Poll: Who is the football/soccer G.O.A.T (greatest of all time)?

I think the majority of the world already agreed that he was the best prior to this epic win. However, this one omission always gave the holdouts a singular legitimate counter point. That counterpoint is now null and void. Messi has done it all... won it all.

Speaking of which, he has one of those (Olympic gold) too!

I would agree in an individual sport, but you can still be the best without winning a specific tournament (especially one that only comes around once every four years) in a team sport. He was the player of the World Cup tournament back in 2014 even though his team didn't win. He was the best, but the rest of his team wasn't good enough. So he can perform on the biggest stage.

Thought experiment. For instance, let's take Usain Bolt in his prime. Imagine for a second that the 100m and 200m individual races were scraped from completion and only the 4x100m relay was contested. Also let's assume that he isn't racing as part of team Jamaica but rather a country that has no other top tier world class sprinters. He may break the world record for his segment of the race, he might be faster than any other person on the planet but his team would still lose the 4x100m race on account of his teammates. It wouldn't matter, he would still be the best sprinter. He, individually, is the best at the sport. It's the same reason why the title of the "world's fastest man" is not determined by who wins the 4x100m relay.




Either way, it's a moot point now. He's won this one as well.

 

Except that Messi won the 2014 Golden Ball. He didn't fail to keep a high level performance. They never would have even sniffed the finals if it were not for him. He carried that team as far as any one single player could. Ultimately, it was his team let him down and not the other way around. Germany may not have had a player as good as Messi, but collectively they were the better team. And even still, it was close, a lucky bounce goes the other way and history is completely re-written. Plus, Germany could afford divert disproportionate resources to help shut down Messi, knowing that the rest of the team wasn't that much of a threat. You need other team mates creating scoring chances for you, finishing scoring chances you create for them and generally diverting away defenders.

The World Cup is supposed to be a measure of the best team. The best player will contribute greatly to his team, but a single man, even if he is a soccer god (lowercase "g" ), can only do so much. The Golden Ball is the measure of the best WC player, of which he has two.

Here are some additional problems with over relying on World Cup success as a determinant for the G.O.A.T.

1. Sample Size - Messi has played in 26 world cup games (more than anyone else by the way). In total, he has played in 1,003 career games. So the World Cup only accounts for 2.59% of his career. And that is looking at all his WC games, not the championship games specifically, which would be a mere 2 games. The other 97.41% of his career simply has much greater bearing on his GOAT status.
2. The WC is just one tournament - it may be the most prestigious tournament in many people's eyes (mine too, though not everyone, some people put club performance above it), but it is still just one of many elite tournaments. It's not like Messi didn't perform and succeed in championship games. 10 Spanish League titles, 1 French League title, 4 Champions League titles, 1 Copa America title and 1 Olympic Gold medal.
3. If the WC is the key determinant, no player from a "lesser" football country could ever be the goat - Let's say a new player came along who was vastly superior to anyone else. Assume he crushed all goals scoring records by a massive margin, won the champions league title and his respective league title each and every year. He is the best at dribbling, shooting, passing, running, endurance, heading, tactics, vision, etc. He also wins the Ballon d'Or trophy every year in his career. Additionally, he manages to stay injury free and has a very lengthy career. But he is from San Marino (currently ranked 211 in Fifa's rankings), and that's who he plays for in the WC. Guess what, he is never going to win the WC and thus by your metrics he could never be considered the best player. In the history of the World Cup, only 8 countries have ever won it.
4. Luck - the best team doesn't always win. Luck plays a huge factor, and when you consider that the WC is only contested once every four years, this multiplies the effect. A bad bounce for Argentina and they lose to France. A good bounce for Argentina and they beat Germany. A single loss knockout system can only tell us so much. If France and Argentina played to 100 wins, that would be far more telling (though not remotely feasible). If we asked two elite/professional dart players to throw three darts at the board and try to score the highest, you wouldn't be able to determine which one is the better dart player by the results of those three throws alone. Too much variability and luck in such a limited demonstration in skill.

I mean technically you are the best if you are technically the best.

Playground rules. Not sure how it was done in Italy, but here, when choosing teams on the playground, there would be two captains and they would alternate choosing players for their team. The guy that was consistently chosen first was the best player. Let's expand that idea...

Some ultra powerful evil deity (Chaos god, Q, the devil, etc.) has pitted you and I against each other. We are to assemble a team of footballers to play in a single match (we don't play ourselves, we merely assemble our respective teams). We can choose players from throughout history and they will appear and play with the same ability as they had in their prime. Whoevers team loses has their entire family killed by the deity. There is no negotiating and no way of getting out of it. If you don't choose, you automatically lose. The evil deity gives you first choice. That's the best player of all time... and if you choose anyone other than Messi, you've done your family a terrible disservice.

 

I suppose it is getting a bit tiresome at this point. We'll just leave it to history to judge the relative merit of our stances.

 

That's true.... another magical Messi miracle.

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=191331925777615

 

@Killer Angel Thoughts?

 

It was an interesting point that while Pele won 3 world cups, he wasn't the best player in those wins. In one of his world cup wins he only played in two games.

I'd rank him several steps lower than Maradona. Maradona was far ahead of the game. I'd wager that prime Maradona, plucked from history, could quickly and easily adapt into today's game.