10 - Lionel Messi - v5

messi in 14/15 was a destroyer, he had just gotten 2 world class forwards in neymar and suarez as upgrades on pedro and alexis and was coming off the WC disappointment and real madrid CL win. the 14/15 season is my favorite, he was simply a force of nature on the right wing, and the 60 some goals and 30ish assists speak for themselves. it's true he played more virtuoso football in the pep era but i liked the brute force of the 14/15 one. it helps he was in the best physical condition of his career from jan-june 2015.

Gordo101 said:

What's your opinion on his HGH use?

Without something which is essentially a performance enhancing drug, Messi would not be as good as he is today. There is a good argument it isn't fair he plays professional sport, as some of his talents are not from god or genetics but from a chemical given to him to help him grow. Messi should be about 5'2......

Edit: to put it bluntly, HGH makes you bigger, bigger heart, bigger lungs, bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles, it is a phenomenal drug. Ronaldo, Neymar etc would all be better if they were allowed to take it in their teens as Messi was.

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no amount of HGH will give a golden first touch, a dribbling ability that makes it seem like the ball is glued to your feet (atleast in his prime), or the vision that he has in his through balls and lobbed balls.

this is almost lowkey baiting/trolling if you can't discern this.

Gordo101 said:

What's your opinion on his HGH use?

Without something which is essentially a performance enhancing drug, Messi would not be as good as he is today. There is a good argument it isn't fair he plays professional sport, as some of his talents are not from god or genetics but from a chemical given to him to help him grow. Messi should be about 5'2......

Edit: to put it bluntly, HGH makes you bigger, bigger heart, bigger lungs, bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles, it is a phenomenal drug. Ronaldo, Neymar etc would all be better if they were allowed to take it in their teens as Messi was.

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Too bad Messi had GHD though. I mean, how could he have been allowed to take HGH!

Absolutely shocking.

Too many people these days act like they're experts in a particular field that just end up looking like complete idiots.

KingLeo10 said:

no amount of HGH will give a golden first touch, a dribbling ability that makes it seem like the ball is glued to your feet (atleast in his prime), or the vision that he has in his through balls and lobbed balls.

this is almost lowkey baiting/trolling if you can't discern this.

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Don't be so defensive, it is a genuine question... Of course Messi has massive natural talents, and no it didn't give him his first tough or dribbling ability, but it's undeniable it may have also been very beneficial to him in the long term. Since when is asking an opinion about the use of a drug which has massive athletic benefits trolling? I know he had a disorder, but you don't know if the HGH took him past what he would have had naturally in terms of strength and speed.

Barcelona officials are very tight lipped when asked about Messi and exactly how much HGH and how long he took it for.

Edit: Sorry, we do know it took him past where he would have been naturally in terms of strength or speed, but the question is, is it fair he was still allowed to compete?

DonAK said:

Too bad Messi had GHD though. I mean, how could he have been allowed to take HGH!

Absolutely shocking.

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Sigh... I never said he shouldn't have taken it, I asked for people's opinion on it, and got a massively defensive reaction.

A similar story has happened recently in the UK.... Bradley Wiggins who is a tour de france winner was found to have been given TUE's for a steroid which helps with breathing, because he is asthmatic, but people have argued exactly if he should be allowed to take it and compete since the same drug would help anybody regardless of if they had asthma.

The same can be said about Messi, sure he needed it to help him grow, but it may have also given him unfair advantages over other athletes.

DonAK said:

Too many people these days act like they're experts in a particular field that just end up looking like complete idiots.

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Such as?

Gordo101 said:

Sigh... I never said he shouldn't have taken it, I asked for people's opinion on it, and got a massively defensive reaction.

A similar story has happened recently in the UK.... Bradley Wiggins who is a tour de france winner was found to have been given TUE's for a steroid which helps with breathing, because he is asthmatic, but people have argued exactly if he should be allowed to take it and compete since the same drug would help anybody regardless of if they had asthma.

The same can be said about Messi, sure he needed it to help him grow, but it may have also given him unfair advantages over other athletes.

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That's the dumbest arguments you can find in sports science these days.

People who use that do it for a medical reason to live a normal life like everyone else who don't need it. It doesn't give them an unfair advantage. It's a disadvantage for Messi to have had to go through that procedure and use that medicine.

Gordo101 said:

Sigh... I never said he shouldn't have taken it, I asked for people's opinion on it, and got a massively defensive reaction.

A similar story has happened recently in the UK.... Bradley Wiggins who is a tour de france winner was found to have been given TUE's for a steroid which helps with breathing, because he is asthmatic, but people have argued exactly if he should be allowed to take it and compete since the same drug would help anybody regardless of if they had asthma.

The same can be said about Messi, sure he needed it to help him grow, but it may have also given him unfair advantages over other athletes.

