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Football: Kane is coming home


AncalagonTheBlack

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Mbappe vs Messi feels a bit like Djokovic vs Federer for me. Djokovic will probably overtake Federer in every respect, but will he ever have the same love? With Messi and Federer it's not just the statistics, it's the way they play the game.

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8 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Well, for one, he plays for PSG, and it's gonna be impossible to really rack up the club-level accomplishments in a serious way doing that, and for two, there's subjectivity in football but only so much, and... well, he's just not as good. Seeing him play now, remembering Messi in his prime; he's not as good. 

 

14 minutes ago, Mexal said:

He scored 2 PKs and WC is something but Messi's club record is insane. Seriously, Messi's goal scoring / assist consistency over a period of 13 years is unheard of. Mbappe may get there, who knows, but I highly doubt it. Messi has won 7 balloon d'ors, just not easy to replicate.

I'd argue he's different, not less talented, if the distinction makes sense. Mbappe's speed, and yes I know I overvalue this according to some of you, fucking breaks defenses and the looming presence of him creates so much space and chaos. He is not the artist Messi is and probably won't have the same longevity, but he is special and will be at worst just a top five player over the next five years assuming he doesn't get hurt. 

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'd argue he's different, not less talented, if the distinction makes sense. Mbappe's speed, and yes I know I overvalue this according to some of you, fucking breaks defenses and the looming presence of him creates so much space and chaos. He is not the artist Messi is and probably won't have the same longevity, but he is special and will be at worst just a top five player over the next five years assuming he doesn't get hurt. 

Sure, maybe he'll be a top 5 player over the next five years. That's very different than the greatest of all time.

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4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Mbappe vs Messi feels a bit like Djokovic vs Federer for me. Djokovic will probably overtake Federer in every respect, but will he ever have the same love? With Messi and Federer it's not just the statistics, it's the way they play the game.

Nadal is better than both of them. :commie::P

Mbappe isn't actually there yet by any measure. Joker is one of the three best men's tennis players to ever live. Mbappe is just one of the three best players right now and if he leaves PSG I believe he'll be incredible wherever he goes. I tend to follow players, not teams, and since Messi is probably saying farewell Mbappe is my guy now. 

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2 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Courtois won in 2018 and he didn't reach the final

Sorry.  I wasn’t clear.   I don’t remember them giving the award during the final ceremony before.  Doing so assumes the player will be present, which suggests they’ll be playing.  Thus Argentinian goalie wins.

It’s not impossible for other players to win I suppose but makes it more challenging I imagine.

The old way made more sense.

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4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Mbappe's speed, and yes I know I overvalue this according to some of you, fucking breaks defenses and the looming presence of him creates so much space and chaos.

 

I don't think you overvalue speed so much as you overrate Mbappe's speed compared to other players. Lots of players have speed that breaks defences and whose looming presence causes chaos. 
It's Mbappe's positional sense and ball control that turn that speed into something mindblowing, but when you match him up against... well, against Ronaldo*, because in many ways he's a more relevant comparison if you're going direct like-for-like style, he's not as good. He has been outrageously good in these two WCs, yes, but week by week, month by month and year-by-so-far-year, he's not shown that level yet. He might yet reach it, but he also could easily not: history is far more littered with guys who looked like world-beaters in their teens who started to slow by their mid-20s than it is buy guys who looked like they could be as good as Messi/Ronaldo at a similar age and still looked that good come their 30s. And even if he doesn't burn out per se, continued upwards progression is not a given: you can't call that his ceiling is Messi-level until he actually shows that. 

*against either Ronaldo if we're honest. 

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Mbappe isn't going to get close to being as good as Messi. Maybe he matches Messi as a goalscorer (probably not and he'd have to leave PSG for it to really count) but Messi's also been the best playmaker in world football for most of his career and there's no chance Mbappe's going to get close to matching that.

ETA:

6 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Just to be clear, Mbappe is a nutsack, but his achievements at the same age are comparable to Messi and CR7. 

 

Eh, Mbappe's had 9 senior league seasons now and has scored 151 league goals in Ligue 1. By comparison Messi had scored 215 in La Liga after 9 seasons. Mbappe's really, really good but Messi's been so ridiculously good for so long it's just kind of normalised what a freakishly good player he is.

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10 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Eh, Mbappe's had 9 senior league seasons now and has scored 151 league goals in Ligue 1. By comparison Messi had scored 215 in La Liga after 9 seasons. Mbappe's really, really good but Messi's been so ridiculously good for so long it's just kind of normalised what a freakishly good player he is.

