Is Messi best ever football player?

[Liam]

With his five goal haul tonight, and his general awesomeness, the BBC live text is filled with debate about Messi being the best ever.

So EWB, is he the best ever? Does international success count as much when looking at this debate? How much onus do you give to the clear ability of the rest of the team? Yadda yadda yadda, shminky pinky brassy monkey.

[Dan]

I'll tell you in 6 years.

[Liam]

I agree to an extent. The guy is only 24, and will need to be consistently good over the next five years or so.

However, has there ever been a guy as unplayable as Messi when he gets going? Pele, Maradona, Best........dunno, potentially throws up interesting debate.

[METALMAN]

It's tough - and you really have to judge a player by his contemporaries. I mean, everyone is in awe of the Brazil team of 1970, but modern standards of fitness are such that the likes of Wolves would wipe the floor with them.

So yeah, put bluntly, Messi is the best player ever, and if not him, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fat Ronaldo or Zidane. In fact, I'm tempted to go for Zidane. He had it all, whereas Messi is a bit limited with his right foot and his head.

But if we're judging him by how good he is relative to those that are playing at the same time, it's hard to say. I'd be tempted to plump for Maradona, because he practically won the World Cup by himself, and succeeded at a fairly average Napoli team. Pele, I tend to write off - yes he was a phenomenal player, but he was part of a great Brazil team that could have easily succeeded without him and he played much of his club football against tiny amateur teams as Brazil had no national championship at the time.

[The Lusophone]

No he's not the best player ever. Probably not even top 10.

[Liam]

No he's not the best player ever. Probably not even top 10.

C'mon then, give us the 10.

[Gazz]

From a technical and physical standpoint (ie. the amount of control of the ball he has at full pace etc.) yes, he is due to the improvements in coaching and the science of performance.

From a standpoint of all his peers graded on an equal footing, you could make a very strong argument that he is, given the standard of leagues he plays in, his goalscoring prowess in comparable to Pele, his dribbling, flair and creativity is comparable to Maradona and his technical and passing abilities are comparable to Cryuff.

People argue that he's never turned it on on the grandest stage of them all, the World Cup but is the World Cup the grandest stage of the all? I'd say the CL is a harder competition to excel at because of the standard of the opposition and he's already won that three times and will likely pick up at least another three winners medals in his career.

It's interesting because I think if he'd elected to play for Spain internationally (there's a school of thought that thinks Messi prioritises Barca over Argentina and identifies more as a Catalan than an Argentine), this argument wouldn't even be happening as he'd have a WC winners medal too.

[Liam]

From a technical and physical standpoint (ie. the amount of control of the ball he has at full pace etc.) yes, he is due to the improvements in coaching and the science of performance.

From a standpoint of all his peers graded on an equal footing, you could make a very strong argument that he is, given the standard of leagues he plays in, his goalscoring prowess in comparable to Pele, his dribbling, flair and creativity is comparable to Maradona and his technical and passing abilities are comparable to Cryuff.

a) Most people get the first one. You and metalman have both pointed it out. These comparisons are never about the reality of the situation, or take into account these kinda details.

b) The second part was more what I am looking at, obviously

[TCO]

Yes I think he is without a shadow of a doubt. The level he's on at the moment is a different level to anybody ever, he's just unplayable. I think when it's all said and done Cristiano Ronaldo will go down as one of the greatest ever too, it's just unfortunate for him that he's playing in the same era as the greatest ever who's also 2 years younger than him.

[Rich]

I am saying "No" as he has only proved his level of performance as a member of the amazing Barcelona squad, he has yet to prove in a squad which is not quite as talented (Argentina) that he can re-create that level fo performance, yet Pele was amazing for his club (Santos) and Maradona was amazing virtually anywhere he went as well as for Brazil. Zidane proved it for Real, France and Juventus. Messi is just lacking the meat on the bones of his career to make him the best ever. He is not far away, but needs something else to prove he is the best, rather than one of the best ever.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

No.

I'd put Pele, Maradonna and Best all ahead of him at this moment in time and possibly even a couple more too in the likes of Cruyff. The advantage for Messi is that he's still young and should be playing for quite some time to come. So within time, he very well could go down as the greatest, but not right now for me.

