He has been immortalised.

Just going to use simple language. He sucked at World Cup . Only Barcelona and Argentina fans think otherwise .

What is so magical about Messi ? Overhyped by media way too much . Has he invented a new dribble or a trick lately or performed any ? What is so magical in his goals ? Nothing , maybe few were great ones . He always has one style is to use his agile small body, lift the ball to the either side and if he does not have Barcelona system working around him, he becomes pretty much useless .

Not saying Messi is not a special and great player , but no way he is greatest , magical, god of football or orgasmic like some commentator said LOL .

To me magical and greatest are players like Marodona who had every trick in his pocket , Zidane who would make any trick look so simple and turn any player around him into world class , Ronaldinho and Ronaldo who would take on player in style and score amazing beautiful goals . Ofcourse few words are not enough to describe their magnitude of greatness and their superior quality almost in every department . Messi is like Gerd Muller just a great goal scorer in well oiled team . Set there tight .

I don't get excited watching Messi . It Is boring football . I like Neymar a lot , because he puts on a show . He is exactly what great individual footballer should be about . Entertainment and efficiency together . He gives it in Brazil and limited in Barca . If he moves to another team , where he is only star of the show like in Brazil , he would flourish more .

What can I learn from Messi that I can utilize on the field playing football ? Everything I learned tricks and skills I got from watching the greats that retired . Ronaldo is complete he has everything you name it and learn from him .

^completely off topic, but Im just hoping Barcelona get Chelsea in the quarter finals, Chelsea fans underrate Messi and Barcelona in general a lot.

I expect that after this previous comment everyone will realise there is no point in arguing about this topic. Please.

If every thread and highlight comment section could stop being filled with Messi vs Ronaldo crap, that would be great.

Ahh why is it again about Chelsea fans ? I am individual with my own opinion and not representing Chelsea fan's opinion .

If every thread would stop somehow linking Chelsea and chelsea fans to every topic , it will be great .

The ones who sucked in WC was Hazard,Costa,Rooney... Argentina went into quarters mainly due to Messi, you are in denial. And Di Maria was like his first general, but no longer better.
5 times MOTM are you kidding me ? 3 winner goals, 4 overall, one winner assist to Di Maria who was his first general...
If Higuain and Aguero didnt flop, the world cup would have gone to Argentina....

You like more the show than the effectiveness, thats an arguable vision that i dont share, but going in denial is just hating on him, you were the one who told that he couldnt score in WC, and you respect him if he does so, well you lied...
He scored and played a big role unlike all the players you praise playing in England, for opposition no team is weak in world cup, maybe costa rica made you learn it or Algeria...

Argentina defeated Bosnia in a miracle last minute goal, a bad result in your first game can make it very dificult, Spain Portugal and England can tell us a little about it.
He was one of the WC icons with Neuer, Robben, James and Neymar and no hate will take it from him, and if Papiss Cissé scored against Chelsea or Pastore embarassing them, i think Messi will break his only curse in few games vs the blues, he was able to bag 4 against Arsenal while open playing him.

For the level argument well, this the eternal problem, RM for example got 18 pts from their CL group, if Liverpool wasnt in that group you would have said it is so because it is the easiest group, that wasnt the case but thankfully Liverpool reminded you why...
Basel can be a good team, they wont defeat Madrid playing 10 successive games against them, not because they are weak, you should try to value without letting emotions taking over facts...

And tricks are good but doesnt makes you win games, thats why Ronaldinho was sold after stopping being competitive, same with Robinho.
Neymar starts to get more effective, and i prefer the actual Neymar, more mature and sharp than the one who plays for video compilation highlights...

Effective and beautiful > Trick shots near the corner.

^ The last one able to do this was phenomeno, and the one before was Maradona...Very common indeed.

After the thread about Messi being targeted by Chelsea I realised many fans underrated him, a lot.

But that is fine, now that you openly talked about Messi we can all see that you are just another one of those users with a "special" kind of opinion, some are trolls and some are plain ignorants.

If you cant learn anything new from Messi is probably because you already have watched enough football to find what Messi does a simple or common, probably you have seen a ton of players who have played just like him.
But in all honesty, it sounds like you have never seen him play. You would probably say that the Barcelona from 2009-2012 was just another regular football team which bored you because you couldn't learn anything out of it...

Im just replying because I feel you are a serious user not actually a troll so I feel honestly concerned about your opinion on Messi.

