Argentina v Croatia, 21st June, 7pm(GMT)

[Renegade]

I'm not comparing for club, I'm mainly comparing for country. Messi is mentally weak - missed a penalty vs Chile and retired. Then came back. Then he missed against Iceland and the next day didn't leave his room to join the players for a BBQ. He's the captain right? Where is your leader? We talk about Argentina not being able to gel, where was Messi to facilitate that as well? Do you think Ronaldo would do that?

I'll admit I exaggerated on Messi being poor which you've all jumped at a bit too quickly - but I honestly believe Ronaldo is a better player and leader than Messi.

Your argument conveniently ignores that he dragged his team to a World Cup final four years ago. Is Ronaldo a better leader? Quite possibly. A better player? There is very little to substantiate that argument.

I don't understand why you would ignore what they have done for their clubs, considering that is the vast majority of a player's career and the best basis to judge their actual ability. International football isn't a good measure of quality or consistency, players are at the whim of a drastically more disparate talent pool. It's an arena in which Greece can win a major tournament and players like Gareth Bale and Andriy Shevchenko barely get to experience competitive tournament action.

If you had qualified your argument with "Ronaldo is a better international player", then you have a good case, though not iron clad. Otherwise the statement is just reactionary and smacks of emotional preference.

 

[Gassy]

Your argument conveniently ignores that he dragged his team to a World Cup final four years ago. Is Ronaldo a better leader? Quite possibly. A better player? There is very little to substantiate that argument.

I don't understand why you would ignore what they have done for their clubs, considering that is the vast majority of a player's career and the best basis to judge their actual ability. International football isn't a good measure of quality or consistency, players are at the whim of a drastically more disparate talent pool. It's an arena in which Greece can win a major tournament and players like Gareth Bale and Andriy Shevchenko barely get to experience competitive tournament action.

If you had qualified your argument with "Ronaldo is a better international player", then you have a good case, though not iron clad. Otherwise the statement is just reactionary and smacks of emotional preference.

Did he drag them though? He didn't score a single goal in the knock outs...

Emotional preference I would agree, I've always been more pro Ronaldo - however not reactionary.

But sure at club football, you're talking like Ronaldo does nothing for Madrid. But sure, let's compare - I think the fairest comparison is to make it since Ronald joined Madrid (2009):

Ronaldo Vs Messi
Ballon D'or: CR 4 vs 4 LM
Goals Per Game: CR 1.07 vs 0.91 LM
Champions League: CR 4 vs 2 LM
Spanish League: CR 4 vs 5 LM
Spanish Cup: CR 2 vs 5 LM
Goals for Country (per game): CR 0.52 vs 0.50 LM

Pretty equal, Ronaldo shading it when on the big stage, rather than just in the Spanish Cup

 

[Bobbin']

I think the fairest comparison is to make it since Ronald joined Madrid (2009):

The fairest way or the way that helps your argument?

Pretty equal, Ronaldo shading it when on the big stage, rather than just in the Spanish Cup

Pretty equal when you cut away some of Ronaldo's career to suit. The fact they are 'pretty equal' when Ronaldo has played 150 more games speaks volumes.

 

[Gassy]

The fairest way or the way that helps your argument?



Pretty equal when you cut away some of Ronaldo's career to suit. The fact they are 'pretty equal' when Ronaldo has played 150 more games speaks volumes.

I'm not quite sure what you mean?

The fairest way to compare them is when both in the same league, playing against the same opposition & each other.

You can't compare the Premier League Vs La Liga. The quality throughout is much higher in the Prem.

EDIT; 1 statistic isn't exactly fair is the goals per game for club. I had taken total with Madrid Vs the total with Barca - when it should be since 09 for Barca. However, I can't be bothered to go that deep

 

[Bobbin']

I'm not quite sure what you mean?

The fairest way to compare them is when both in the same league, playing against the same opposition & each other.

You can't compare the Premier League Vs La Liga. The quality throughout is much higher in the Prem.

Are we only comparing goals?

