So much anti-drucurl sentiment
First of all you must know that a large % of my criticisms of Messi is pure trolling....mainly in response to the fanboyz lining up to suck his (micro)dick. He is definitely one of the Greatest Of All Time. However I tend to respect his contrmporaries, if only for the reason that their path to success was not as red-carpeted and paved in gols as his was. Sure, this was not his fault...but I see it as a ridiculous wind assist as opposed to the rest of the pantheon of football gods who ran against the wind to achieve their success
Secondly, I an not naturally inclined to like such a robotic player. It's not that I BLAME him because he's been schooled in the Barca way since he was 12 years old....so he's spent more of his life in the Barca system as opposed to the players who grew "organically" like....everybody else. However, it also stands to reason that as a direct consequence, his ability to adapt to different environments, tactic, formations mentalities etc is diminished. Regardless of where they played....R9 was R9, Ronaldinho was dinho, Maldini was Maldini etc. Sure they would obviously have had more success with more support (hence Maldini won with his club and R9 won with his country)....but they never looked COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT as Messi does when he changes shirts. So, no, it's not all about titles...else there would be no room for George Weah, iBra, Yorke etc...who came from football minnows....but it's about performance
It's a pretty big indictment that in the WC 2014, Messi's goals dried up as soon as he left the group stage. His goals came against the much weaker sides in Bosnia, Iran and Nigeria.... AS SOON as he faced the powerhouses or stronger teams, and was outside his Barca ecosystem, the goals dried up. One can make the argument that he was playing more withdrawn....but it doesn't change the fact that he went from scoring to not scoring as he did AGAIN with Chile
Which brings me to the final....the penalty miss was much needed haterade and troll fodder for me...but was smaller in the grand scheme...Argentina shouldn't need a massively superior team to beat fucking Chile. France, Germany, even a full strength Brazil...but Chile....nah That shit doesn't fly.
I think you are really underestimating Chile. They are better than France and Brazil. Messi is one of the greatest. But I agree that barca formation and the way they play to his strength makes him look better than he actually is. Having said that I still dont know a player I would say yes overall he is better player. So he is the best ever overall and still overrated if that makes any sense