Hot take: Messi being so good at goalscoring actually weakened his GOAT status.
No, wait, hear me out.
Being the GOAT (not a fan of the term, but I’m on mobile, sorry) was never measured by goals. Who are widely considered to be some of the greatest of all time? Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff, Zidane, Beckenbauer... only from that (not comprehensive) list scored a lot of goals. The list of greatest players and the list of top goalscorers do not match.
But with Messi and Ronaldo, suddenly we had two all-time players at the same time scoring at roughly the same rate. And so, on a wider level, it became a simple comparison: who’s got more goals? And that framing ignores Messi’s greatness in other ways, like assists, or that he’s a far, far more efficient finisher than Ronaldo.
The same way we appreciate Maradona for more than pure goalscoring, in a strange way, I feel like if Messi scored less than Ronaldo his all-around game would be appreciated more. But because there’s an easy rivalry around the most prominent metric in the sport, Messi got dragged into a GOAT fight he never should have had to be in.
Hot take: Messi being so good at goalscoring actually weakened his GOAT status.
No, wait, hear me out.
Being the GOAT (not a fan of the term, but I’m on mobile, sorry) was never measured by goals. Who are widely considered to be some of the greatest of all time? Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff, Zidane, Beckenbauer... only from that (not comprehensive) list scored a lot of goals. The list of greatest players and the list of top goalscorers do not match.
But with Messi and Ronaldo, suddenly we had two all-time players at the same time scoring at roughly the same rate. And so, on a wider level, it became a simple comparison: who’s got more goals? And that framing ignores Messi’s greatness in other ways, like assists, or that he’s a far, far more efficient finisher than Ronaldo.
The same way we appreciate Maradona for more than pure goalscoring, in a strange way, I feel like if Messi scored less than Ronaldo his all-around game would be appreciated more. But because there’s an easy rivalry around the most prominent metric in the sport, Messi got dragged into a GOAT fight he never should have had to be in.
If you were ETH, what 2 signings will you absolutely prioritize?