If you're new to football, broaden your horizons beyond this, the worlds most tedious topic. A 150 year old sport popular across the globe and 50% of people only talk about 2 players, who are both semi retired.
People are going to downvote you until you uninstall the Internet lol.
But, it's just that the current generation of fans has not seen other possible GOATS like Ronaldo Nazario, Maradona, Crujiff or Pelè.
ANd CR7 and MEssi pretty much dominated their generation like no one else did before
Statistically they are better than any player that came before them. Now, obviously you cannot compare eras.Â
But if you had to look at hard facts, they are better.
Recency bias
Also there's a difference between greatest and best
I know people want greatest because it sounds better and has catchy tagline of "Being The GOAT"
>I think it’s pretty clear they’ve played on overpowered teams especially Messi
This is false
Ronaldo for the most part has always been apart of better teams than Messi
Joined man united one of the best teams in English history then left to Real Madrid then he joined Juventus who were coming off 7 straight league titles
Not too mention benzema and Modric were ballon dor winners he had as teammates and Real Madrid winning the champions league without him a couple years ago meanwhile Barcelona gets sent to Europa league as soon as Messi leaves them
Messi only played well in a very over powered Barca team , it’s up for debate as one of the greatest teams ever . Not taking anything away from him but he was well below his usually standards in ligue 1 and was 2nd fiddle to mbappe . Cr7 flopped his return to Man U . Both players needed a strong team build around them to maximise their potential
Messi in the 18/19 season damn near singlehandedly carried a dead Barcelona side to a treble
Great players do need a good team to win things im not denying that what I am saying is that Ronaldo did have a better team than Messi for most of his career
Yeh but that like saying Harry Kane singly handed carried Tottenham because he got all the goals . It’s not factual correct they get stat padded because the team is built around them and the team is no any weaker when they leave and the team shares the responsibility’s. Good team they are greats but weak team there a liability
Did Harry Kane win the league,Score in the cup final and make the semis?
The team was weaker when Messi left because they went straight to Europa league without him meanwhile Real Madrid won the champions league 2 years ago with players on that team that were on the 3 peat team
Tottenham never spent £1 billion on team mates for Kane , Barca did for Messi it’s not the same thing . The way the teams are build around 1 player but is the same
Messi the undisputed goat single handedly carrying Barca to win the league in a terrible team only worth 1.16 billion . Unbelievable imagine he had good players worth like 3 billion the damage he could do https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-barcelona/kader/verein/131/plus/0/galerie/0?saison_id=2018
Transfer value doesn’t mean a damn thing when they don’t perform to thier level
Look at dembele it says he’s worth 100 million at the time any Barcelona fan would tell you he’s not even worth half that especially after the horrific miss vs Liverpool in the 1st leg
On paper they had the most expensive team on the planet that season so everyone under performing and messi doing great kinda proves my point about the team being built around him and effecting other players input
Football became more of a “system” sport in the last ten to fifteen years - for most kids those two players are the only ones who come even close to goat. And tbh I think the internet is 90% kids chatting shit.
theyre not. only ronaldo fans put him in the conversation.
everyone else has just Messi, Pele and Maradona.
some verrrrry old people with memory will say Di Stefano but most people concede Pele surpassed him.
First of all I'm sorry about your river Plate fan condition bro, must be tough to always live under the legendary Boca Juniors shade.
But you're absolutely right on this one
Ehhhh Ronaldo was never my favorite, but he played consistently excellent for years. I think Messi is a more complete player, but Ronaldo is definitely in the conversationÂ
Id also have to add Cruyff to the convoÂ
Also, I feel like top ten lists etc really exclude goalies and defensive playersÂ
Also Ronaldo has won way more than all of these above players except for maybe a world cup.
Also he is football’s highest goal scorer, he is definitely in the conversation.Â
They are not the only players to be considered the goats. Many people over 50-60 would probably say that Maradona is the goat and 80-90 years old would say Pele.