Still surprises me that whenever a 'best ever' topic comes up in football it's always attackers who seem to get all of the mentions, many choosing to ignore some of the legendary defenders, keepers etc and I always feel it's unfairly balanced towards attacking players.

[BootsToAsses]

people always argue about this and it's not about current form, if he's still as good in 8-9 years then it's arguable but many people have scored 4-5 goals in a match and for many are distant memories.

I bet half of you don't remember when Solskjaer came on as a substitute and scored a hat trick in less than 20 minutes.

What makes a great footballer is longevity at the top, Ryan Giggs has just celebrated 21 years at the same club and is still in excellent condition.

[Liam]

people always argue about this and it's not about current form, if he's still as good in 8-9 years then it's arguable but many people have scored 4-5 goals in a match and for many are distant memories.

I bet half of you don't remember when Solskjaer came on as a substitute and scored a hat trick in less than 20 minutes.

What makes a great footballer is longevity at the top, Ryan Giggs has just celebrated 21 years at the same club and is still in excellent condition.

You are clearly missing the point of what we are talking about.

Plus, Messi is a better player than Giggs ever was. By a fair way.

[Liam]

Also, just to throw it out there, whilst I understand the concept of longevity in these discussions, Zidane was only 'the man' for a few years of his career, yet he will still go down as one of the greats. Duncan Edwards is considered one of the best players of his era, even though he lost his lift in the Munich Air Crash. Longevity supports an argument, sure, but doesn't necessarily rule someone out of being more capable than someone else.

[METALMAN]

Plus Messi isn't a LOVE RAT.

Oh and the thing about Zidane - he came into prominence pretty late on in his career, sure, but when he retired in 2006 at 45 he was probably still the best in the world.

[Gazz]

people always argue about this and it's not about current form, if he's still as good in 8-9 years then it's arguable but many people have scored 4-5 goals in a match and for many are distant memories.

I bet half of you don't remember when Solskjaer came on as a substitute and scored a hat trick in less than 20 minutes.

What makes a great footballer is longevity at the top, Ryan Giggs has just celebrated 21 years at the same club and is still in excellent condition.

Messi has 53 in 49 games this season. I think he scored 53 last season too. He's 7 off the all time record for Barcelona, he's won the CL top goalscorer three seasons in a row and leads this season's standings, he's the only player to ever score 5 goals in a CL game.

He's won three consectutuve Ballon D'Or awards.

He's 24.

Imagine how many trophies and awards he'll have won by the time he's 34, an age where conceivably, since he isn't overly reliant on pace and acceleration, he could and probably will be performing at a world class level.

[BootsToAsses]

people always argue about this and it's not about current form, if he's still as good in 8-9 years then it's arguable but many people have scored 4-5 goals in a match and for many are distant memories.

I bet half of you don't remember when Solskjaer came on as a substitute and scored a hat trick in less than 20 minutes.

What makes a great footballer is longevity at the top, Ryan Giggs has just celebrated 21 years at the same club and is still in excellent condition.

You are clearly missing the point of what we are talking about.

Plus, Messi is a better player than Giggs ever was. By a fair way.

My point was will he still be able to perform at the top level in 8-9 years and still be playing as well, probably not most of the 'greatest footballers ever' have short careers at the top level while people like Giggs, Bobby Charlton and Nikolas Anelka play at the top level for years and never get the recognition they deserve, everyone will have forgotten by the end of next season that Messi became the first to score 5 goals in a match in the Champions League, people will only remember the winners of the tournaments not every goal scored by Messi throughout the tournament.

[METALMAN]

Lionel Messi seems a pretty dedicated pro, and I see no reason why he couldn't carry on at the same level for years, barring a dreadful injury or something. Also, I get your point, but the use of Anelka as an example made me chuckle a bit. >_>

[Gazz]

And I'm saying yes he will.

When has Nicolas Anelka ever performed at the top level, bar his one breakthrough season for Arsenal?

[METALMAN]

I don't think Shanghai would pay a player £175k/pw if he couldn't perform at the top level Gazz. >_>