Ronaldinho v. Messi

Ronaldinho did things that made me laugh out loud and I think his peaks are higher than almost anyone else's, so I'm giving it to him. I just wish he'd done it for longer.

Ronaldinho did things that made me laugh out loud

Sure did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUX7MBk5UM

Messi wins this by a country mile though

ismael word perfect

Yeah. Watching Messi can get kind of boring some times imo. Generally he does things that other footballers can do but he just does them a million times better. Ronaldinho did things that no one else would even contemplate.

otm. not even a million times better, cron pretty much does the same thing and even scores more goals. ronaldinho was streets ahead everyone else and he did it in a team with players like oleguer and ezquerro

messi

i think he has way way way fewer 'off' days than ronaldinho did

messi's consistency is incredible for a player of his type, and his brilliance is maybe being underrated here, though dinho wins hands down on creativity alright

Has Messi made any progress toward becoming deadly from direct free kicks, as has long been predicted? I haven't noticed it. That is a not inconsiderable shortcoming relative to R-10.

Maybe that overstates the case, but once a player reaches the impossible level of these two you expect them to be able to do everything, so any weak spot is glaring.

It just comes down to a question of who i'd prefer to watch for me. I have little doubt Messi will be considered the greatest ever by the time he finishes his career. He's already in with a shout right now and he's 24

Messi has scored loads of great free kicks. He just doesn't take them all the time

Alves should never be allowed take them obv

yeah i've seen messi score a few good uns

r-10 joga should be on his own in his age bracket, with messi and cron battling it out to be the t-1000 versions

that ronaldinho vid was great. what a player.

there's lots that's amazing about the ronaldinho vid but seemingly little end product (didn't watch it all)

there's lots that's amazing about the messi vid and 202 goals

speaking as a football player of 20+ years (still playing), both basically reconfigure your expectations of what's possible when the balls at a player's feet

incredible. can't won't choose

should've slung zizou in for good measure

god that ronny vid is ridic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3pZRuMaacI

Here's Zidane being great in just one match (no, it's not that terrible film)

get this kid to europe, like, stat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLlUhCvXvT8

highlight is 5:05

Signed a new contract with Santos last week

Neymar also up for World Player of the Year making him the first to play for a non-European club when nommed iirc

ah Riquelme was on loan to Boca from Villarreal for part of his nommed season according to wiki

oh come on, anyone not voting messi is a charlatan. messi does every great thing ronnie did like 7 times every game. he is the perfect footballer and makes he happy watching him.

ronaldinho was great and had some peak games, sure. but come on, compare anyone to the greatest footballer in history and they'll lose.

Ronaldinho does have the distinction of being (possibly) the greatest flair player of all time.

I think one thing that makes them both stand apart from the pack, at least in the past decade, is an incredible sense of balance and strength. Cronaldo will quite happily fall over at the first sign of a problem; Messi and Ronaldinho would try and see it as an opportunity to leave a pushy defender in the wind if they could stay up and going in the right direction.

Messi.

Ah, Neymar. Don't sign for Mourinho.

I love this period of a kid's career, when he looks like he might be able to do anything. I also love how far he's pushing it in a lot of those clips, like how he'll do a lot of tricks to break free, and then forty yards later he's still got the ball and is slowing down again to take on someone else.

messi does every great thing ronnie did like 7 times every game

So very very wrong

Actually if I were to say one thing in Ronaldinho's favour it's that Messi was pretty well contained and shackled by almost everyone at the last World Cup whereas Ronaldinho had a lot more joy on the big stage. Messi had a much bigger rep at the time though.

But it's still Messi.

did ronnie shine in the 06 world cup? don't really remember that.

Not really. Brazil were pretty poor in general

and iirc massively hyped before the tournament with the 'magic quartet' or whatever it was called

magic square iirc 4-2-2-2, Or was it rectangle? Whatever it was Zizou pwnd them.

one of my favourite bits of the ronaldinho vid is where he's brutally fouled in the penalty area twice in one move. but instead of falling down he just rides them and scores.

I think Cron7 and Messi and Zizou are all probably better players to have in your team if you want to win things but Ronaldinho gives me the most joy to watch. He's a flair player and the others have tricks plus efficiency and end product but he wasn't exactly a luxury with no end product. He's made passes in games that the others (ok maybe ZZ) wouldn't even imagine. His nonchalant first touches to control high passes get me every time, like "what, you can't all do that?"

Not that Messi doesn't dazzle in many of the same ways, there's very little in it. When I saw him play against us he pissed me off no end by unfailingly controlling every single bad/fast/high pass that went anywhere near him - you'd be thinking "oh we might finally get a touch of the ball here!" and next thing it's glued to his toe and he's off and running again. At Lee Naylor.

messi can't do quite a few ronaldinho moves, i'd imagine. NN otm.

did ronaldinho 'invent' that flip flop move

Rivelino
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-DlRV82qhA

Has Messi made any progress toward becoming deadly from direct free kicks, as has long been predicted? I haven't noticed it. That is a not inconsiderable shortcoming relative to R-10.

― boxall, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 5:30 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not just this, but he has scored 11 in 7 for argentina this year

argentina did not work that well against argentina and the scoreline was a bit misleading

i don't think they are likely to succeed in 2014 with a 4-3-1-3 system but that is another thread

{against uruguay}

{4-3-1-2} oy

knew I'd regret that even as I posted it

arguing this is probably NAGL but the free kick he scored against URU was so exceptional I don't think it has much bearing on his skill in that dept., well executed though it was. The Clasico FK though was also very nice.

ronaldinho scored a free kick under the wall that was quite similar