Better than Muhammad Ali?
Better than Michael Jordan?
Better than Diego Maradona or Pele?
I immediately discount 'provincial' or 'non-world' sports participants - cricket, ice hockey, gridiron, AFL, rugby union, rugby league, baseball, etc, etc
Messi has won the Ballon D'Or 7 times, more than double anyone else except for Cristiano Ronaldo
Not even close.
Hasn’t won any Olympic medals.
Won gold at Beijing 2008 mate…
Soccer tries to elevate every half decent player to God status, enthusiastically embraced by the marketing machine. You can tell, because it's the only sport where the behaviour of the players implies they might believe their own hype.
When everybody is a God, nobody is.
Sir Donald enters the chat
Sportsman? no…South American footballer in Europe, yes.
He's played in Spain (at his prime) and a farmer's league in France more recently. Whilst winning 4 UCL titles, he did so when Barcelona were a pseudo Spanish National team and dominant.
Dominate because he was there. Won 7 Ballon D'or in that time.
Hahaha, yeah, don't forget his most recent win, not even he thought he was deserving ahead of Robert Lewandowski.
But hey, you've watched the world cup on SBS for 4 weeks and you're now an expert.
The haters gonna hate.
@UncleRico: Wouldn't have won that without the 6 penalties, 5 of which were soft rarely given variety. I don't know how dense someone has to be to not see how suspicious it was considering the owners of PSG were the hosts of the world cup and no country in world cup history has ever received that many penalties.
@dowhatuwant2: Which of the five awarded penalties did you not think was justified (noting that Argentina received five penalties, not six)? Apart from the 50/50 call for the penalty against Poland when Szczesny took him out in a minor challenge that was unlawful, but rarely punished when goalkeepers were the protagonists, I don't think anyone who understands the laws of the game could dispute any of the other penalties. And given that Szcezesny saved the subsequent penalty attempt in the Poland game, you can't even claim that that call changed the course of the game or tournament.
I think most people would agree that depriving any team of five goals (or six if you count the mystery penalty which never existed) would make it difficult for any team to win a major tournament, but given it's entirely hypothetical, is a very thin or light argument. And that's not dense…
@UncleRico: I think more often then not most of them wouldn't be given and we saw multiple cases during this world cup where more blatant penalties for Brazil/Portugal/England weren't given. On a case by case argument there is some argument that "yeah it's soft but it's at the discretion of the ref", but it's that Argentina got every soft penalty that could have been given and zero controversies where there was a penalty that should have been given but was not. In a world cup where there were actually less penalties awarded overall then the previous world cup this showed pretty consistent favouritism and that's without getting into the sheer number of times when they should have been given more yellow/red cards.
Couldn't have told you what country he played for or what he looked like a few weeks ago so I'll vote a strong no. I think soccer is going to struggle to produce greatest sports person… Maybe greatest actor?
Is brinjal best vegetable of all time? 🤔
Tiger woods
The Undertaker won 21 WrestleMania matches in a row! Surely it would be him.
Zhong Xina is the 🐐
Depends, what's his K/D?
Hahaha, Messi the greatest? Messi is clearly 'messi'ng with your head, lol
The most played sport makes it harder to be the best. Hard for insular Australians to grasp when they play so many Mickey Mouse provincial sports
No need to belittle other sports to make your point
He ain't even the greatest footballer of all time, probably top 3. So how can he be the greatest sportsperson?
Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali. Ballet with anvils.
He just won the world cup.
NO, the team he plays for and the country he represents, has won the world cup,
U clearly didnt watch the game.
Comments here :
Before today : Messi isn’t the goat because he hasn’t won the World Cup, Maradona, Pele etc have.
After today : Messi didn’t win the World Cup, his team and his people did.
You simply can’t reason with these people..
@Gervais fanboy: Messi is not even the best Argentinian footballer. Maradona singlehandedly was responsible for winning the 86 world cup. Yes i said singlehandedly. In some games you don’t even remember there were 10 other players in his team. Watching him play was just next level experience. Pele was way before my time so I won’t know.
Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Beckham (lol), C Ronaldo, Messi, I watched them all played and followed their club and international career and none captured that same feeling as Maradona 86. There is a reason why the 2nd goal after that hand of god goal of his was often voted as the best World Cup goal of all time.
