He didnt deserve minimum two golden balls that he won. Its a rigged, it so fucking obvious.
These things don't really matter.
Such a stupid award and it just creates stupid talks.
Like what you get, sorry again for grouping y'all together but it's too easy, with US American sports.
Team wins the NBA championship and everyone is like "best team ever", or how they cannot contemplate how a team that didn't win in their season may be better than a team that actually did win. As if it's inconceivable that the level is not different between seasons.
We're not fully there yet, but I can see people claiming that peak Zidane was 1998 because he won the Golden Ball and the World Cup, as if he was a big participant of the World Cup aside from the final where he scored two relatively rare headers.
Then Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or in 2002, just because he was great at the World Cup. He hardly had a decent start with Real Madrid in the 2002 calendar year. He played in like 2 CL games and less than 10 league games. And he didn't play more than that with Inter. He was robbed of the 1998 award but was handed the 2002 one.
So, he was great in WC, won it and thats why he won golden ball. But in 2010 he was in same spot as Haland this season(great in club competition, sucked in WC, plus didnt won CL like Haland) and guess what, he won it, not Iniesta who had phenomenal season and WC and won it. Talk about criterium. Personally, he is not greatest ever, I dont care about his crazy statistics, did watch prime Maradona and R9, best players I ever watched. In Maradona time he wouldnt be protected by refs, no way. But better that Cr7, definitely yes.
While I get where you're going with this and why, Messi still feels legendary and we should indeed appreciate him.
But as I said many times, he's effectively Roberto Baggio with 2 full working knees rather than a half between both legs.
Top 10 offensive players we've seen since the early 90s - I'll exclude Maradona - at least that comes to mind now, because if you ask me tomorrow I may shuffle it a bit:
- Ronaldo
- Roberto Baggio
- Leo Messi
- Michael Laudrup
- Francesco Totti
- Zinedine Zidane
- Romario
- Robert Prosinecki
- Hristo Stoichkov
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Obviously there's definitely others that one could name here, such as Luis Figo, Ruud Gullit, Dejan Savicevic, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Luka Modric, Iniesta, Zvonimir Boban, Kaka or some strikers like Batistuta, Shevchenko, van Basten, Eto'o, Adriano, Lewandowski, Benzema, Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo or some wizards like Dragan Stojkovic, Gheorghe Hagi, Roberto Mancini, Eden Hazard, Arjen Robben etc... I know I mentioned like 50 guys here and that's not throwing out an unofficial top 50 list, just thinking some names out loud
![Big grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
That's just attacking players, I haven't gone through defenders or... restrained midfielders.
Recoba also had the talent to be there but not the head or body. If I pick on talent and potential based on what we've seen and not just a what-if (think Balotelli), then Recoba definitely has produced something amongst the best we've ever witnessed.
Gary Lineker said it in a way that I think most football fans can relate with. Messi brings joy. And that's what others before him brought. Whereas Cristiano is just a me, me, me character that got glorified when he started chasing records as part of one of the most stacked teams of all time and his main job was to chase the ball around the net. A luxury Filippo Inzaghi if I may.
Talent will always look better than a product hard work. Some people like effectiveness and looking at stat sheets, others wants to see moments of brilliance. There's a reason one is called brilliance though. It's shining more than anything else.
If I had to pick a top 5, I'd definitely put Messi there. But if you want me to pick just 1 who I'll take to save my life in a game, I cannot really say that's the guy I'm picking. That's probably Maradona. If I wanna take my chances and have some fun in the way, it's Ronaldo.