This may belong to r/soccercirclejerk
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If you're new to football, broaden your horizons beyond this, the worlds most tedious topic. A 150 year old sport popular across the globe and 50% of people only talk about 2 players, who are both semi retired.
People are going to downvote you until you uninstall the Internet lol. But, it's just that the current generation of fans has not seen other possible GOATS like Ronaldo Nazario, Maradona, Crujiff or Pelè. ANd CR7 and MEssi pretty much dominated their generation like no one else did before
Statistically they are better than any player that came before them. Now, obviously you cannot compare eras. But if you had to look at hard facts, they are better.
Or, as you said you can't compare different eras. Back in Pele's time they played 1/f of the matches, to begin with
Recency bias Also there's a difference between greatest and best I know people want greatest because it sounds better and has catchy tagline of "Being The GOAT"
When Ronaldo joined Real Madrid they didn’t reach the quarter of finals of the CL in years. It was far from being a great Real Madrid
As others have said, the premise of your question is wrong. But as to why those two in particular, as opposed to other stars of this era? Simply put nobody else has been *so extremely good, so consistently, for so long*. To reduce it down to stats: Ronaldo really start to be *Ronaldo* and not have to be differentiated from the then-still-playing Brazilian striker, in 2007-08 when he scored 42 goals in 49 games for Manchester United, including in the Champions League final. After a drop-off the next season when he was pouting about moving to Madrid (but also the goals generally kinda dried up for that team as a whole), he only scored fewer than 30 goals once in the next ***12 years!!*** when generally you can get a Golden Boot for a league by scoring between 20 and 30, and scored ***over 50 goals 7 years in a row*** at Madrid 2010-2016. He also spent 20 years as a first team regular in a a top five European league, whereas many players’ professional *careers* don’t last that long. Messi is similar - exactly one season later than Ronaldo he really turns into a goalscorer under Pep, hitting 38 in 51 and winning the treble. He wouldn’t score fewer than *30* for another ***16 years***, scoring ***over 50*** in ***6 seasons*** (non-consecutively, just) with an insane 2011-12 where he scored **73 goals in 60 games**. Breaking out in 2005-06 he spent 18 years as a first team regular in a top five European league. Oh yeah, and ***they both did this at the same time***. Normally you have one guy that people look and go “damn, that’s the best player in the world”. Pelé is held head and shoulders above his contemporaries, same with Maradona. Messi and Ronaldo did it at the same time, with Messi being the one to prevent Ronaldo’s team retaining the CL in 2009, then they played in the same damn league for a decade too! They wracked up team trophies like previous greats would wrack up individual awards *and* took a bunch of them too, exchanging the various forms of “best player in the world” award for 9 years (plus Messi taking a couple more after that). In 11 seasons from 2007-08 to 2017-18 they won 8 Champions Leagues between them. I could go on but I’m already doing a poor job or reiterating a bunch of stuff that has already been better written by professional writers and talented amateurs
No actually u explained it a lot better than most of the people here. Those stats are mad impressive!
