Week 27 - Premier League 2011/12 & CL L16 R2

[Flat Eric]

what does messi need to do to be considered the goat then?

[O Fenomeno]

Being 3rd and the greatest in my lifetime is a big difference

[Guest M12]

But even Ronaldo wasnt the international GOAT and at 24 years old I think 22 international goals is a pretty good haul. We are all just too demanding of Messi imo

nah hes part of a golden generation argentina team and didnt look likely to lead them to the WC. On paper the last argentina team that went WC was probably better than the brazil team that won in 2002.

A team with Messi, Tevez, Cambiasso, Higuain,di maria, mascherano, aguero, pastore shouldnt even need a manager to win games

I'm sorry but if you dont have anyone to pull the strings, you aint winning sh*t.... Pastore is good but not no top baller

To think Maradona led average players to glory whereas Messi couldn't do it without Iniesta/Xavi

to think ronaldo had figo ,ZIDANE, beckham, raul , roberto carlos etc but still couldnt win the champions league.

winning a certain trophy shouldnt matter

Did someone say Ronaldo won a world cup on his own? The year Ronaldo scored 7 goals at the world cup, didnt Rivaldo score 6 and Ronaldinho score 5?

Skeeeeeeeeen

No one said that to be honest.

And it was 8 btw.

My point was are we expecting Messi to win the world cup with a very unbalanced team? I mean sure they could play 5 strikers and a winger but whos gonna give them the ball? Cambiasso? Mascherano?

Might as well expect Rooney to do the damn thing too

cambiasso had just won CL with inter, mascherano is/was also one of the best dms in the world. Youre acting like these guys were playing with dave jones and karl henry in midfield. and from that list that list of messi, aguero, tevez f*ck it even veron, you dont think one of them could have played in the hole???

Im sorry but this right here is the most fart talk in this whole debate. You taking for granted how important that whole is. The best teams in the world have someone decent (When I say decent I really mean a natural that can see a pass Sniedjer/Iniesta/Fabregas/Ozil ect) playing there and you wanna shoehorn a defensive midfielder or Tevez there?

You sound like Maradona the manager tbh

I like the way you've selectively edited the post to make your argument make sense. Where do I say play DMs in AM?? nowhere cheers. 1st points are messi and aguero. you saying those 2 couldnt play in the hole yeah? they're out and out strikers? who cant play anywhere else? SMH

That team could have easily done well with the 2 world class DMs mentioned. messi with a free role in behind a front two or even wide left. That team should have beaten most teams in world football.

[Nidge Weasle]

Lol at this whole discussion ........zidane! Enough said

[O Fenomeno]

what does messi need to do to be considered the goat then?

Transform his club form onto the international level like many goats before him that's all

Brazil 2014 or Russia 2018

[Horatio Caine]

Being 3rd and the greatest in my lifetime is a big difference

yes but being 24 and being in your list already tells you a lot

all u have against him is the world cup, lool he has touched ronaldo on everything else....

[O Fenomeno]

How is that touching Ronaldo when he is yet to do anything outside club commitments

[Michel Kane]

Question, do people think the World Cup is a harder competition to win than the Champions League or is it more of a spectacle?

[O Fenomeno]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

[FANTA]

World Cup is much hard for the reasons Porchy pointed out!

[Horatio Caine]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

no one said that , if world cup is harder why couldnt ronaldo win the champions league at least once, he just like messi had great players around him.

the world cup is not harder.

[Horatio Caine]

ask ronaldo about the 2002 world cup and see if he says it was hard

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Brazil 3 3 0 0 11 3 +8 9 Turkey 3 1 1 1 5 3 +2 4 Costa Rica 3 1 1 1 5 6 −1 4 China PR 3 0 0 3 0 9 −9

if brazil diddnt come out wid 9 points ,ronaldo and co would of bin stoned back home, shit was easy

[O Fenomeno]

Ask any footballer what would u prefer

UCL medal or WC medal?

/

Just to dead this whole debate

Ronaldo at 24 done it in all levels

at 20 the best in world already,Unplayable,WC winner should of been three times

Nicked one,Ghosted one,Finally won one

15 Goals

[Michel Kane]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

But on the other hand, you argue CL football is harder for the same reasons, teams are more prepared, organised, FITTER.

You're detracting from a balanced argument because you're trying to deny Messi.

[Aquaman]

100k a week for podolski

the worlds gone mad

[Michel Kane]

Ask any footballer what would u prefer

UCL medal or WC medal?

/

Just to date this debate

Ronaldo at 24 done it in all levels

They wouldn't prefer it because it's harder, they'd prefer because it has more glory.

Klose is only a goal short of Ronaldo's record in the WC, Raul is the top scorer in the CL, RVN & Henry close behind.

Now, because Klose has more goals in the 'harder' competition, does that mean he's better than the latter mentioned?

Now, again, not saying Messi

[Davicious X]

Selectively edited?!? Da faak? Your trying to tell me that out and out strikers should be able to win world cups even if they are played out of position? You mentioned Tevez playing in the hole. I'm not saying Tevez can't play in the hole, I'm saying that you aint winning a world cup playing him or anyone that doesnt do that job regularly there.

How is that not obvious? My point is blatantly, Argentina tried to shoehorn players into roles they werent completely comfortable playing, and they got sent packing.

The shits equal to playing Djourou at right back. Dont be retarded, ant dont try tell people I edited posts in any way

[Heero Yuy]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

But on the other hand, you argue CL football is harder for the same reasons, teams are more prepared, organised, FITTER.

You're detracting from a balanced argument because you're trying to deny Messi.

