France v Argentina, now here comes the 'Messi show' in the media. It will all be about Messi you just watch. Oh and what is the betting that some media company will do an expose on Messi, make it all about Messi and the lead up to the World Cup final and this expose will be played by one of the main television rights holders and played just before the final begins.
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FIFA World Cup - Qatar 2022
- Thread starter yaxomoxay
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Of course it will be about Messi. One of the greatest players ever gets a shot at a World Cup title in his final attempt? Seems like the obvious storyline to me.
The World Cup final certainly won’t be about Messi for me. It’ll be about seeing France retain the World Cup and be given it after their third victory, I hope. I hope France stuff them but I think it’ll be a tough match.
Agree completely; I hope that France destroy Argentina, and yes, stuff them.
Moreover, if the media (and popular) coverage does indeed focus on Messi, and, while I accept that he is a great player, I devoutly hope for a defeat (actually, a thrashing) for Argentina, therefore, I can only express the hope that this will add to the pressure that may be placed on his shoulders.
After all, he is the talisman for his team and to be defined as "great" - to be accepted as "great" - means turning in a superlative performance during a game where the pressure is intense and the stakes are exceptionally high, - and, as is frequently the case in international football, not every player on your team can be classed as outstanding (unlike some of the top club teams), hence, the responsibility on the shoulder of an ageing great to deliver an outstanding perfromance and lift the team and lead the team - is all the greater - and that is the test of whether a player is "great" or not.
The definition of 'great' is in the eye of the beholder in my opinion. Why? Go read articles from some of the worlds greatest players and you will notice one common theme which is they all talk about George Best being the best player they have played against/seen, even Pele has spoken about how he rates George Best as the best player he has seen and you know what, the only honours of note George Best has won is the old division league one with Manchester United and a European cup. Nothing internationally with Ireland but yet George Best is still rated amoung many as one of the best players the world has ever seen, and that's even coming from other players who are considered the best the world has ever seen.
Pele, considered the best player the world has ever seen, himself won 3 world cups as part of the Brazilian team and yet he rates George Best much higher than himself, a player who's only honours are two league one titles and one European cup. So as I said, being labled as 'great' is in the eye of the beholder.
Pele, considered the best player the world has ever seen, himself won 3 world cups as part of the Brazilian team and yet he rates George Best much higher than himself, a player who's only honours are two league one titles and one European cup. So as I said, being labled as 'great' is in the eye of the beholder.
Ah, the brief, incandescent, meteoric and self-destructive genius of George Best.
Okay: I beg to differ (with no disrespect to Pele, who was a genuinely great player).
In any case, I think that the image of George Best the player (an all too brief flaring of footballing genius) and the image of George Best the flamboyant personality (the good looks, the personality, the fact that he seemed to embody in his person what it meant to live during the "swinging sixties" - for this was the first time when professional footballers were paid a salary that allowed them to live a decent lifestyle, the endless - and eventually tedious - self-destructive tendencies) who embodied the zeitgeist of the times became conflated in the public (male) mind.
No, Best doesn't do it for me.
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See, this is it when it comes to footballers past and present, does one value/grade them on just their footballing skill/prowess as a measure of their greatness or does one look at the 'complete package' of a footballer, not just their footballing skill but their overall personality of a player and a person as a measure of their greatness?
George Best was a very exceptional footballer but he had his demons off the pitch, his drinking, his drug taking and his womanizing. Therefore does his off the pitch personality (personal life) ruin his credability as a 'great' player?. Maradona with his cheating (hand of god incident) and his very public affair of drug taking, has this ruined his credabilty as a 'great' player?.
Where do we as fans draw the line at what defines a 'great' football player, just their footballing ability or the 'complete package' (their personal life)?
I picked France to win the tournament at the start and thought they were playing brilliantly. However, as the tournment progressed i saw many weaknesses and found their defence lacking. Even though England lost the match i felt they ran rings around France and were the better team. England also showed that Mbappe can be controlled and taken out of the game. Griezmann has been the best player on the French team by far and considering he is not a mid-field player but has been shoe horned into that role by the manager, you have to give him credit. France has a lot of luck running for them so far and perhaps that is what it takes to win the trophy. The Morocco game reinforced my view of the weakness in the French defence problem is they could not finish. Argentina started off very weak but got better and better with each match. I think its going to be a great match but i pick Argentina to pick apart that defence.