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What opinion? That it made Messi the player he is today? If HGH can do wonders like that there would have been hundreds of Messis today.

What is your point anyway?

Luftstalag14 said:

What opinion? That it made Messi the player he is today? If HGH can do wonders like that there would have been hundreds of Messis today.

What is your point anyway?

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Asking for an opinion is not making a point.

Gordo101 said:

Asking for an opinion is not making a point.

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What opinion again? Should he take it? Yes. Did he make him the player he is today? Mostly no.

Where is the evidence that he benefited from the HGH?

DonAK said:

That's the dumbest arguments you can find in sports science these days.

People who use that do it for a medical reason to live a normal life like everyone else who don't need it. It doesn't give them an unfair advantage. It's a disadvantage for Messi to have had to go through that procedure and use that medicine.

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The dumbest argument you can use in sport these days?

It's funny you mention that, as there has been alot of debate recently about TUE's, and whether or not it's fair to let athletes who use them compete. Yes Messi had a medical condition and needed treatment, but to suggest that taking HGH for years had no physical benefits for Messi outside of making him taller is wishful thinking on your part. HGH is an unbelievable drug.

Barcelona do not like talking about Messi and his HGH use, they are very tight lipped whenever pressed on the matter. If I was a professional athlete, I would like to know if someone I had competed with had taken HGH for a decade, regardless of how good their natural talents were.

Luftstalag14 said:

What opinion again? Should he take it? Yes. Did he make him the player he is today? Mostly no.

Where is the evidence that he benefited from the HGH?

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There is no evidence, it's definitely up for debate, thus I asked for your opinion. We won't ever know exactly how much if at all it benefited him, but suggested a drug used by some of the best atheletes in american history had no beneficial effect on Messi whatsoever outside of making him average height is ignoring the facts a little on what HGH exactly does.

Bigger Ligaments, bigger tendons, bigger heart, bigger muscles, denser bones etc. HGH does all of this, it's a stretch to say it didn't benefit him at all, people will always talk about this with Messi, the only way to really silence the critics would be to release his medical records from his teenage years onwards.

Gordo101 said:

The dumbest argument you can use in sport these days?

It's funny you mention that, as there has been alot of debate recently about TUE's, and whether or not it's fair to let athletes who use them compete. Yes Messi had a medical condition and needed treatment, but to suggest that taking HGH for years had no physical benefits for Messi outside of making him taller is wishful thinking on your part. HGH is an unbelievable drug.

Barcelona do not like talking about Messi and his HGH use, they are very tight lipped whenever pressed on the matter. If I was a professional athlete, I would like to know if someone I had competed with had taken HGH for a decade, regardless of how good their natural talents were.

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You alleged that Messi benefited from HGH as you previously claimed "makes you bigger, bigger heart, bigger lungs, bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles", where is the evidence? Does Messi have a bigger heart and bigger lungs? Which explains he has one of the lowest workrates of all forwards/offensive players? Messi has bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles? This is indicated by what?

When you are sick/impaired, you take whatever that is needed to make you function normally. What is there to say?

If you are an athlete and you have a problem with Messi using HGH, petition to FIFA or refuse to play on the same pitch as he is. Simple.

Luftstalag14 said:

You alleged that Messi benefited from HGH as you previously claimed "makes you bigger, bigger heart, bigger lungs, bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles", where is the evidence? Does Messi have a bigger heart and bigger lungs? Which explains he has one of the lowest workrates of all forwards/offensive players? Messi has bigger bones, bigger ligaments & tendons and muscles? This is indicated by what?

When you are sick/impaired, you take whatever that is needed to make you function normally. What is there to say?

If you are an athlete and you have a problem with Messi using HGH, petition to FIFA or refuse to play on the same pitch as he is. Simple.

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https://draxe.com/human-growth-hormone/

I watch loads of boxing, football is probably my second sport in all fairness. Combat sports are full of PEDs and I took a massive interest in them a few years back, drugs are absolutely everywhere in sports. Oscar de la hoya, Shane Mosley & Evander Holyfield, who are two of the last 20 years top 5 welterweights, and a top 5 heavyweight of the last 20 years, have all been involved in HGH scandals, along with A-Rod, arguably the best baseball player of the last 20 years. HGH works.

Messi definitely needed it to grow to a normal height, the question is how much it benefited him past this, if at all. People saying you can't be given technique, absolutely correct, but technique gets worse as you get fatigued, and technique can be improved by muscle strength. The ability, for example, to run just 2 steps further in a sprint before you get fatigued is HUGE.

As an example, boxers don't take PED's to punch harder, that's down to technique, they take PED's so they can maintain their technique for longer periods of time without becoming fatigued. The same thing would apply to most sports, HGH would never have made Messi more technical, but it may have given him other benefits that indirectly effected his overall game.