Match Day 5: Austria vs Hungry, Portugal vs Iceland

[Spockydog]

Gareth Bale is the guy young kids should be idolising.

 

[baxus]

15 hours ago, Fuchs, himself! said:

Re: Ronaldo:

I think it's funny that we expect footballers to be like 'normal' people in any way.  Usually, if a footballer can string a few words into a coherent sentence, I'm impressed.  Humility, grace...these do not come easily to anyone, let alone someone whose entire sense of self is constructed around a singular focus, especially  someone who has been so consistently excellent at that one thing for so long. 

He doesn't have to be humble and graceful, just stop doing things like bitching and whining when a teammate passes the ball to another teammate and not to you, not celebrating when your teammates score a goal because it wasn't you who scored and constantly trying to be the center of attention.

[mormont]

25 minutes ago, baxusz said:

He doesn't have to be humble and graceful, just stop doing things like bitching and whining when a teammate passes the ball to another teammate and not to you, not celebrating when your teammates score a goal because it wasn't you who scored and constantly trying to be the center of attention.

But then he would be no fun!

At this point in his career I think CRonaldo should just accept his fate, grow a Dick Dastardly moustache and twirl it every time he scores a goal.

[baxus]

55 minutes ago, Emre Mor-mont said:

But then he would be no fun!

At this point in his career I think CRonaldo should just accept his fate, grow a Dick Dastardly moustache and twirl it every time he scores a goal.

It would still be less annoying than his current goal scoring celebration.

[Criston of House Shapper]

4 hours ago, baxusz said:

It would still be less annoying than his current goal scoring celebration.

I don't get why his celebration is supposed to be annoying. It's at least better than the stupid heart-celebration.

[baxus]

29 minutes ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I don't get why his celebration is supposed to be annoying. It's at least better than the stupid heart-celebration.

I guess it's one of those things you either get or you don't.

[Mme Erzulie]

22 hours ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

Messi's at least as much of a twat than Ronaldo though, so that's a bit unfair.

How? How on earth is this the case? Not being particularly interested in Spanish football, I have no horse in this race, but from everything I see on the pitch, off the pitch and in the news, this is not a close-run contest. Ronaldo seems like a hugely spoilt brat cum incredibly selfish glory hunter whose main focus on the pitch seems to be breaking individual records, wins and trophies seem like an afterthought and only good for adding to his personal lustre.

Messi just seems like a tiny guy who's ridiculously good at playing football. I've never seen him sulk at someone else scoring, never seen him make incredibly petty and childish comments after games, never seen him do all the macho posturing bullshit Ronaldo does, never seen him scoff or roll his eyes while smirking at teammates, opponents and officials, and I've never seen him scream at the camera when winning an award.

Unless you have something substantial to back this claim up with, I'm gonna call ManU blinkers on this one.

[Howdyphillip]

The dailymash has a priceless article about this...

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/bjork-on-her-way-to-fk-ronaldo-up-20160615109561

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Mmerek Hamšzulíe said:

How? How on earth is this the case? Not being particularly interested in Spanish football, I have no horse in this race, but from everything I see on the pitch, off the pitch and in the news, this is not a close-run contest. Ronaldo seems like a hugely spoilt brat cum incredibly selfish glory hunter whose main focus on the pitch seems to be breaking individual records, wins and trophies seem like an afterthought and only good for adding to his personal lustre.

Messi just seems like a tiny guy who's ridiculously good at playing football. I've never seen him sulk at someone else scoring, never seen him make incredibly petty and childish comments after games, never seen him do all the macho posturing bullshit Ronaldo does, never seen him scoff or roll his eyes while smirking at teammates, opponents and officials, and I've never seen him scream at the camera when winning an award.

Unless you have something substantial to back this claim up with, I'm gonna call ManU blinkers on this one.

 

Ronaldo's a tit, but really he's just a big old drama llama. A big old man-child who has his excesses but also a soft side and a  reputation for being a really, really nice guy in person. As far as I know he's never committed tax fraud, scored a deliberate handball goal to win the league, or spat at an opponent, all of which Messi has on his record. And while Messi doesn't sulk in as obvious a manner when he doesn't get the ball (mostly - he's had his moments, like that famous Villa outburst), there's been repeated rumours that if the team isn't set up specifically to center round him, he'll sulk and stop talking to the coach and players in question until things get fixed to his liking.