I never pay too much attention to the 'quality & depth' of the teams at the group stage because it's all strategy and tactics at play to see who does and doesn't get through. As fan's we want to see teams win all the time but the team managers think differently in my opinion because they are looking at how best to get their team through the group stage with minimal effort and injuries to the players. We all have to remember the team managers do not want their best players injured at the start of the tournament thus they will look at the teams they are up against and make judgement calls on which players to start with and if the team is going to go for an all out win or to just do enough for a draw. For decades we have seen it time and time again at the group stage of the world cup, teams that on recent performances should go through comfortably but they take risks and either end up losing or drawing too many games and end up not progressing through OR they lose or draw against a weaker opponent because tactics are in play by the better team.
Once the group stages is over, this is when we see teams start to rise up because they know it's only one game now because lose and they are out thus everything is on the line meaning teams have to step up their game. So, just as with England, Morocco showed where France are vulnerable. Question is does Argentina have what it takes to exploit France's weaknesses and does France have enough in the tank in plug those weaknesses. Argentina has their own weaknesses and a big one is Messi because if look at Argentina's games, Messi has been involved in nealry all their goals, either scoring them or assisting in them because without Messi Argentina are just an ordinary team (go look at their win/loss stats when Messi is and isn't in the team).
It should be a good game BUT with so much at stake, are both teams going to play it safely resulting in a boring 0-0 or 1-1 draw and ending in penalties?
I agree with you.
France's defense seems to be their weakness, if Morocco had better players they could have scored and possibly beat France, I think that if France lets Argentina play and shoot they will lose, because Argentina does have strong attacking players, but I think France is the better team overall and I'm not sure that Argentina can contain Mbappé, Griezmann and Démbélé at the same time, if they focus on one of them they will leave more space for the others, including Giroud.
I hope France loses, and badly with a complete, utter humiliation, but I'm afraid they'll win.
For me it's the complete package, you can't, consistently, be a great player if you're not living like an athlete.
Talent alone won't help you in the long run, take two Italian players as an example, Cassano and Balotelli, and I'll throw in Adriano, Brazilian player, too, they had talent, too bad they didn't live like athletes and, Cassano and Balotelli proved time and time again to be dumber than a bag of rocks. Whereas hard work can make up for having less pure talent, players like Nedved, Zanetti and Gattuso, they didn't have the pure crystal clear talent of other players, but they've always been the hardest workers in the locker room.
As for the best of all time, well, I don't know, some people say Pelé, others Maradona (he did play in a very tough Serie A), others will swear Alfredo Di Stefano was the best of the best, I can tell you who is the strongest player I've seen playing - I'm 38 - and it's Ronaldo, the Brazilian Ronaldo, he was a monster, even stronger than Zidane, he was unstoppable, he had everything, every single quality a striker should have, he had, strength, speed, power, technique, stamina, he could score a goal in any way he wanted, he could dribble everyone on the field, shoot and score from outside of the box, penalties, free kicks, assists, had he stayed in shape we would be talking about the best of all time.
When Inter bought him he joined a mediocre team at best, he almost won the Serie A, against Juventus, the 1995-1998 Juventus was arguably the strongest team in the world, and Ronaldo single-handedly almost won the league, he won the UEFA Cup for Inter, when in the UEFA Cup you faced strong teams from all over Europe, I still watch videos of him on YouTube, and he still looks unreal, it looks like you're watching a videogame, and playing with cheats too.
One thing, I think, we can all agree on is that past players did play a tougher football, more physical, more "violent", if you watch Italy Vs Argentina during the 1982 World Cup and watch how Claudio Gentile stopped Maradona you'll realize what I'm talking about, if they played the same match today I think Gentile wouldn't finish the match.
I love all the differing opinions and respectful conversation/debate. Kudos.
It will be very interesting to see if France and Argentina try to play lockdown defense and try to win in penalty kicks. Which may not be such a good idea given how Roberto Baggio, a really good Italian player in his time, got sullied by that really unfortunate penalty kick miss in the World Cup final in 1994.
