Lionel Messi and Argentina will take the field against France on Sunday evening. It will be Messi’s second World Cup final and his last opportunity to emulate Diego Maradona, as the Paris Saint-Germain forward has already announced that the final will be his final World Cup match.
Whether he wins or loses, the internet will be flooded with one side of the tedious GOAT debate chirping and crowing, while the other side desperately defends their warrior.
Pele, Maradona, Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo have been at the centre of the discussion regarding the greatest (men’s) player of all time for some time. Pele won World Cups and scored goals. Maradona possessed astounding brilliance and one World Cup.
Messi and Ronaldo have both scored goals at unprecedented levels. Purists will lament the absence of either Ferenc Puskas or Alfredo Di Stefano from the modern generation, but alas, this is how the debate has evolved.
See Also Week 24 Pool Result 2022 Sat Dec 17: UK Wk24 pool results from Pool Agent
There is one primary argument for each of these four players who have been deemed deserving by the general public. However, which side of the argument you take may depend on a variety of factors. A portion of this depends on your personality and aesthetic preferences in relation to football. Some of it is determined by your age and the era in which you fell in love with football, and some by the club and/or country you support.
What are the principal arguments then? Pele’s argument is based on his three World Cup victories, including being a member of the second team to win consecutive championships. It’s over a thousand professional goals (however dubious that may be) and an incredible legacy in the game. For Maradona, the argument is that his unmatched brilliance placed him so far ahead of his peers that it was unfair.
More so than others, Maradona’s unconventional legacy attracts a particular type of individual (that is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination). The argument for Ronaldo is twofold. First, he dominated three of Europe’s top five leagues, including the so-called “greatest league in the world,” the Premier League. Two, his work ethic propelled him to the top of a sport where his talent may not have merited it. Messi’s argument, on the other hand, is that no player has ever possessed as much natural talent. It’s not just the number of goals, but also the assists, and the creativity that Ronaldo and Pele lacked.
The real truth of the GOAT debate is that it is a completely individual choice. It really is that straightforward. You may believe Ronaldinho, George Best, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario, Eusebio, or Johan Cruyff were the greatest players of all time. Perhaps you believe it is Freddy Adu or Ravel Morrison. It is immaterial. At all.
From an objective standpoint, however, Messi is nearly impossible to surpass. Ronaldo has scored more goals. Pele has won more World Cups, yes. But what Messi has accomplished in terms of registering assists as well as goals, as well as dragging arguably not-so-impressive Argentina teams to two World Cup finals and a Copa America victory, is incredibly impressive.
But most importantly, it is the consistency. A fascinating aspect of the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry has been the frequency with which they are compared side-by-side, despite their age difference. As Messi is two and a half years younger than Ronaldo, he has two and a half years fewer games under his belt. And yet, whenever we compare Champions League goals or anything else, we always overlook the fact that Ronaldo has played in far more games than Messi.
Messi’s detractors will argue that he has been relatively shielded by playing for a Barcelona team designed for him and in a league that would not have “tested” him as much as the Premier League.
Messi’s record against English teams speaks for itself, and if you watched La Liga and the Premier League side-by-side, you would likely conclude that La Liga is more defensively sound than the Premier League. It is debatable whether this is due to superior defending or La Liga’s head-to-head rule, which encourages greater caution. However, this argument does not really hold water.
In addition, Ronaldo has spent a significant portion of his career as the team’s primary goal threat, sometimes to the detriment of the team as that becomes his sole focus. This has occurred at various points in his career, whether by moving directly to a central striker or by the subservient roles of players like Karim Benzema.
When was the last time that he reached double-digit assists? The season 2014-2015 for Real Madrid. For Messi? This season, he’s already scored 10 goals for PSG. Messi has had only five seasons throughout his career in which he did not record double-digit assists. Ignoring Ronaldo’s solitary season with Sporting (and he played enough games for it to count), he has gone 16 seasons without reaching double-digit assists, not including this disastrous year.
So what about objectives? From Messi’s debut season in 2005-06 (which is a bit harsh considering he only played 17 games) forward, it is a tie at 9-9 in terms of who outscored whom each season. And for the record, Ronaldo played in 33 Premier League games during the 2005-2006 season (24 starts compared to 11 for Messi). On the basis of what has transpired over the past few months, it is likely that Messi will win more remaining seasons than Ronaldo. Unless they all.
Furthermore, we do not know what will transpire with Messi’s career going forward. In theory, he will remain at PSG until the summer, after which he will either return to Barcelona for another year or join Inter Miami in the United States. Or perhaps spend another year in Paris. Then, he may have a fairytale ending with Newell’s back at home. At the time of writing, it is difficult to imagine a club terminating his contract because he has become too difficult to manage. However, he is not yet showing many signs of slowing down. He should last at least as long as Ronaldo’s final productive years, if not longer.
What happened to Maradona and Pele? For the former, one could certainly argue that his peak was as good as or even better than Messi’s. But consistency is not even close; Maradona could not perform at the same level for an extended period. Given that Pele never played outside of Brazil, with the exception of a brief stint in New York, the argument that he scored the most club goals quickly falls apart. In addition, at a certain point, it becomes necessary to discuss the current level of play in light of technical and physical advancements. Yes, defenders are not permitted to tackle you as aggressively as they did during Pele’s and Maradona’s eras, but there is no denying how far the game has progressed.
And this seems like an appropriate time to make one last point. This does not mean that Messi will never be surpassed as the greatest player of all time. There may be a young child somewhere kicking a ball who will have an extraordinary career. However, they will have to begin at an absurdly young age and continue for an extremely long time. Messi scored 14 league goals in his ‘age 19 season,’ and he has only failed to score 10 or more league goals since then, in his first year in Paris.
As stated earlier in the article, this is ultimately irrelevant. It is extremely unlikely that many people (if any) will be persuaded by these arguments. Messi has produced stunning football throughout his career, but so have countless others throughout the game’s history. Regardless of what transpires on Sunday, his prior accomplishments place him atop the podium in this author’s estimation. Will this be true for you? That is up to you to determine.
