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Then it wouldn’t make him influential. It just makes him one of a kind becuase of his playing style. There has never been a primary playmaker who also scores a lot of goals like he did, the only player who could have done that was Neymar. Ronaldo is also one a type given how much he scored playing from the wide position and only Mbappe does that, the early Liverpool version of Salah was a bit like that but he is much more playmaker these days. Its very hard for any teams to find another Ronaldo/Messi its not like basketball where Steph Curry revolutionized how teams thought of the 3 pointers and tried to play that way.
It would not have surprised me if Mike had just released this quote as a statement with absolutely no other context.
Sorry Arteta but that batshit false
When an Argentinian hits the fucking siu after scoring a bicycle kick I don’t think Messi’s the most influential
Cheers Geoff!
Influential how ? Convince people to try and ply like Messi ? No one can
How many coaches do you think spent days upon days coming up with different schemes to stop that man? How many coaches said they “know how to stop Messi” ?He’s influence is in the way teams had to adjust to his skill set.
Go watch any star from 2008 downwards , if they got doubled teamed on defense then a commantor would mention it. By the time Messi peaked no one would mention Messi is getting triple teamed ,four players jailed, it just became the standard.
Go ask watch Jose Mourinho how he used to prepare for Messi. That’s actual influence right there…
Good point.
There is no one else with his skill set though.
Disagree, Messi is GOATy, but he isn’t the most influential player in the history of football. That is because there wasn’t a way of playing in that role prior to Messi and post Messi. Maradona did set the same precedent for the small attackers many years before.
R9 is more influential than Messi for example. There was a prior to R9 era where strikers played in one manner. And after R9 era where strikers played differently.
Ibra for example is more influential for the tall/big striker position than Messi for his position. Before Ibra the big CF were asked to keep the ball, fight the defenders and be good at the box. After Ibra, these strikers are asked to do way more, drop deep, progress the ball, set the tempo, be more technically able and so on. Haaland is asked to hold himself to a higher standard because of standards Ibra set to that category for example.
Baresi is also more influential for the CB position, considering his height.
The use of the word “INFLUENTIAL” is used in a wrong manner.
Nuh uh messi better
It’s hard to define what “influential” means in this context. I kind of agree that Messi didn’t do anything not seen before, he just did a lot of already existing things, better than anyone and at an incredible speed, during 10+ years.
That said, one could argue that Messi was very influential in their rivals. All their rival coaches spent Messi’s career trying to figure out how to stop him and there was a lot of evolution in tactics around that, with some like Simeone and Mourinho basically building their whole tactics around the premise of stopping Messi first, then everything else.
About your first paragraph, i 100% agree. I think he was extremely influential towards coaches on how to defend him. Even IF, i think that we have seen similar patterns before with Maradona or R9. Something that you mentioned.
But, THE MOST ONE?! Hard pass for me genuinely.
sadly for most r/soccer users all logic is lost when messi is mentioned
Dude, saying this as someone who loves him and think that he rightfully deserved the Golden Ball. But this statment is absolute bonkers. In every way you look at this, he wasn’t THE MOST influential player.
Yeah clearly you guys are in the intelligent group of this sub. Don’t look down on us too hard big brains.
it’s crazy how every time a coach or figure praises him or ronaldo you have fanboys in the comment trying to downvote everyone into oblivion who make a good argument/case
why is this so downvoted? He’s the goat but absolutely not the most influential, they’re two completely different things.
In conclusion, Cheers Geoff
Hot take.
Messi is the goat but I’d argue Pelé and Cruyff were FAR more influential to the sport than Messi. I don’t think it’s even close really.
Do people only have one understanding of the word influence? I see a shitload of the discussion here saying that Messi hasn’t been influential in regards to the sport as a whole, I don’t see anyone discussing Messi’s ability to influence what happens on a football pitch in any given game. He’s easily one of the most influential players in the history of the sport in that sense.
I just want a coach/footballer to come out and say “Who? Messi? Never heard of him” or even a “Ye I could 1v1 that scrub, no talent” and farm clicks like crazy
This is great and enlightening information and I’m glad this was upvoted by almost 1000 people already.
Do upvote bots just instantly upvote anything that has Messi in the title? There was a post last week that was top where they totally mispelled his first name.
This sub just eats this stuff up
I’m not talking shit here, I genuinely think Cristiano Ronaldo us more influential.
Football Player: The guy who won 8 Ballons d’or is good at football
That’s quality journalism
I would argue Messi is more of an impactful player than influential.
You can copy Cruyff’s philosophies and find moderate success, but it’s near impossible to just copy Messi’s playstyle.