Colours never run wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 7:34 pm
Generous route to the Final?
They had to play a hard fought north American Mexico side, a difficult well disciplined defensive Polish side in the Group stage and a half decent Team from the region that even best them to begin with. Then in the knock out stage they had to beat a quality Dutch side and a Croatian side in the Semi's who usually get to at least the Semi's at World Cup and to top it off beat the current World Champions who boast Mbappe amongst many other quality players. There route to win the Cup was one of the hardest to win it, tested in every way and they achieved it with Messi leading the way the entire time producing some outstanding performances, match after match producing Man of the Matches.
It’s amazing how good teams become when England aren’t playing them. The fact you felt the need to put positive descriptors against Mexico and Poland says it all, we both know their group was poor and they could afford defeat to Saudi Arabia and still get through.
In truth Argentina beat Mexico, Poland, Australia and Croatia - countries they should be beating without generosity from refs, which they also had.
Netherlands were average on the day and they still took it to pens, France in the final again went to pens despite being in front twice against a side ravaged with illness. Had they lost from 2-0 it would have been one of the biggest collapses of all time.
Argentina will probably never have it easier. France was a tough game but other than that they did their best to mess it up and still snuck through.
Messi is brilliant, but Argentina are not that great and benefitted from a lot of good fortune (or something more contrived depending on what you believe).
Last edited by Paolopaul on Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Paolopaul wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 7:59 pm
Messi is brilliant, but Argentina are not that great.
I've already stated so and why it made their win under Messi more remarkable considering all the Teams he had to beat to achieve it with a not impressive Argentina side. Their group was hard enough and we won't agree on the likes of Mexico and Poland being poor sides. Saudi Arabia I can understand but even they turned it on, on the day and had great backing being from the region to help inspire their great win against them.
I've already stated so and why it made their win under Messi more remarkable considering all the Teams he had to beat to achieve it with a not impressive Argentina side. Their group was hard enough and we won't agree on the likes of Mexico and Poland being poor sides. Saudi Arabia I can understand but even they turned it on, on the day and had great backing being from the region to help inspire their great win against them.
I was initially just trying to understand why winning the World Cup, rather than losing the final, has any bearing on Messi being the greatest player ever. I’m reading that winning the World Cup proves he’s the best ever, but he had no bearing on the penalties in the shootout outside of his. I find it all a bit odd, that’s all.
For some reason I can’t get the five dodgy penalties out of my head since someone showed me all of them. I really don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist but I’m finding it hard to explain it.
5 Penalties? From what I can see it was 4. And he still scored 3 non-penalties, as well as set-up 3 assists. I really don't think all the Refs/Linos/VAR Officials were conspiring together to help Messi in any way. He did what he did fair and square.
Colours never run wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:25 pm
5 Penalties? From what I can see it was 4. And he still scored 3 non-penalties, as well as set-up 3 assists. I really don't think all the Refs/Linos/VAR Officials were conspiring together to help Messi in any way. He did what he did fair and square.
Messi missed one against Poland - worst penalty decision of the lot. It was 5. And all 5 were debated.
I don’t like to think any conspiracies are real, but there’s something in the back of my mind saying it’s all very coincidental considering how the World Cup ended up there in the first place. Also doesn’t sit comfortably that on multiple occasions the commentators were confused as to why Messi wasn’t booked for fouls etc - you’ll have seen this too when watching the games.
In the end, ideal player wins the competition, and that’s what everybody is talking about. Whether coincidence or not, it couldn’t have worked out better for FIFA and the legacy of Qatar.
First I've heard of some grand World Cup Messi winning because it'll look good for Qatar/FIFA conspiracy to be honest, never crossed my mind until now and thinking back on it all, I don't see it at all.
Colours never run wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 10:32 pm
First I've heard of some grand World Cup Messi winning because it'll look good for Qatar/FIFA conspiracy to be honest, never crossed my mind until now and thinking back on it all, I don't see it at all.
Well as I said I’m undecided - conspiracy theories always seem a bit far fetched and this one is probably no different. Glad you’ve taken the time to reflect on it, and that’s fine to rule it out.
However you must see that the negativity around the Qatar World Cup has disappeared to be replaced by a celebration of Messi and the ‘greatest final ever’, and the gravy train once again rumbles on. The Qataris and FIFA have lucked out with that.
The controversies surrounding the Qatar World Cup havn't disappeared, people are well aware of it's failings, so nothing replaced that. All that has happened on a purely footballing level is that not only was the Final 1 of the best ever (I personally regard the 1966 one just as good having everything in it and with quality), but I alsor regard the entire World Cup as 1 of the best ever. And I'm one of those who doesn't like a lot of the controversies surrounding it and still think that way especially whet happened to the poor migrant workers.
If FIFA had rigged Messi winning the World Cup via officiating, why would they give France not one, but two penalties in the Final? And why would they add on 10 mins vs Holland when Argentina were winning 2-1, whereby Holland scored in the 100th minute? All whilst also disallowing three Argentina goals in their opening game defeat?
Colours never run wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:07 pm
I could show you a lot more better examples than that night. The bloke is a living genius and he's still going after all these years.
Oh yeah. I just thought at the time it was amazing the way he waltzed into a game like that and looked completely at home with the likes of Ronaldinho, etc.
Are we going to judge everything by stats alone ?
Essentially you are using stats to prove unequivocally that Messi is a better player. By that metric you could have Andy Cole as better footballer than Matt Le Tissier. He clearly wasn’t.
Friend or Foé wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 9:44 am
Are we going to judge everything by stats alone ?
Essentially you are using stats to prove unequivocally that Messi is a better player. By that metric you could have Andy Cole as better footballer than Matt Le Tissier. He clearly wasn’t.
I dunno. Cole was great in his position and won pretty much everything. Le Tissier was great but had different qualities.
Colours never run wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:44 pm
No, I've not only relied on that, I've also put forward evidence of what he's capable of, if you were paying more attention.
But here's some more for good measure...
There’s clearly going to be far less video footage of Maradona but what is out there will show everything and more in skill than what Messi does. I or nobody else has bothered putting it up because they’re probably not as fixated or even as bothered as you are about this. Chill out mate, Messi is a fantastic player but just not a magical as Maradona in my opinion.
Messi at his best, his skill is sublime with almost magnetic control. But When Maradona touched a football.. it's just different.. it was a friendship.. looked more like they were dancing together