10 - Lionel Messi - v5

Messi is the player in this Barca team who has most goals, assists, chances created, freekicks and dribbles.

By any statistical measure he carries Barca, the only difference is that Barca's midfield allows him to do so and Barca don't concede 3 or 4 goals everytime they face a top team.

JamDav1982 said:

So the claim is Messi carries a shit Barca side to glory in league etc but cant perform with Argentina due to shit players and tactics?

Constant changing of goals posts.

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Quite the difference from winning the Spanish league with Barca to being expected to win the freaking WC with Argentina playing with the likes of Rojo, Meza, Mercado, Pavon etc.
And we all know we played shit football for the majority of the last season, doesn’t mean we didn’t get the results. But there are many team who win despite playing poor football these days.

Forget comparing him to Ronaldo.

Messi s a player has gone missing too often.


A defender called Yerry Mina has scored more goals then him and dragged Columbia out of the group stages.... And Barca fans want him sold.

Raketa10 said:

The most ridiculous fact is that Argentina concede 9 goals! If you have a weak team what do you do? You concentrate on defense! You try to concede as little as possible! But stupid Sampaoli did quite the opposite! First he tried to play possession football against much stronger Croatia and he did the same mistake today with France. Instead of narrowing the lines he left them acres of space in the middle. To be fair Argentina never stood a chance with this way of playing.

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Was about to quote you, but you've already edited the post.
You were right, Sampaoli looked in the GS like he tried to concede as many goals as possible

JamDav1982 said:

So the claim is Messi carries a shit Barca side to glory in league etc but cant perform with Argentina due to shit players and tactics?

Constant changing of goals posts.

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First off, Barcelonas squad has :

A) Great GK
B) Solid defensive pairing
C) Very good MF

Compared to other top teams (RM, Man City, PSG and even Bayern currently), we are weaker (especially physically) in all positions bar attack (because of Messi), that is why we rarely win against these team, and get dominated on center of the pitch.


This Argentina is quite frankly inadequate in several positions :

A) GK that has only last week made his debut in team
B) Defense consisting of Marcus Rojo and Otamendi, compared to Umtiti and Varane
C) Oldest MF in WC consisting of 35yr old Mascherano, Ever Banega and Enzo Perez, not one of them playing in top club

With such team you cannot beat France, because in the end, they still scored 3 goals (of which Messi assisted 2), but they ended up getting 4, but could actually ended up 6-7 behind the net if they weren't lucky.

likeafire said:

If Ronaldo gets through and does it against France what Messi couldn't do, and I can totally see that happening. He tries a lot harder than Messi does

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Yeah he tries harder. But while Messi faced France, Ronaldo will face Uruguay. There's a big gap between Uruguay and France if overall team quality is considered.

And, Despite that Argentina lost 4-3. It was not a one sided match. If this Argentina faced Uruguay, I think they would have been through.

JamDav1982 said:

Nah you are as bad as folk that make those claims with this idea Barca were shit but Messi carried side.

Great shout - never watch Barca games...

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Dude how thick arr you to understand that all im trying to say is that messi dosemt only show up against small teams?? Csn you brain not comprehend this?

ThwiX said:

What a load of rubbish. Hasn’t been handed shit but the burden to carry average players to a final they were never going to reach. Still all the people of Argentina somehow expected them to get there and that is pressure you don’t know shit about. This was a death sentence from the start and it was always going to end this way just looking at their qualifiers.

Also, don’t talk about Messi at Barca when it’s clear you don’t have a clue. He was the only reason a lot of people could even be bothered to watch us last season with the shit football we played. Barto screwed Leo over big time by crapping his pants when he was supposed to rebuild this team, not the other way around.

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Sticking your head in the sand mate...

1) Leo influences squad picks and his clique is the reason Dybala doesn't play and Icardi wasn't selected
2) He is asked for advice on the coach choices by the FA as a poster boy. He liked Sampaoli because of his CV, but turns out he had no idea of the way he operates -> constant lineup rotations, high press, a lot of effort involved which clashed with the personalities already there. Their level of press precisely shows you how they like to play. [MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION] highlighted this in the other thread too
3) He's taken the armband. He's no exemplar leader who runs the pressing game from the front. He's a quiet guy who likes to put his most influential offensive players in a huddle to go over some movement, but nothing beyond that. How is that supposed to work?
4) He was played as a forward and strayed to the right all the time. So who's making this decision? Sampaoli? Or himself? Makes no sense for the coach to tell him to play as a #9/false #9 without a forward. And if Messi is smart enough, he knows it. So why does he continue to go where he's comfortable?

And again, Barto does the same shit. All he does is go all guns blazing for household names whether they're compatible with what Messi is becoming or not. Watch this situation deteriorate over time.

I don't care about this match, his world cup still poor for his status, this is unquestionable, Argentina still a trash of team but he barely played one good half in 4 matches, he's not Lebron James just to make an example. If someone is happy for his performance today i guess very low standard are expected from Messi on these days. By the way i hope he stays with NT, at least not a definitive retire. Maybe Argentina in the next years will produce some good players to replace this old and slow core.

[tw]1013059409134702592[/tw]

And people seem to forget Messi is 31 now, so he can't carry a team like he did like 4 years ago.

JamDav1982 said:

Nah you are as bad as folk that make those claims with this idea Barca were shit but Messi carried side.

Great shout - never watch Barca games...

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Barca are great squad, but not Liga winning squad without Messi. That is the point. Without Messi, this Argentina doesn't qualify to World Cup or pass group stages. Without Messi 2 goals today don't happen.

Thats a fact. Nobody is saying Barcelona sucks, but attacking wise, he carried us without a doubt.

Raketa10 said:

The most ridiculous fact is that Argentina concede 9 goals! If you have a weak team what do you do? You concentrate on defense! You try to concede as little as possible! But stupid Sampaoli did quite the opposite! First he tried to play possession football against much stronger Croatia and he did the same mistake today with France. Instead of narrowing the lines he left them acres of space in the middle. To be fair Argentina never stood a chance with this way of playing.

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After they went down, France finally played to their potential and quite easily won, Argentina never stood much of chance really, everybody felt it, thats why the reactions wore mostly subdued at the end, because they lost to a superior opponent.

JamDav1982 said:

Nah you are as bad as folk that make those claims with this idea Barca were shit but Messi carried side.

Great shout - never watch Barca games...

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Where did i say barca was as bad as argentina? Quote me on it. All i said was he has shown up againt top sides and single handley won the games. ATLETICO and chelsea being stand out games.

Thought u were better than this man.

bodi16 said:

Was about to quote you, but you've already edited the post.
You were right, Sampaoli looked in the GS like he tried to concede as many goals as possible

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Yeah I reacted fast!