Also, Ronaldo does absolute shitloads in charity and the like off the pitch, and while it may be that Messi's simply quieter about his work, you really don't hear much about him going out of his way to help people out in the same way - which is to say, even if he does it, if you say you hear more about Messi's good work off the pitch you've either got much better news sources than me or you're fibbing.


I may have United blinkers on, but I didn't like him when he played for us, so I don't think so. Messi's just always rubbed me up the wrong way. If he was full-sized he'd get a lot more stick than he does.


But really, I've had a soft spot for Ronaldo since I found out that he doesn't get tattoos because it would make him ineligible to give blood for a year.

[mormont]

10 hours ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

 

Ronaldo's a tit, but really he's just a big old drama llama. A big old man-child who has his excesses but also a soft side and a  reputation for being a really, really nice guy in person. As far as I know he's never committed tax fraud, scored a deliberate handball goal to win the league, or spat at an opponent, all of which Messi has on his record.

Handball goal:

If he hasn't done it in order to win a league instead of just a game, it's only because the opportunity hasn't arisen. It's not out of any sense of moral duty.

As for spitting at an opponent, see number 6 on this list:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/5010546/Top-10-Worst-spitting-incidents-in-football.html

The tax fraud thing is scraping the barrel. Do you really think either Messi or CRonaldo take decisions about their tax affairs?

Quote

Also, Ronaldo does absolute shitloads in charity and the like off the pitch, and while it may be that Messi's simply quieter about his work, you really don't hear much about him going out of his way to help people out in the same way - which is to say, even if he does it, if you say you hear more about Messi's good work off the pitch you've either got much better news sources than me or you're fibbing.

This would be UNICEF Ambassador Lionel Messi we're talking about?

10 hours ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

I may have United blinkers on, but I didn't like him when he played for us, so I don't think so. Messi's just always rubbed me up the wrong way. If he was full-sized he'd get a lot more stick than he does.

Really? You're going to go there?

[polishgenius]

16 minutes ago, Emre Mor-mont said:

Handball goal:

 

You're bringing up a fairly obvious strop-reaction-coz-I'm-offside to compare to a deliberate, disguised sneaking the ball into the net and I'm scraping the barrel? And sure, we should just absolve Messi of all responsibility for cheating on his taxes - after all, it's not his responsibility to know what his money's doing. Come on.

I didn't remember Ronaldo spitting at Savage, fair enough.

It's great that Messi's a UNICEF ambassador, but my point there wasn't that Messi does no charity, it wasn't even really that Ronaldo does more charity, but that if Mme. Ezrulie genuinely sees nothing to say that off the pitch there's more to show that Ronaldo's just a dick then that's because he's only paying attention to the stories of Ronaldo being a dick. Unless you're saying that Ronaldo only does loads and loads of charity work just to get in the papers.

 

16 minutes ago, Emre Mor-mont said:

Really? You're going to go there?

 

We were already there.

In fairness, the idea that Messi is some kind of golden angel to Ronaldo's irredeemable arsehole isn't that widespread anymore and I'm a little surprised to see such a vehement reaction to the idea that Messi is a dickhead here, but there's always been an element of underdog admiration about his legend, based on him making it so high despite being this tiny shy akward schoolboy looking fella.

[mormont]

57 minutes ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

You're bringing up a fairly obvious strop-reaction-coz-I'm-offside to compare to a deliberate, disguised sneaking the ball into the net and I'm scraping the barrel?

The notion that CRonaldo would scruple to score via handball is a pretty silly starting point, to be honest.

57 minutes ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

And sure, we should just absolve Messi of all responsibility for cheating on his taxes - after all, it's not his responsibility to know what his money's doing. Come on.

Footballers don't do their own taxes. I wouldn't hold it against CRonaldo if he got done for tax evasion either. I'd chalk it up to hiring bad staff.