Its funny how every admin interfere and starts to insult people when they are simply stating their OPINION.

agree with Marcus2011 but Messi not an average player one of the greatest actually.

smh

doesn't look like him

Ok I have very different preference to football styles than most football fans ( some may find it weird or ignorant but that is what I like in footballer ) . I understand you all don't agree . My comment may have sounded immaturely , because I did not give time to write constructive essay, on why I don't consider Messi as the greatest player ever seen . I do think , he is one of the greatest players , but not greatest of them all .

I don't like his style of football ( simple dribbling). Ofcourse it is not simple to dribble a player especially several but I just don't find anything magic about it hence there were always players with similar qualities . For example from Chelsea : Zola who also had tricks up his sleves not just relying on his agility , quickness and height to dribble past players. Also , team like Barcelona allows player like Messi flourish due to system and players around him literally work for Messi in most scenarios ( Pep Guardiola and players themselves were saying they work hard to Make Messi top scorer , i am not making crap up it is all were in the news ) . Therefore , I always believed that he is just a perfect player for Barcelona's philosophy and tactics.

Barcelona in the period of 2009 to 2012 was very good football club and one of the best football teams history has seen and Messi was one of the main components of that great assembled team . However, referee decisions that went Barca way in crucial matches , on so many occasions against different caliber of teams , kind of ruined my affection to that club .

Hey same way I don't consider Bayern Munich of 2013 deserved champions . This may sound radical to many fans especially Bayern fans but I firmly believe it was Dortmund who was unlucky with ridiculous refereeing .

I also think that Real Madrid parked the bus against Bayern but many of you won't agree . And Bayern were a better team that got beat by effect Madrid . Just like we beat Barcelona in 2012 . Barca was much better team and we had to approach with ultra defensive tactics to defeat them .

What i am trying to say is that my opinion 70% -80% of the time does not match majorities . Not because I do it on purpose , but simply because I have my unique views ( at least I think so ) , just like everyone of you does their own unique views and it won't always match with you or majorities .

@tiki

Mate , i don't care about his record vs Chelsea . It does not make him any less of great a player . He can be stopped and Chelsea is not the only team that showed how to play against Barcelona with effective Messi . So , did Ronaldo always struggled against Chelsea , but I think it was because attention was on best player or key player if you want . ( And also Cashley Cole was just killing him )

I don't want to get into details about his performance at the world cup against every team , but overall I think , i just like majority agree, that he was not player of the tournament and undeservedly got that award .

Ronaldinho declined because he became " slut" and partied too much . He just became out of shape and slow .

And I like effectiveness + show .

I think it will be hard to understand me , so we can leave this argument and try to figure out why Ronaldo made sure his penis to look so bulk on the statue .

How did a statue of Ronaldo turn into an argument about Messi?

I dont really want to keep taking this off topic but, Marcus the best question would be, what is your opinion on who is the all time greatest player?
You have your preference in style and thats all fine, just try to remember, Neymars fancy flicks and skills have only been effective against weak teams (especially in the Brazilian League) and in Spain he struggled his first season and just now is coming to fulfill expectations.
Skills are entertaining but the end of the day its about getting the result. Messi and Ronaldo have been equally effective at that and they have had the luck of playing in the top teams. Barcelona had its prime in 08-11 and Real madrid is taking over as best team.

Its really interesting how big of a sport football has become where a simple person who came out of nothing can become the biggest hero of a whole nation. Big ego boost to Ronaldo for sure.

Can you guys stop going into this Messi vs C.Ronaldo fight, because like
I've said 100 times (even here in footyroom) that Messi fans will
always think Messi is better & C.Ronaldo fans think C.Ronaldo is
better _NO MATTER WHAT_.

@tiki stop jumping on provocations like Tuan said, whatever you say, they don't understand.

@tuan Gotta agree 100% both of your points.

How about creating C.Ronaldo vs Messi thread where these opposite fans can go destroy themselves every day? It would stop making these basic threads into fights about those 2 & it would probably have 200 comments in 2 days - and for neutrals it would be pure comedy to watch.

Talk about self absorbed!

whenever a thread derails into Messi vs Ronaldo:

@decentK,
drastic measures are being taken in the highlights since a while already. i hope it won't be necessary to do the same in the forums.

I feel like there's an Irina statue in front of him they're not showing us

Cool Gareth Bale statue.. Seriously though, that statue looks terrible..

@Wolfie

Agreed. Looks like an odd mixture of Beckham and Cristiano. Not to mention the unusually large *ahem* bump *ahem* on his pants.

btw boners you say? here is where it all started:

^lolololololol^

^Holy Sh!tta.....Looka da siza dat ting!