a player and balance of a team does come into play. It's not the only reason, granted, but it does come into play.
But that's it really, Messi will go down as one of the best players to play the game, and he will be compared to the best ever, His record proves at the highest level gives him that right. And his record doesn't back up what your saying, 85 goals in two seasons from a player he isn't a conventional striker, and these goals can't have all been scored against Osasuna and Malaga.
There's no doubting Germany did a good job on Messi and Argentina as a team, credit to them, but people are giving you sensible reasons why Messi and Argentina weren't as successful as some people predicted them to be. And the positioning of a player and balance of a team does come into play. It's not the only reason, granted, but it does come into play.
But that's it really, Messi will go down as one of the best players to play the game, and he will be compared to the best ever, His record proves at the highest level gives him that right. And his record doesn't back up what your saying, 85 goals in two seasons from a player he isn't a conventional striker, and these goals can't have all been scored against Osasuna and Malaga.
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