“WE ALL KNOW what Leo Messi is. He is without doubt the best player in the world, but also the best in the history of football.”
You may have heard similar words to these before. In fact, after Lionel Messi’s latest masterclass against Manchester City, people were practically queuing to proclaim the Argentine superstar as the greatest footballer ever.
Yet such talk is often hollow and football is a fickle game in which hype often overrides rationale. Not so long ago, for instance, certain people were even suggesting Cristiano Ronaldo had superseded Messi in terms of achievements, following the Portuguese player’s most recent Ballon d’Or win last January.
Yet the aforementioned quote does not come from some hyperbole-prone supporter or commentator. In fact, the words belong to Barcelona’s current manager, Luis Enrique. And while coaches invariably shy away from lavishing such excessive praise on individual players, for fear that it may make teammates jealous, or because it could put stress on the individual in question, it has long since become apparent that Messi appears practically impervious to pressure on the pitch and along with Ronaldo, is commonly regarded as the world’s best footballer.
And Enrique is far from the only person who considers Messi to be the greatest ever. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger agrees on this point, while former Barca boss Radomir Antic has called him the “Mozart of football,” and ex-Northern Ireland star/Sky’s La Liga expert Gerry Armstrong says: “I have played against Platini, Maradona, Cruyff and played with George Best — a lot of big names, but none of them has been able to do what Messi does.”
But perhaps cult football commentator Ray Hudson put it most eloquently when he said: “They tell me that all men are equal in God’s eyes, but this player makes you seriously think about those words.”
And another telling achievement from Messi is that he is perhaps the only Argentine player in recent years who has fully managed to escape the footballing ghost of Maradona. Like Ariel Ortega, Juan Riquelme, Javier Saviola and Messi’s idol growing up — Pablo Aimar — before him, the young prodigy was initially described as potentially being the ‘new Maradona’. However, such a direct comparison is now no longer a compliment, it’s an insult — Messi is finally recognised as entirely unique and warrants praise for his talent alone.
Moreover, Messi’s stats also show that he can hold his own against Maradona and other contenders for the ‘greatest ever’ status. He is currently 27, and keep in mind that Pele stopped competing at a serious level when he was 31 and moved to play football in America, while Maradona’s career at the top level effectively ended when he was banned from the sport after testing positive for ephedrine at the 1994 World Cup aged 33.
By comparison, the Barca star looks capable of playing well into his 30s, with Messi’s incredible vision ensuring the eventual inevitable loss of his pace won’t render him ineffectual by any means. Unlike Ronaldo, to cite one example, his physical prowess has always seemed secondary to more subtle but equally astonishing gifts, such as the immaculate awareness of space that he demonstrated last Wednesday on numerous occasions (see below).
Currently, Messi has 442 goals in 556 career games, including 46 from 44 matches this season. By contrast, Pele is believed to have scored 757 goals in 812 official matches – though these figures have been disputed. In addition, Messi’s current rival, Cristiano Ronaldo has 468 career goals, and Maradona is understood to have scored 346.
Messi only needs one more domestic league title to match Pele’s seven (Ronaldo and Maradona have four and three respectively), while he has been champion of his continent (i.e. Europe) at club level three times — more than anyone else (Pele twice, Ronaldo twice, Maradona 0 times).
Such stats would suggest that if Messi is not there already, the attacker is certainly on his way to outshining all of the greats in numerical terms at least (the fact that he is three years younger than Ronaldo should give him the edge in their continuing personal duel).
Yet there are, of course, still occasional detractors who will point out that — unlike Pele and Maradona — Messi has never won a World Cup. Moreover, Messi has consistently had the luxury of playing with some of the best players in the world in sides that are far superior to almost anyone they come up against.
Maradona, while they weren’t slouches by any means, played in ordinary enough Barcelona and Napoli teams. Bernd Schuster aside, every member of the Barca squad at the time was Spanish, and they finished no higher than third in the Argentine legend’s two injury-interrupted seasons there.
Pele may have played for a side that was twice champions of South America, but again, they were hardly on a par talent-wise with the modern, cosmopolitan incarnation of Messi’s Barca or Ronaldo’s Real Madrid. Pele and Maradona consequently were playing in more competitive surroundings, as opposed to thrashing the likes of Elche every other week.
The past greats also had nowhere near the level of protection that Messi and Ronaldo are normally afforded, as the game is now undoubtedly less violent and more intolerant of dangerous tackles than ever. Persistent injuries were even arguably a contributing factor in the careers of Maradona and Pele ending with a whimper rather than a bang.
Nevertheless, if Wednesday’s game taught us anything, it’s that football can’t be judged on stats and achievements alone. What Messi did against Man City transcends silverware or any other conventional indicator of brilliance. A quick glance at the scoreline would suggest that it was actually a quiet game for Barca’s main man. After all, he didn’t score and Barca only beat City 1-0 at home, and were fortunate that their opponents missed a penalty.
However, Messi’s dazzling dribbling, intricate passing and consistently perfect decision-making all contributed to the type of performance that people will be talking about in awed tones for years to come. Yet it also explains why the star can never be justifiably labelled as the ‘greatest ever’. Aside from the obvious point that most of us didn’t have the luxury of watching Alfredo Di Stefano et al on a regular basis, it is simply impossible to measure anyway.
It, in fact, arguably does a disservice to all these greats by judging them on a quasi-scientific basis. Just as a movie cannot be considered solely in terms of how many Oscars it wins, and a band can’t be deemed the best on account of the amount of number one songs they rack up, a footballer should not be definitively assessed purely on statistics.
Messi is surely as great as anyone, and will be remembered as such in the history books irrespective of what happens from hereon in, but even if he scores 1,000 more goals between now and the end of his career, it is unfair and reductive to label him ‘the greatest’.
Do you think Lionel Messi is the greatest ever? Let us know in the comments below.
