The great Messi issue kick starts the day. Football fans of this generation are like hip pop fans of today,they have “No” understanding of the game.
They do not understand the game Football/Soccer is first and foremost a team sport not an individual sport like tennis,so in every situation the team comes into consideration.
Also, football teams are always lead by a leader who doesn’t participate on the pitch,but organizes the formations,motivates the players and generally protects his team as the popular saying goes” it is easier to see things in any game when you view it from the outside. I.e viewing as. An observer and not a participant.
I now single out Argentina. For the last 4 years the Argentine F.A has gotten it wrong in the appointment of Head Coaches,appointing the legendary footballer and highly amaturish Maradonna to lead the team to South Africa we all know how that turned out. Having not learnt enough,they handed the reigns over to another Argentine legend Batista to lead this highly talented and individualistic group to the Copa America. Now my story begins.
The World “messi haters” have criticized messi for the failure of the argentine squad,saying he is nothing without Barcelona team mates Xavi and Iniesta forgeting to mention the fact that he grew up playing amongst them and learning a particular brand of soccer.
People have made statements such as Pele,Maradonna,Zidane,Ronaldo(the original one) have won competitons for their country single handedly,naming Mexico 86,France 98 e.t.c as tournaments in which these individuals did virtually everything. So I did my research and came up with the following facts.
In Mexico 86, Maradonna was no doubt the Key player for argentina but he played with a unit consisting of Burruchaga-one of the finest central mid-fielders of his time- ,Batista- a very competent defensive mid-fielder and the coach who took them to the ill-fated Copa America- , Pumpido-the Goal keeper- ,Ruggeri-the finest Argentine defender after Pasarella- and Valdano – the Batistuta of 86,he finished the tournament with 4 goals- .
This team was highly compact with leaders at every position on the field who knew their duties,thereby leading them to victory,coupled with the fact that Maradonna was 25 years of age and was at the prime of his career and was coached by the greatest argentine manager in their history, coach Carlos Bilardo who is credited for putting argentina on the football world map and bringing out the best in his group of players and Maradonna in particular. As for Pele he combined with Garrincha,revelinho and co to produce magic, Zidane had Henry,djokaeff,thuram,Barthez,lizarazu,makelele,Viera,Trezeguet,Petit,desailly,deschamps,Le beouf,dugarry-champions in every position on the pitch- and Aime Jacquet as head coach.
The reason for bringing out all these facts,is to impact knowledge of the importance of team work and organization in respect to the success of any football team regardless of the individual talents available to the team.
Now,fastfoward to 2011 Copa America, where the Coach Batista,had no clue of what formation he wanted to employ,his defence was chaotic gifting oponents no less than 4 back-passes throughout the competition on goal,his mid-fielders played like english men while his attackers where as individualistic and selfish as Ibra could be at his worst. Batista was so poor he was beaten 4 nil by my lovely soccer team-The Super Eagles- and instead of protecting his players,he hid under the criticism of Lionel Messi.
My verdict remains that messi is the Greatest player of his generation but needs more years-which he has by the way- to catch up with all time Greats like those mentioned above.
Now Milan takes on Bayern as the first serious International friendly of the pre-season,and as expected I will be taken my sit in the front row so I could bring to all Milanistis my view of the game.
Comments are appreciated.
This guest post was written by Jeroh Tejiri of acmilanwatch.blogspot.com
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While I agree with most of the things you said, one thing I idsagree is Billarods role in 86. He was not the greatest Argentine coach or did not put Argentina in the map or anywhere near it. It will go to Menotti and even before that Argentina was always a Soccer powerhouse but under achievers like netherlands or even more. names like Di Stefano , la Maquina, Sivori was known all around the world for long time. So the players you mentioned apart from Maradona, well if you want to upgrade thats your choice. But from my experience not through reading history they were basically a bunch of nobodys, not at least in the same level compared to Tevez, aguerra, Zenneti, Higuan, Milito or Mascherano. I think what people never discusses when comparing messi with Maradona is Maradona had the ability to fall back and dictate the game through his pin point accurate long passes and crosses and was able to anticipate moves two three passes before, ppl always discusses about his dribbling but that was his main strength apart from his inspirational presence, which from my experience Messi still lacks. i think he is too much dependend on Barca system, whereas Maradona was more versatile. I hate these modern trend to undermine Maradonas achievment to upgrade Messi. Messi for sure is the greatest modern player maybe thats why we expect him to do what Maradona did, which is unfair. as we did not demand that from rest of the players. i think to make Argentina team win they need to stop building the team around messi and build a real team.
Messi played with crap players, like some who play less than 10 matches in a season! Tevez is such an egoist and disgraceful man.
Messi shouldn’t e playing as the n° 10 like Maradona, because Messi is a stricker, a great one.