This is what I've noticed about most Ronaldo fans. They seem to think best goal scorer means best player. Even though, when you look at both players whole careers, Messi's goal to game ratio is better. He also blows Ronaldo out the water for assists.

 

[Gassy]

Are we only comparing goals?

This is what I've noticed about most Ronaldo fans. They seem to think best goal scorer means best player. Even though, when you look at both players whole careers, Messi's goal to game ratio is better. He also blows Ronaldo out the water for assists.

Again, you can't compare Messi in La Liga to Ronaldo in the Prem, so the point is kinda void.

Assists I will give you though - for Barcelona he has many more, but that doesn't make him a better player for me.

 

[Bobbin']

Again, you can't compare Messi in La Liga to Ronaldo in the Prem, so the point is kinda void.

Assists I will give you though - for Barcelona he has many more, but that doesn't make him a better player for me.

It means he brings more to a team, surely? His goalscoring is on par with Ronaldo's but he also creates many more.

Can we compare them internationally then? I'd argue that Portugal face a lot weaker opposition in their qualifying campaigns than Argentina do for example.

 

[Gassy]

It means he brings more to a team, surely? His goalscoring is on par with Ronaldo's but he also creates many more.

Can we compare them internationally then? I'd argue that Portugal face a lot weaker opposition in their qualifying campaigns than Argentina do for example.

Personally I also believe that style of play also has to be taken into account. Ronaldo is most certainly more of an individual player than Messi, but also maybe because he's had to be in his career.

I think internationally Ronaldo wins it for me, I would say Portugal have to face less poor quality teams whilst Argentina face more higher quality teams - which I guess is due to the way qualifiers are set up in the World Cup (FWIW, I think the South American qualifiers is a much fairer system to qualify). As mentioned before people, even yourself, mentioned that Messi carried Argentina by himself to the final in 2014 - he didn't score a goal in the knock outs so I struggle to get on board with that personally.

I think there are 2 more important things that need pointing out here;
1. (Mentioned by you already) Not enough focus is going on Croatia - especially the midfield
2. I myself fell into this one, but we're talking about Messi like he is the only good player in that team. The rest of Argentinian players should be ashamed of themselves, their attack line for a country is probably the best we've seen and may ever see in Messi, Higuain, Dybala, Aguero, Di Maria - never mind the absolutely static defence

 

[Renegade]

I'm not quite sure what you mean?

The fairest way to compare them is when both in the same league, playing against the same opposition & each other.

You can't compare the Premier League Vs La Liga. The quality throughout is much higher in the Prem.

EDIT; 1 statistic isn't exactly fair is the goals per game for club. I had taken total with Madrid Vs the total with Barca - when it should be since 09 for Barca. However, I can't be bothered to go that deep

You can't just ignore 7 years of a player's career and 4 years of the other. Messi has been a world class footballer from almost day one, it took Ronaldo years to reach his level. Ronaldo has improved an incredible amount and deserves all of the credit for improving so much, but Messi has been one of the two best players in the world for almost every single year of his career. This is with Messi playing deeper, providing more to the team with his general play and assisting more. He's outscored Ronaldo in 5 of the 9 seasons Ronaldo has been in Spain. He has been better for longer and he's also two years younger. If you ignore this whilst arguing who the 'greatest' is, you're deluding yourself.

As they've gotten older, Ronaldo has become more of a traditional centre forward, whilst Messi has dropped deeper, yet he still has outscored the specialist centre forward Ronaldo in the last two seasons. Who won the Ballon D'or? Ronaldo. Ballon D'ors are narrative driven, in years in which Messi has statistically outperformed Ronaldo, Ronaldo has won them due to team's performance. The same will happen this year. Real Madrid have been an unstoppable juggernaut in the past three seasons in the Champions League and Ronaldo has been utterly outstanding in the knockout stages, but this tournament has skewed people's perception of reality. It helps people forget that Ronaldo was completely off the boil for the first half of this season and people thought that Ronaldo was "past it" after barely scoring in the group stage the season before that, before scoring 10 goals in the knockouts.

Anyway, this all stems from your original statement:

1 can only play when he has the worlds greatest players around him, the other is the worlds greatest player .