France's defense looked more fragile against England. I thought Upamecano looked a real liability in that match. He's a talented young player, but he's always had mistakes in him. With him missing out against Morocco, France's back line looked much better. Varene and Konate are a solid duo in the middle, but so much danger comes from out wide, and their fullbacks need to be more on their game. I can't say Morocco had many clear cut chances yesterday, France's defense covered well aside from a couple of occasions where Lloris needed to make a world class save or two. Defending against Messi and Alvarez is a tougher proposition to say the least.
Rabiot was a real miss yesterday. Hopefully he's back on Sunday.
I picked Argentina to win it all before the tournament, but I'll be rooting for France. I don't begrudge Messi winning a WC, and I'd also be happy for Lucho Martinez, but I was never much of a fan of Argentina in general. I'd be happier seeing Varane win it again.
In terms of overall greatness, you do have to balance out peak versus longevity. Best was really great for only a short while, and he was never going to achieve any international glory representing Northern Ireland. He was as talented as anyone who ever played the game, but he has to be further down on my own personal list.
Rabiot was a real miss yesterday. Hopefully he's back on Sunday.
I picked Argentina to win it all before the tournament, but I'll be rooting for France. I don't begrudge Messi winning a WC, and I'd also be happy for Lucho Martinez, but I was never much of a fan of Argentina in general. I'd be happier seeing Varane win it again.
In terms of overall greatness, you do have to balance out peak versus longevity. Best was really great for only a short while, and he was never going to achieve any international glory representing Northern Ireland. He was as talented as anyone who ever played the game, but he has to be further down on my own personal list.
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George Best was a historically great player, but you wonder had he moved to England and technically become an English citizen by FIFA rules, would he have been better remembered internationally.
If talking about great players, the late great Bobby Moore is one that I think of. But I always played as a defender so that might be part of it. Or that he played for West Ham.
Agreed.
To be candid, I honestly think that if George Best hadn't been out and about (and written about and photographed) during the sexy, swinging sixties, he would not have made it onto such a list.
He won very little, his career was brief - very brief, even by the truncated standards of the life of a professional footballer - and the compulsive destructive and self-destructive behaviour, the alcoholism, - yes, his drinking, drug-taking and womanising, but his alcoholism was both extraordinarily destructive, and extraordinarily self-destructive - and, in addition to destroying his own health, he left a trail of broken relationships behind, many of them marked by domestic violence - and he was, in my opinion, far too indulged in, by a mostly male sports media.
Re true greats, transformational greats (even though he never won a world cup), in terms of influence and sheer ability, Johan Cruyff comes to mind.
Diego Maradona - another individual fuelled by self-destructive tendencies - was an outstanding player, if a tough and horribly cyncial one (and yes, I still dislike Argentina). Zinedine Zidane of France, Bobby Charlton of England, Franz Beckenbaur of Germany would all also merit places on such a list.
Earlier, (but this predates TV), the legendary Hungarian, Ferenc Puskas (and that incredible and formidably gifted Hungarian team, also, never won the World Cup, losing one match - the World Cup Final - in 1954, to what was then West Germany, which was the only match out of 69 games that they lost in the entire period between 1950 and 1956) would also merit a place on such a list.
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Ugh, I just read his wiki page. A lot on his career but the drinking (died from "complications from the immunosuppressive drugs he needed to take after a liver transplant in 2002." link
The section on his many assaults especially on women and how this was glossed over didn't sit well with me.
The section on his many assaults especially on women and how this was glossed over didn't sit well with me.
Some news outlets are talking about MERS.
If indeed it is MERS then it's pretty serious, MERS is not as contagious as COVID, but it tends to cause a more serious illness.
Thing is, if too many French players come down with the sickness, if they can field 11 players even without any subs, would they be forced to play? because I know when covid hit, some teams were told they had to field teams, even if it was with reserve or youth team players. I wonder what the rules would be for the World Cup. Would France be forced to field a weakened team thereby giving Argentina a huge advantage?
I don't understand this secrecy.
We read about a "mysterious virus", but, unless a virus is new, there's nothing mysterious about a virus, just test the players and you'll know what you're dealing with. Even the common cold is caused by a virus, but usually players don't isolate and miss games and training sessions because of the common cold.
At the moment, we know that Rabiot, Upamecano, Coman, Varane and Konate are sick or, at least, have cold/flu like symptoms.