Roberto Baggio vs Lionel Messi.

Whose better?

Personally i think Messi is the better close range goalscorer, but after that Baggio edges him in pretty much everything. Dribbling, big game player, free kicks and set pieces (Baggio scored from cotners on quite a few occasions), long shots (not rockets, more of finesse shots), etc. I personally consider Baggio to be the best to ever live, and Messis up there with yje best as well, so what do you think?

Did you ever watch Baggio? And im not talking about youtube. Cuz i watched Baggio throughout pretty much his entire career. So please quit with the childish remarks and axtually give a real answer.

Baggio did miss the biggest penalty of his career

Messi and it's not even close. lmao

Stop the over hyping of retired players.

Lmao not even close. You know NOTHING about Baggio if you think its one way traffic in Messis favor.

And yea, Baggio missed that penalty. He also was fighting through an injury that whole World Cup and still carried that mediocre team to the finals. And Baggio also made sure his Italy team never lost in open play in a world cup. Never. Only on penalties. Messi didnt do shit with a better argentina side than Baggios 94 italy side, and also missed one of the most important penalties of his career against Chelsea last week.

To be honest Messi has been flopping in big games since the supercopa.

Also I haven't seen to much of Baggio's career so I can't really judge and I doubt most of you have.

vivabarca38 wrote:To be honest Messi has been flopping in big games since the supercopa.

Why should we judge Messi solely on those big games when he was the only goalscoring force and he was visibly exhausted? If we're to selectively chose Messi's worst big games, we might as well choose to only look at Baggio's worst big games - including a missed penalty in a world cup final.

Anyways, I'm 21, I've never seen Baggio at his prime. But not a single former coach or football expert believes that Baggio is better than Messi, and a lot of them believe that Messi is amongst the best 5 players the world has ever seen. Surely that's enough to disqualify this thread.

lol

What experts say that? Ill tell you which ones. Famous Barcelona players, and Maradona, whose the biggest Messi fanboy of them all. Messi is excellent, and definitely among the best ever, but so is Baggio, and i believe Baggio is THE best ever. And im sure the same things were said when Baggio was in his prime. And he performed excellently in 94 throughout the tournament, including the final. They wouldve have gotten far at all if it wasnt for Baggio. And remember that Baggio was fighting an injury through the whole tournament. And thats really Baggios only blemish. Messi has more.

thats your opinion and i respect it

but in anyway baggio is not the best ever
he might be among the best which is still not imo

but its stupid to compare him to messi

only the fact that people rate messi over maradona and pele should be enough to not even mention baggio

Really surprised by the reception of this thread, is it that audacious of a comparison?

I do think that Messi is better, the best player I've ever seen personally, but that doesn't mean that you can't have a discussion, or at the very least respect.

Messi in terms of goal scoring and dribbling (although Baggio did do very well in both of these areas)

However, Baggio was a national team hero who came up massively in two world cups.

Messi has yet to achieve that same level.

Pele is overrated in my opinion. He revolutized soccer in a great way, and won a World Cup at the ahe of 19, but the defenses he played against were absolutely awful against that flair dribbling cuz theyve never seen it before, so it worked. Nowadays it would still work, but not to the extent it worked 50 years ago when Pele was in his prime. Baggio is better than Pele in my opinion. And Maradona? Well Baggio, with a weaker Fiorentina team, beat Maradona, with Maradona having a stronger Napoli team. And Baggio did it pretty much single handidly. Something that shouldnt be forgotten. And Maradona was past his prime, yes, but hadnt declined much by that point yet.

Baggio is the best player ever, and was recently voted the 4th best of all time by some list (forget which one, ill find out later). Messi, Baggio, Pele, and Maradona are all on the same level (Beckenbauer too), but Baggio is the best in my opinion.