Like, I think you see how reactionary this is now. You're entitled to view Ronaldo as the better player, your personal preference, but this statement deserved to be shat all over.

 

[Gassy]

You can't just ignore 7 years of a player's career and 4 years of the other. Messi has been a world class footballer from almost day one, it took Ronaldo years to reach his level. Ronaldo has improved an incredible amount and deserves all of the credit for improving so much, but Messi has been one of the two best players in the world for almost every single year of his career. This is with Messi playing deeper, providing more to the team with his general play and assisting more. He's outscored Ronaldo in 5 of the 9 seasons Ronaldo has been in Spain. He has been better for longer and he's also two years younger. If you ignore this whilst arguing who the 'greatest' is, you're deluding yourself.

As they've gotten older, Ronaldo has become more of a traditional centre forward, whilst Messi has dropped deeper, yet he still has outscored the specialist centre forward Ronaldo in the last two seasons. Who won the Ballon D'or? Ronaldo. Ballon D'ors are narrative driven, in years in which Messi has statistically outperformed Ronaldo, Ronaldo has won them due to team's performance. The same will happen this year. Real Madrid have been an unstoppable juggernaut in the past three seasons in the Champions League and Ronaldo has been utterly outstanding in the knockout stages, but this tournament has skewed people's perception of reality. It helps people forget that Ronaldo was completely off the boil for the first half of this season and people thought that Ronaldo was "past it" after barely scoring in the group stage the season before that, before scoring 10 goals in the knockouts.

Anyway, this all stems from your original statement:



Like, I think you see how reactionary this is now. You're entitled to view Ronaldo as the better player, your personal preference, but this statement deserved to be shat all over.

Perhaps I should start reporting for the Sun - clearly I have a talent for spouting sh*t and getting people to comment

 

[Bobbin']

Personally I also believe that style of play also has to be taken into account. Ronaldo is most certainly more of an individual player than Messi, but also maybe because he's had to be in his career.

I think internationally Ronaldo wins it for me, I would say Portugal have to face less poor quality teams whilst Argentina face more higher quality teams - which I guess is due to the way qualifiers are set up in the World Cup (FWIW, I think the South American qualifiers is a much fairer system to qualify). As mentioned before people, even yourself, mentioned that Messi carried Argentina by himself to the final in 2014 - he didn't score a goal in the knock outs so I struggle to get on board with that personally.

I think there are 2 more important things that need pointing out here;
1. (Mentioned by you already) Not enough focus is going on Croatia - especially the midfield
2. I myself fell into this one, but we're talking about Messi like he is the only good player in that team. The rest of Argentinian players should be ashamed of themselves, their attack line for a country is probably the best we've seen and may ever see in Messi, Higuain, Dybala, Aguero, Di Maria - never mind the absolutely static defence

Agree completely with your last two points. I said in another thread somewhere that the comparisons are fruitless and silly, both are incredible and we should all just enjoy watching them. I’m guilty myself of getting sucked into the debates. They certainly shouldn’t cloud over a very good performance from the Croatian midfield.

On your second point, you’re absolutely right. Guess that’s just the downside to being one of the greatest. Taking the wrap when others have failed.

 

[Libertadores FC]

How poor are the South American sides in this World Cup?

Uruguay are still the only side to pick up a win so far.

Libertadores FC What the hell is going on?

Its been embarassing so far, but I'm not overly shocked. Particularly with Colombia and Argentina who were god awful in qualifying. I expected more from Peru, and Uruguay/Brazil have done their job, albeit the latter have also been very underwhelming.

 

[Gassy]

Reports that the Argentina players have collectively asked the manager not to coach them in the final game against Nigeria

Shocking

 

[Khukri]

Well, it shouldn't make much of a difference, the guy wasn't coaching them thus far anyway by the look of things.

 

[Dirk]

Reports that the Argentina players have collectively asked the manager not to coach them in the final game against Nigeria

Shocking

really shocking tbh (if it's true). One reason more that I hope it's really their final game of the tournament