 

Also: by the same age (roughly, I didn't check exact birthdays), Messi had 2 CLs and 2 Ballon d'ors, and Ronaldo was a slightly later bloomer but had 1 CL and 1 Ballon d'or. 

Like it's not impossible that Mbappe reaches that level. Many players do make a leap in quality or consistency at pretty much exactly 23/24 and if Mbappe does that he's in the stratosphere.


It'd just be foolish to bank on it. We got two once-in-a-lifetime players (and before Soylent shouts at me pretending that I'm biased to Ronaldo, yes at this point Messi clearly wins that battle) at the same time. We were insanely lucky to witness it. We shouldn't expect any player to reach those heights in the next decades. If someone does, yay, super. But it would be absolutely wild if Mbappe or anyone else actually did

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Some final thoughts.  It has been suggested that you have to be very strong defensively to win the World Cup.  Certainly, that took a hit today.  Has any team won the WC with such a ropey defense?  Not that France were very strong either in that area.

Argentina did have a tactic to compensate for that flaw though.  Don't give France the ball, which worked for 80 minutes, although a lapse in concentration gave France a way back in.

Certainly Argentina thoroughly deserved to win.  Coming back at France in extra time and getting a third was very brave.  They  wouldn't be a legendary team but they do have a legendary player.  And it is difficult to make an argument that another team was better in this tournament.  France were totally outplayed today.  Brazil may feel they threw it away when they were 1-0 against Croatia.  But nobody else stuck out.  A few good performances by other teams in individual games but no consistency.  And Argentina's desire was hugely impressive. 

I did think the last WC final was quite good before France ran away with it at the end, but this will live long in the memory.

Kind of sad for Greizmann though.  He had a great tournament until today's disaster.  I've never seen Di Maria play a good game before, so well done him (when he was on).  And those Argentinian midfielders were immense.  But overall, well done Messi.  Well deserved.

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

We got two once-in-a-lifetime players (and before Soylent shouts at me pretending that I'm biased to Ronaldo, yes at this point Messi clearly wins that battle) at the same time. We were insanely lucky to witness it. We shouldn't expect any player to reach those heights in the next decades. If someone does, yay, super. But it would be absolutely wild if Mbappe or anyone else actually did

Try to be a bit more optimistic. Five years from now we might be mesmerized by three players most people haven't heard of yet. 

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7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

Also: by the same age (roughly, I didn't check exact birthdays), Messi had 2 CLs and 2 Ballon d'ors, and Ronaldo was a slightly later bloomer but had 1 CL and 1 Ballon d'or. 

Like it's not impossible that Mbappe reaches that level. Many players do make a leap in quality or consistency at pretty much exactly 23/24 and if Mbappe does that he's in the stratosphere.
 

Goals and assists per game Mbappe is ahead of Messi by a bit, and ahead of Ronaldo by a lot. He also has a world cup which I'd say is comparable to 2 CLs at least (otherwise why the knock on Messi until he won one). 

His problem will be can he win ballon d'or or CL without leaving PSG? 

 

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1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

His problem will be can he win ballon d'or or CL without leaving PSG? 

 

I don't think so - PSG have all the money but they're not quite in the top tier of European clubs yet. Until they are (or Mbappe moves) he's going to have that asterisk against his name the way Messi did before his Copa America and World Cup wins.

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10 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Mbappe is terrific, but he'll never reach Messi levels.

https://external-preview.redd.it/ehYdyYJJl6liSROejWMhJFYjUCN04Kf8UNMjvIxbxt4.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0fc77975a675b7cfaef6f15acdd55b9602085bf8

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2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Goals and assists per game Mbappe is ahead of Messi by a bit, and ahead of Ronaldo by a lot. He also has a world cup which I'd say is comparable to 2 CLs at least (otherwise why the knock on Messi until he won one). 

His problem will be can he win ballon d'or or CL without leaving PSG? 

 

Ballon d'or possibly. If France wins another major title with him being the main event, that could work.

CL is probably trickier. Possible, but probably harder to achieve. PSG are big fish in the smaller pond, which is French football and the are few teams in Ligue 1 that can push them (and force them to grow), but there are bigger fish in the CL pool. When PSG are pretty much in cruise mode towards the end of the season, it's tougher mentally to switch things back on for the later stages of the CL, than still being in competition mode for the league anyway.

Personally I think Mbappe would benefit from a move into a more competitive league out of his comfort zone. 

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