57 minutes ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

It's great that Messi's a UNICEF ambassador, but my point there wasn't that Messi does no charity, it wasn't even really that Ronaldo does more charity, but that if Mme. Ezrulie genuinely sees nothing to say that off the pitch there's more to show that Ronaldo's just a dick then that's because he's only paying attention to the stories of Ronaldo being a dick. Unless you're saying that Ronaldo only does loads and loads of charity work just to get in the papers.

No, I don't think anybody's saying that. I happily acknowledge that CRonaldo does great work there. Like I say, I view him as a pantomime villain in the soap opera that is modern football, not an actual bad person. 

But you're saying that Messi is 'quieter' about his charity work and that you'd need 'much better news sources' to be aware of it. Being a UNICEF Ambassador is about the highest profile charity role I can think of, and it's not some obscure fact about Messi that hardly anyone knows.

Quote

We were already there.

We were not. Nobody's using CRonaldo's inborn medical problems to slag him off.

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, Emre Mor-mont said:

No, I don't think anybody's saying that. I happily acknowledge that CRonaldo does great work there. Like I say, I view him as a pantomime villain in the soap opera that is modern football, not an actual bad person.

That's fair enough, but my original post was responding to Ezrulie saying:

How? How on earth is this the case? Not being particularly interested in Spanish football, I have no horse in this race, but from everything I see on the pitch, off the pitch and in the news, this is not a close-run contest. Ronaldo seems like a hugely spoilt brat cum incredibly selfish glory hunter whose main focus on the pitch seems to be breaking individual records, wins and trophies seem like an afterthought and only good for adding to his personal lustre.

 

which seems to paint him more negatively than that.


 

5 minutes ago, Emre Mor-mont said:

We were not. Nobody's using CRonaldo's inborn medical problems to slag him off.

I apologise if it came of that way, but the idea is not to slag Messi of because he's small, but that Messi's size and the stories around it play into him getting an easier ride on some things. Again, going back to what I was originally responding to:

Messi just seems like a

tiny guy who's ridiculously good at playing football.

He's a tiny guy. It's an intrinsic part of the myth of Messi. He isn't even particularly unique in his size- there are plenty around his size and smaller making it at the top levels- and yet it gets played up a lot. And from my perspective it plays into parts of his behaviour that would normally be questioned or at best seen as a bit weird being played down coz hey, he's struggling so bravely against the big world.

(apologies for singling Ezrulie out a bit, but his post kind of reflected a trend about Messi that's been winding me up for years.

[baxus]

59 minutes ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

He's a tiny guy. It's an intrinsic part of the myth of Messi. He isn't even particularly unique in his size- there are plenty around his size and smaller making it at the top levels- and yet it gets played up a lot. And from my perspective it plays into parts of his behaviour that would normally be questioned or at best seen as a bit weird being played down coz hey, he's struggling so bravely against the big world.

I am yet to see Messi's size getting played up a lot, especially to the point of excusing some of his questionable behaviour.

[john]

The tax fraud thing is disappointing.  I absolutely believe that Messi doesn't run his own financial affairs but the same is true of many tax cheats.

In general I'd say Messi gives the impression of someone with a great natural talent, with all the supposed humility to go along with that.  While CR gives the impression of being the ultimate professional, working extremely hard on all aspects of his career, with all of the supposed self-absorption that goes with that.  The kind of reactions they get are par for the course with those backgrounds.

Here's another one that hasn't been mentioned - CR dates strings of models.  Messi is married to his childhood sweetheart.  The one is not intrinsically better than the other but you can see how these kind of things play into their media images.

[Mme Erzulie]

33 minutes ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

(apologies for singling Ezrulie out a bit, but his post kind of reflected a trend about Messi that's been winding me up for years.

No worries, I can take being singled out. My being an ardent Liverpool supporter might colour my lenses slightly when looking at CRonaldo, and I do think it's a good thing that he does charity, I just don't think it excuses his sporting-related on-and-off-pitch behaviour. He seems vain, petty, sulking and scornful. He doesn't seem to value his team mates, be happy when they score or thank them when they assist him. He doesn't even seem that happy when the team wins unless he's scored. He doesn't seem to value or even recognise football as a team game, which is reflected in the extremely poor results Portugal have achieved under his captaincy. And you might say his peers are not up to the standard of the Figo generation, and that may well be, but surely they have better players than Iceland? 