Man has moved the goal posts so much the argument is now on the car park

[O Fenomeno]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

But on the other hand, you argue CL football is harder for the same reasons, teams are more prepared, organised, FITTER.

You're detracting from a balanced argument because you're trying to deny Messi.

Not denying Messi whatsoever

I am yet to see reasons why Messi is greater than Ronaldo or the same level.

So a guy could be a one track club football bully but never does anything outside his club be deemed the greatest

[The King]

The exchange was eloquent, a treatise on image and reality, the two faces of Marcelo Bielsa. It was played out at Estadio el Madrigal where Villarreal had just drawn 2-2 with Athletic Bilbao. Athletic's coach was addressing the media in his normal way – voice low, gaze lower – when he was asked about his odd touchline behaviour. Was it coincidence that after every Villarreal attack, he got up from his haunches and paced to the other side of his technical area, taking exactly 13 steps?

Bielsa did not look at his questioner. He never does. Staring down, he spoke in his usual slow monotone. "What is coincidence," he replied, "is that when there's such a nice game going on, someone spends time counting my paces."

They call the Argentinian El Loco and maybe they look too hard for madness. The way Athletic are playing, watching him not his team is absurd, yet it is hard not to be drawn to him. Bielsa is unusual, there is something addictive about his actions. Besides, person and professional are inseparable. The question is: is he really as mad as he is portrayed? "No," says the forward Iker Muniaín. "He is madder."

Bielsa arrived last summer and Athletic's players still have not completely worked him out. They have never seen anything like him and do not think they ever will. He is disconcerting, praising awful performances and bemoaning brilliant ones. Above all, he is intense. Compulsive. Obsessive. Mad. "He lives for football," the striker Fernando Llorente says. There are days, adds teh midfielder Javi Martínez, when he does not leave the Lezama training ground until the small hours. It is, he says, "insane".

When he arrived, Bielsa had watched their 38 league games last season, writing all the details on colour-coded spreadsheets. And that really is allthe details – he says: "There are 36 different forms of communicating through a pass." He watches thousands of games, building a footballing taxonomy, like some kind of botanist. If a player does something new, he labels and stores it, learning from it. Teaching from it, too. Few are so didactic: he once drew on his shoes to show players exactly which part of their foot to use, wearing them for days after. Video sessions can last five hours and players joke that they do not dare make a mistake lest the green laser rest upon them and Bielsa demand a convincing explanation.

Training is intense, even when Bielsa takes children from the crowd and gets them to deliver instructions for him. Stopwatch in hand, he preaches high pressure, constantly interrupting and demonstrating. Gangs of players sprint from pole to pole, hunting as a coordinated pack, their errors revealed to them on a laptop. There is an almost childish wonder about Pep Guardiola's description of Athletic: "They all run up … and they all run down again. Up, down, up, down, up, down. They're fascinating."

All endeavour, no aesthetics? No. Bielsa, a former Argentina and Chile manager, has altered Athletic's historic identity as the most "English" of teams, teaching them in the words of one insider "not to be afraid of the ball any more". They have scored almost twice as many headers as any other team in Spain but where the ball used to be thumped into the area at the first opportunity, it is now being worked up the pitch. Only Madrid and Barcelona have completed more passes or scored more goals. "The style is totally different," says the defender Andoni Iraola; Llorente does the "opposite" of what he did before.

Synchronisation is fundamental, attacks automatic, movement mechanised, the pitch partitioned with tape, moves constructed and deconstructed piece by piece, passes made instantly. The circulation is constant. One exercise involves eight squares: two players cannot occupy the same space; if a team-mate enters your square, you vacate it. Crossing and shooting exercises, following specific, interchanging "passageways", do not end with the shot but with players sprinting back into their starting positions. Defence and attack are not separate.

"A man with new ideas is mad until he succeeds," Bielsa notes. Athletic did not win in their first five games as they struggled to assimilate new ideas; since then, they have lost only three of 21 and are one point from the Champions League places, their best finish for 13 years on the cards.

They are in the Copa del Rey final, seeking a first trophy in 28 years, and supporters are enjoying their football like never before. The sparkle in the eye of players, the sheer number of fans travelling to England – Old Trafford's highest ever away contingent – reveals what facingManchester United means.

A few weeks ago, Bielsa was stopped by a group of kids who asked him to sign their sticker album. He said no, he had a better idea. He took the album off them and told them to meet him the following day, same place, same time. When he turned up 24 hours later, the entire team had signed the album. Not just any team: El Loco's team, the most exciting Athletic have had in three decades.

[O Fenomeno]

Tactically up there with Rafa and Pep

[Michel Kane]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

But on the other hand, you argue CL football is harder for the same reasons, teams are more prepared, organised, FITTER.

You're detracting from a balanced argument because you're trying to deny Messi.

Not denying Messi whatsoever

I am yet to see reasons why Messi is greater than Ronaldo or the same level.

So a guy could be a one track club football bully but never does anything outside his club be deemed the greatest

Not denying Messi but called him a one track bully, lol.

[Davicious X]

So what we are saying is that Ronaldo would say that the CL is harder to win.

But

Messi would say that the world cup is harder to win

[Horatio Caine]

World Cup is much harder because you haven't got your club colleagues to help you out.

Some clowns think the Champions League is better than The World Cup

SMH

T

But on the other hand, you argue CL football is harder for the same reasons, teams are more prepared, organised, FITTER.

You're detracting from a balanced argument because you're trying to deny Messi.

Not denying Messi whatsoever

I am yet to see reasons why Messi is greater than Ronaldo or the same level.

So a guy could be a one track club football bully but never does anything outside his club be deemed the greatest

u cant be serious!

[O Fenomeno]

Europe bigger than the World?