If you guys watched Baggio in his prime as i did, you would understand. But im not gonna use that kind of reasoning cuz itll get this nowhere. But Baggio is the besy ever player. Messis up there too though as i said before, though i think id put Maradona and Beckenbauer above him too. I think Baggio is the best, while Messi is still stuck on 5th until he does :albino:something with the National Team in my opinion. At club level though an argument could be made for him against Pele, Maradona, Beckenbauer, and Baggio though in my opinion, but Baggio is still number 1. Then the other 4 is a tossup.

juventus101 wrote:What experts say that?

most recent one

billionmillion wrote:

juventus101 wrote:What experts say that?

most recent one

lol since when r9 has hair?

since he retired i think

I just watched some compilations of baggio. Difference is that messi is double faster version of baggio. faster dribbler, faster passer and he thinks faster too.
there is no messi type dribbler, baggio dribbles like short ibrahimovic.

Baggio made me

but Messi wins hand down.

LMAO

You just compared Roberto Baggio to Zlatan Ibrahimovic. They have absolutely NOTHING in common (besides that theyve both played for the big 3 in Italy).

Thats why i said Youtube videos dont show shit.

Baggio is better at almost everything than Messi. The only thing Messi has is close range (within the box) finishing and acceleration. Messi has a slight edge in speed too, but barely, and its cuz Baggio didnt need speed. He was the best dribbler ive ever seen, he didnt need to be fast, but he certainly wasnt slow either. Shot power theyre even. Long shots though, Baggio rarely ripped shots, he was excellent at long range side of the foot curling shots though. So i think Baggio wins it here too. Dribbling, evrry player has different styles, but Baggio was the best. Free kicks, Baggio was one of, if not the best,
definitely better than Messi though. Baggio even used to score from corners. Messi thinks faster? No way. Not a chance in hell. Baggio was one of the smartest players ive ever seen, if not the smartest. Again, definitely thinks faster than Messi. I dont think Messi is even the fastest thinking player right now, much less better than Baggio.

There is no point comparing players from two eras. As fans, our opinions will always be biased. You will say Baggio is the better and i will say Messi is better. But can we prove it objectively? It is difficult, if not impossible. It is difficult to even differentiate between players who play from different teams in one era.

But Messi gives me far more joy while watching football than any other footballer has since i started watching football.

I do have doubt related to Baggio. Now, from what i have seen of Baggio, he always seemed to be playing in a counter-attacking setup where he would often be alone in the final third taking on 2-3 players while attacking. Does this mean Baggio played in such a setup most of the time in career with Italy or other Serie A clubs?

Messi takes this one, IMO.

Honestly, i was old enough to realize how incredible Baggio was l, but i was still very young and didnt know much about formations or pay attention much to the system they were using. Looking back on it now, it was basically a counterattacking system, most similar in recent times to Inter of 2009, but with Baggio basically doing the jobs of Sneijder, Etoo, and Milito by himself.

I honestly think Baggio is better, why you ask? Compare both leagues that the both of these players have played/playing in. Messi's league is less competitive which means that he is not obliged to play at his best every single game, which inturn means that in the long term he will be less tired. Baggio on the other hand had a lot of competition in the league during his career and teams were able to compete since they were paid correctly for the broadcasting right, on the other hand, Barcelona and Real get paid 142 m per year while other teams loosing on their fair share, hence, Sevilla's fan protesting. Dont get me wrong, I am a fan of Barca and I love Messi a lot but I do not think he is better than Baggio. Nevertheless, Baggio performed in every team that he played for and also in the national team, Messi on the other hand did not play for another team so we can not judge if he is dependent on his teammates, plus, Messi for Argentina is not the same Messi for Barca. All I am saying is that for the mean time, Messi is not better than Baggio but he still has time and if he manages to perform for his country (hopefully) then he will be the best. I really dont care who is the best as long as the player deserves it and is actually a humble human being, unlike, both Maradona and Pele who argue like children every single time.

Baggio ain't even better than R9. No way in hell he is the best ever lol.

I'm sorry dude. I admire your love for Baggio but the delusion has to stop.

I'm not calling him shit or a bad player but he is nowhere close to Messi is now IMO.