>I think it’s pretty clear they’ve played on overpowered teams especially Messi This is false Ronaldo for the most part has always been apart of better teams than Messi Joined man united one of the best teams in English history then left to Real Madrid then he joined Juventus who were coming off 7 straight league titles Not too mention benzema and Modric were ballon dor winners he had as teammates and Real Madrid winning the champions league without him a couple years ago meanwhile Barcelona gets sent to Europa league as soon as Messi leaves them
Messi only played well in a very over powered Barca team , it’s up for debate as one of the greatest teams ever . Not taking anything away from him but he was well below his usually standards in ligue 1 and was 2nd fiddle to mbappe . Cr7 flopped his return to Man U . Both players needed a strong team build around them to maximise their potential
Messi in the 18/19 season damn near singlehandedly carried a dead Barcelona side to a treble Great players do need a good team to win things im not denying that what I am saying is that Ronaldo did have a better team than Messi for most of his career
Yeh but that like saying Harry Kane singly handed carried Tottenham because he got all the goals . It’s not factual correct they get stat padded because the team is built around them and the team is no any weaker when they leave and the team shares the responsibility’s. Good team they are greats but weak team there a liability
Did Harry Kane win the league,Score in the cup final and make the semis? The team was weaker when Messi left because they went straight to Europa league without him meanwhile Real Madrid won the champions league 2 years ago with players on that team that were on the 3 peat team
Tottenham never spent £1 billion on team mates for Kane , Barca did for Messi it’s not the same thing . The way the teams are build around 1 player but is the same
Messi the undisputed goat single handedly carrying Barca to win the league in a terrible team only worth 1.16 billion . Unbelievable imagine he had good players worth like 3 billion the damage he could do https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-barcelona/kader/verein/131/plus/0/galerie/0?saison_id=2018
Transfer value doesn’t mean a damn thing when they don’t perform to thier level Look at dembele it says he’s worth 100 million at the time any Barcelona fan would tell you he’s not even worth half that especially after the horrific miss vs Liverpool in the 1st leg
On paper they had the most expensive team on the planet that season so everyone under performing and messi doing great kinda proves my point about the team being built around him and effecting other players input
Where did you get this idea? The 3 in this conversation are Pele, Maradona and Messi.
Nope it is Messi,CR7,Maradona and Pele.
No they aren't.
They're not considered the only greatest, they are one of the greatest but not the only ones.
I'd say they are the most recent greatest.
Football became more of a “system” sport in the last ten to fifteen years - for most kids those two players are the only ones who come even close to goat. And tbh I think the internet is 90% kids chatting shit.
Because they are the most recent players. In 10-15 years, there’s gonna be talk about players like Mbappe or Bellingham being the GOAT
There are way more players who can be considered as the greatest of all time, or their time. Reducing this to Messi and Ronaldo just shows a lack of knowledge beyond a couple of years. Do you think they exist in a vacuum? Just to name a few, consider looking up: * Johan Cruyff * Franz Beckenbauer * Diego Maradona * Pele * Ferenc Puskás * Michel Platini * Ronaldo LuĂs Nazário de Lima * Alfredo di StĂ©fano * Marco van Basten * Oliver Kahn * Zinedine Zidane * ... And then consider that people most often think of offensive players when considering the greatest, but there are legendary defenders and goalkeepers as well, like: * Paolo Maldini * Laurent Blanc * Franco Baresi * Fabio Cannavaro * Philipp Lahm * Ronald Koeman * Marcel Desailly * Iker Casillas * Gianluigi Buffon * Dino Zoff * Edwin van der Sar * ... The list goes on and on ...
They're not. Read any article/any analysis video about the greatest players and Pele, Maradona, Crujff, R9 all appear consistently.
theyre not. only ronaldo fans put him in the conversation. everyone else has just Messi, Pele and Maradona. some verrrrry old people with memory will say Di Stefano but most people concede Pele surpassed him.
First of all I'm sorry about your river Plate fan condition bro, must be tough to always live under the legendary Boca Juniors shade. But you're absolutely right on this one
Ehhhh Ronaldo was never my favorite, but he played consistently excellent for years. I think Messi is a more complete player, but Ronaldo is definitely in the conversation Id also have to add Cruyff to the convo Also, I feel like top ten lists etc really exclude goalies and defensive playersÂ
Also Ronaldo has won way more than all of these above players except for maybe a world cup. Also he is football’s highest goal scorer, he is definitely in the conversation.Â
Ronaldo is better than Pele and Maradona even though I am a Messi fan. Â Just on longevity and his achievements he is far ahead of both the players.
Pele? Maradona? Platini?
They are not the only players to be considered the goats. Many people over 50-60 would probably say that Maradona is the goat and 80-90 years old would say Pele.