In the UK/Ireland (and Scandinavia, whose football culture is very much steeped in the British tradition), sportsmanship is held up as one of the defining virtues of a good athlete. Winning at any cost is not worth it, and defeats the purpose of the game. Realising that, at the end of the day, sport is something you do for fun, and that your opponents are human beings much like yourself, and that recognising their efforts, struggles, sacrifices and skills is a sympathetic and humanising act.

I'm not trying to hold up Messi as an example of a shining beacon of humanity, but just from watching football matches where they both feature, I think it's hard not coming away thinking he's the more likeable out of the two. Maybe Messi is secretly a conniving, manipulating mastermind who hides his wicked ways behind an unassuming, modest hobbit façade, but I somehow doubt it. 

I think your desire to find faults with Messi is more indicative of an iconoclastic need to tear down famous public figures, and the only reason he's being compared to CRonaldo is the fact that he's the only player whose individual skill exceeds the Portuguese. 

Sorry if this is incoherent. My brain is not working.

[baxus]

1 hour ago, Mmerek Hamšzulíe said:

In the UK/Ireland (and Scandinavia, whose football culture is very much steeped in the British tradition), sportsmanship is held up as one of the defining virtues of a good athlete. Winning at any cost is not worth it, and defeats the purpose of the game.

It was the same in the Balkans, but sadly it's taken a turn for the worse a while back.

It's goes even beyond winning at all cost. Winning is not enough, it's about other team losing. And, of course, it's followed by a complete lack of critical thinking and an absurd level of "us vs. them" mentality. To avoid pointing out other nations' as examples, we (Serbia) had hooligans stop the national team's match vs. Italy in Genoa a while back, our team was penalised for it and people saw it as some sort of UEFA conspiracy. The same happened when Albanian fan did that drone carrying flag thing and hooligans invaded the pitch and tried to attack Albanian players.

[polishgenius]

On 17/06/2016 at 0:22 PM, Mmerek Hamšzulíe said:

I think your desire to find faults with Messi is more indicative of an iconoclastic need to tear down famous public figures,

 

I think that's quite a broad statement to make on the basis of my criticism of one figure. Seems harsh. I mean sure, there are other famous figures that I'm critical of too, but I'm not sure it's enough to call it a need. Messi just rubs me the wrong way.

 

On Ronaldo:

He doesn't seem to value his team mates, be happy when they score or thank them when they assist him. He doesn't even seem that happy when the team wins unless he's scored. He doesn't seem to value or even recognise football as a team game, which is reflected in the extremely poor results Portugal have achieved under his captaincy. And you might say his peers are not up to the standard of the Figo generation, and that may well be, but surely they have better players than Iceland? 

I think you're overdoing it. While there certainly are times when his behaviour to his team-mates is not on, I think the bolded is massively overstating the case. He might sulk if he doesn't get the ball, but the very next move he'll happily make an off-the-ball run to draw space for his team-mates rather than chucking himself into the middle to get it. That's a consistent thing with him - he wants the glory, but he doesn't have a habit of ruining the team's shape and chances to chase it.
And while there may well be in-dressing-room stuff we don't know about, I don't think he's ever long-term fallen out with any of his team-mates, which doesn't speak of a man who doesn't value them. He seems to get on with most of them - if I recall correctly, he was one of the few players never really involved in the cliquing that happened at Madrid under Mourinho toward the end) and even if he doesn't personally like them (as was rumoured with him and Rooney way back at United) he seems to be able to work with them.

Basically he's an immature man-child in a lot of ways but I don't think he's the villain you see him as.

I think it's very harsh indeed to blame Portugal's woes entirely on him. Sure, there are times when he should have done better, but they're an average outfit player-wise who have been rather poorly managed. There have also been times when he's rescued them.

[Mme Erzulie]

Fair enough. I guess it's an "agree to disagree" situation.

Ronaldo certainly rubs me the wrong way.

[Corvinus85]

I wonder if Ronaldo saw how much the Hungarians celebrated after their draw with Iceland. 

Oh, look, these guys celebrated like they won the Euro, after drawing with a team that also celebrated like they won the Euro, after they drew against us.