If God came on earth he would struggle to match this consistency :-

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVED4jCWIAA4n7n.jpg

Nine years and counting in the top three of world football without so much as a shake is unheard of. More than half of that entire time he takes the Numero Uno position.

On Twitter people have starting calling him the best club player ever and it's hard to disagree with that.

What happened to his finishing? Should have scored like 4 goals.

Rest of his game is fine but his finishing has detoriated from once in a lifetime to just world class.

World class. That deteriation

Yeah, his finishing has really deteriorated. Has done for 3 seasons now. He used to be a killer in front of goal. Now he misses sitters all the time.

No worries guys, he'll come good in the second half of the season

I miss the old Messi, managed by Pep

It hasn't deteriorated one bit, his goal was an example of fantastic finishing.

He missed chances, ok, doesn't mean his finishing has deteriorated. It's called a bad run. Basically a statsitical anomaly. He'll go back to scoring everything sooner or later.

Statistically speaking it might have deteriorated. But imagine this, for couple of years he had to work with injured and declining Vila and clueless Pedro, and Alexis who was hindered because of clueless Pedro was taking his spot. He was a creator and finisher in a team with many problems, se he was not maybe as lethal due to amount of pressure. Then came Naymar, who was fitting in the new continent. But, Suarez came he had a better performance as he had teammates who could actually make things a bit easier for him, especially relieving the pressure that he has to win games by himself (remember there was a stat some previous season that if we take off Messi's goals we might not even qualify for CL). So all in all, this later "dry spell by Messi's standards", could be just a patch, considering he had a lengthier injury just a month ago.

free_cat wrote:It hasn't deteriorated one bit, his goal was an example of fantastic finishing.

He missed chances, ok, doesn't mean his finishing has deteriorated. It's called a bad run. Basically a statsitical anomaly. He'll go back to scoring everything sooner or later.

TBH noone could sustain those. His finishing was monstrous in the 09/10 season. Became better in 10/11. The seasons of 11/12 - 12/13, probably the best I've seen in my life. The guy was something else.

free_cat wrote:It hasn't deteriorated one bit, his goal was an example of fantastic finishing.

He missed chances, ok, doesn't mean his finishing has deteriorated. It's called a bad run. Basically a statsitical anomaly. He'll go back to scoring everything sooner or later.

It so very clearly has. 09/10,10/11 and 11/12 he was a lethal finisher and would never miss a clear chance. As lethal as anyone I have seen. Since then, it has clearly deteriorated.
He misses a lot more sitters. Messi from any of those seasons would have scored 4 the other day.

I wonder how he scored 58 goals last season providing so much to Neymar and Suarez with his much deteriorated finishing.

I can remember clearly some weeks were Messi missed easy chances in almost every season. It happens, it's called luck.

Congrats to Messi on his 5th Ballon'DOr

Now to have a great season with us, win back-to-back CL and win his 6th trophy to put the desrved gap with Cristiano Ronaldo: he's twice the player!

There's no gap. It's a whole level apart. The comparisons are dumb. You should compare messi to the goat's, not a ibra-van basten level player

Just became aware that Messi's contract ends in 2 years. Surely it's time for a renewal? Club shouldn't risk their biggest asset being left with just 1 year of contract remaining.

I don't think Messi would leave, I'm sure the club is aware of what he and his agent are planning on doing or what not. Messi's always been very clear that he will stick around and then leave to Newells Old Boys. Messi, Iniesta, and Pique are the 3 I have the least fear of leaving us. Those 3 flat out love the club and I don't see any of them leaving until it's the club that tells them it's time to move on.

Btw, Messi needs to shine this Copa. No excuses, he needs to win something with Argentina, and this tournament is already watered down with so many big names injured.

dude said he played through an injury against uruguay (the injury he got from bilbao)

i'm all for him being focused and wanting to prove himself again to Argentinians (which benefits barca) but if he keeps pushing himself like this he's going to get seriously injured.

I think it was reported that he will miss the next qualifier game. You can't stop Messi from playing against Uruguay even with an injury. It couldnt have been that bad though if he played fine and even scored.

With all the drama generated from the faux retirement he had to play, unfortunately

is that a fan made conversation??

was interesting to see suarez push godin off messi every altercation
bromance is real

Three key skills in football :-

Dribbling
Passing
Finishing

Messi scores a near perfect 10 in all three of them.

Which other players can you think of that you have ever seen playing to whom you would give as high a score on all three aspects?

Donuts wrote:is that a fan made conversation??

was interesting to see suarez push godin off messi every altercation
bromance is real

From my understanding it's a real conversation between them that somebody who can lip-read transcripted.

The banter is too good to be real, Messi has never shown much wit outside the pitch.

Besides they're covering their mouths so how could someone lip read it?

Yeah I don't think it's real. They're covering their mouths

Yeah probably but I can see it was that kind of a conversation going by their expressions