So yes Messi is one of the best. But I still think he is 2nd to Maradona. That man was a god in the field.
Wished he was still alive to see his protege and team won the WC
Maradona singlehandedly was responsible for winning the 86 world cup. Yes i said singlehandedly.
And I agree with you…
Maradona played a bigger part in Argentina winning the 86 World Cup than Messi did in this year‘s tournament.
Plus Maradona was a patriot, Messi is just a Spaniard that wouldn’t even sing his own country’s national anthem..
So based on all that, I have got greater respect for Maradona than I do for Messi.
But objectively, as a football player Messi has had the greater career. Achieved more, scored more, broke nearly all the records one can think of etc
So let’s not examine only his international record, his club career needs to be considered too…
Also there is the discipline, the sacrifices, the longevity he has had over all those past greats which is not all down to modern science but simple things like unlike Maradona, Messi never indulged in…. and he trains pretty much every day.
and none captured that same feeling as Maradona 86.
I have consumed so much football content, documentaries, speak with so many people about the game..
And they all say what you are saying right now…
And as I said already, this new breed of footballers, they don’t play for anything beyond themselves. Shame.
So yeah, I agree with almost everything you have said there..
OP is saying Messi is the greatest sportsman of all time, not the greatest Football player, or soccer player of all time.
i'm not denying messi is a great player, but saying he is the greatest sportsman is a stretch,
clearly you ONLY watch football/soccer
OP is saying Messi is the greatest sportsman of all time, not the greatest Football player, or soccer player of all time.
And there’s loads of comments talking about how he isn’t even the best footballer of all time..
People were basing that on the fact that he hadn’t won the World Cup yet.
I only pointed that bit out for everyone to see.
clearly you ONLY watch football/soccer
Where’s this coming from ?
I am not arguing or even agreeing with anyone saying that he’s the Goat.
For me it’s all about having an objective argument over a very subjective topic.
@Archi: Nope watch everything. No special mention of the badminton, golf, table tennis folks either. I base it on one simple rule, the most watched, played and followed sport in the world and he is the best at it. Greatest of all time. You guys are just haters because you arent him!
Obviously not since he didn't mention Argentina's MVP the refs.
He is the 🐐.
ram?
Is there a definitive Messi highlight reel showing his achievements?
He is now
This is like asking if something is the greatest song of all time. Too broad and subjective.
If you were to ask if he's the greatest soccer player of all time, then it'd be a reasonable discussion.
GOAT in Football? Yes. Sportsman? No - I don't agree that any single person is the greatest sportsman, but only great at their own sport.
Totally agree!….
OP needs to compare within same sporting field ……apples with apples…..
Messi - GOAT in soccer/football
Greatest sportsman is totally different category!
Agree, and I watch alot of different sports. No one outside of North America mentions Wayne Gretzky. For sheer dominance in his sport he stands alone.
Sheer dominance I would have thought Bradman.
That's a valid rebuttal that I didn't consider forgot. The Don was obviously in a league of his own.
Ronaldo crying right now his eyes are getting messi
FIFA World Cup top goalscorers
Rank Player Goals
1 Miroslav Klose 16
2 Ronaldo 15
3 Gerd Müller 14
=4 Just Fontaine 13
=4 Lionel Messi. 13
How many goals from penalties for each of them?
Agree. Penalties shouldnt be counted unless they earnt the penalty themselves.
Klose's goal count is amazing. And he did it in 4 successive world cups too, mbappe will likely break it at some point but Klose was the perfect striker for tournaments.
And to think Just Fontaine scored all 13 of his goals in one World Cup!
Yes. Best athlete of the most popular sport in the world.
Soccer doesn't count.
A game that's decided by who falls over more to win will never be considered " greatest if anything " by default.
What?
Most games are decided by who falls over the most.
It's a dumb sport.
100% NO
Best soccer player
Virat Kohli beats any other sportsmen in the world!
Meh. Not even fit to lace The Don's boots, drinks or diamond-crusted hector…
Man can’t even get runs against Bangladesh ffs..
But man can get quite a few runs against Aussies
Firstly, you hurt your own argument by bringing up something that happened over two years ago…
And then you actually went on to dislike the two comments like a little child.
may be a poll for Will Argentina win the world cup?