tomludo

Meanwhile on the other side of the pond the two football teams in Milan have been trying for over 10 years to build not one but two 100% privately funded Stadiums, but the City of Milan is so shameless that it wants them to either:

-Continue playing in the publicly owned Stadium, which however iconic has been last refurbished in the 80's and built in the 30's, so they continue to pay a very pricey rent to the City.

-Refurbish the public stadium at their own expense with no guarantee of an ownership share or of reduced rent.

-Build the two privately funded Stadiums and then DONATE them to the city.

Both clubs have drawn multiple plans to build the Stadiums which have been rejected left right and center, and they even proposed to refurbish the old Stadium in exchange for shared ownership (the Stadium is so old refurbishing it to modern standards would cost more than the two privately owned ones together), which has also been rejected.

The rationale is that no team moves in European sports, and rightfully so, so if they can't build new Stadiums both teams will be forced to continue pay rent. Absolutely moronic reasoning by the Public Administration.

What constantly happens in the US is criminal, Billionaires shouldn't get public funding to build privately owned projects, but if said Billionaires want to build brand new Stadiums on their own, on land that they rightfully buy, you should fucking let them.

If you had to focus on a throwaway line instead of the rest you're just a fanboy.

I clearly stated my opinion on the debate: Messi is the better player, and I believe this debate will fade in time like the Maradona vs Platini one. On the other hand, if you believe the argument is so one sided that no one could plausibly give a different answer then you're just biased.

Ronaldo played 150 more games, 3 seasons worth, at a high level and that's in itself an achievement, not a knock. They both virtually retired already so being able to last more at a high level is indeed important.

Nobody cares about Copa del Rey or the various Supercups. For trophies that actually matter: 9 to 8 in Top 4 League wins for Messi, 5 to 4 for Ronaldo in Champions Leagues, including a 3peat which hadn't been done since the 70's. In International play Ronaldo has a Euro with a team that had never won anything, Messi has a Copa America and the WC with a team that won both several times. Seems fairly evenly matched to me.

Ronaldo is physically superior in every way, and is orders of magnitude better in the air.

Ronaldo proved himself in multiple Leagues and contexts, excelling both in the most physical one (EPL) and in the most technical one (Liga), winning a lot in both, nationally and internationally. Messi didn't. He played basically his entire career in Spain and then he took a short trip to France where he only collected underwhelming results.

All of these are definitely fair arguments for people to use in a debate. Again, I believe Messi is definitely the better player, but believing it is such a one sided argument is just plain wrong.

Mate, do you even watch football? Messi is the "undisputed goat", whatever that means, if you think football started being a thing in the 2010's.

He's the greatest player of this generation, though some people make a very valid argument for CR7, but anything beyond that is far from undisputed.

The sport changed a lot and that has greatly benefited Messi's individual stats and achievements:

1. Way more games are played, especially against lesser teams. UCL used to be knockout rounds only, a total of less than 10 matches if you went to the final, nowadays teams are guaranteed 6 by just qualifying, and each of the Top4 leagues qualifies 4 teams, while back then it was exclusively for the previous years' Champions (hence the name Champions League). People played way less games in CL over their careers, and to go far luck was a huge factor. WC and Continental Cups were the same, nowadays you have way more meaningless games to get your G/A numbers up, especially in the qualifiers.

2. The offside rules changed since when Pelé and Maradona played to make it easier for attackers to score. Also refs nowadays are waaaay more punitive with defenders. The way Italy defended Maradona at the 82 WC would have cost them 2/3 red cards nowadays.

3. Fair play unwritten rules changed. Back then once you were up like 2-0 or 3-0 it was fair play to just slow the game down and not try to score more. Nowadays it's the opposite, it's considered more insulting if you just stop playing once you're up.

4. Voting for individual awards has changed dramatically from "best player on the most high achieving team of the year" to "best player in the world regardless of how the season played out". With the old voting "criteria" Lewandowski, Iniesta or Sneijder and Robben or Ribéry would get 3 of Messi's Ballon D'Ors. No doubt Messi is a better and greater player than they were, but he didn't deserve the award those years.

Football is a traditionally defensive sport that very recently was skewed towards the offense to market it better. This makes the numbers of contemporary players sound more impressive, but it doesn't make them absolutely better than the previous generations, relative to their peers.

If you go to Brazil, the answer to who's the greatest of all time is going to be Pelé, and I'd wager a lot of people would say R9, probably as many as those who'd say Messi.

If you go to Argentina Messi and Maradona will be a fierce debate. In southern Italy Maradona isn't even in the GOAT debate he's in the God debate.

In the Netherlands a lot of people would say Cruijff, and it wouldn't be an objectively wrong answer.

If you think there's objectively an answer to who the greatest of all time is, in a sport that has been the most popular all over the world for about a century you're mistaken, and if you think that answer has been undisputed since 2013 you're delusional.