[removed]

And yet unlikely to catch Klose.

Also Mbappe has only scored one goal less than Messi but only played just over half the number of Messi's games. And he's only 23.

[deleted]

Cristiano*. I'm biased because I'm Portuguese, but this means very little when considering the teams Argentina as had throughout the years comparing to ours.

Yes but Messi gets 6 penalties in 1 World Cup. Seems an unfair comparison

That’s my argument. Everyone saying messi is better. No he’s just got a better team that’s been underperforming for years.

Maradona was still better then both of these fools.

This. The goal stat in this world cup felt really meaningless. I heard countless moderators repeat how many goals Messi scored and I just couldn't take it anymore. Argentina got an exceptional amount of penalties which all went to Messi. I don't know where he would place, but if we would remove all penalties from the goal count, Messi wouldn't be near the top positions for most amount of goals in this world cup.

[removed]

actually, if PKs didn't count, Messi still had 3 goals plus 3 assists, which would have placed him 4th (instead of 2nd). that is most certainly still "near the top".

Messi scored 4 PKs, 3 run of play goals, and 3 assists. Ronaldo scored 1 PK.

He would be joint 4th with 6 other players. These 6 other players all didn't make it to the final and we're KOed as early as the round of 16 (Morata).

I just can't get behind this argument. 2022: Portugal faced no top 10 teams and was knocked out by 22nd ranked Morocco; Argentina defeated 2 top 10 teams and won. 2018: Portugal knocked out by 17th ranked Uruguay; Argentina knocked out by 7th ranked and eventual champions France. 2014: Portugal did not advance out of Group including a 4-0 loss to eventual champions Germany; Argentina advanced to the Finals losing to Germany 1-0 after extra time. In the two prior Cups they both fell to top European sides in Knockout play.

So many flaws in this argument. He'd be ranked 4th overall, not joint, based on number of assists. Also the stat isn't # of goals through the Round of 16, it's total. His efforts helped his team advance for more opportunities to score. It's also more difficult to score in later knockout stage matches as the caliber of team played is increased.

Are you even reading? I talked about the goals, not about any scoring points. You made this about assists which is something I never talked about. I talked about the goal top list. So don't build a strawman please.

And second Messi scored the same amount of goals as someone who only played half the amount of games. It's a lot less impressive.

[deleted]

I'm not saying messi is better or worse. I'm saying messi has had an undoubtedly better team throughout the years, which counts a lot to having more games and scoring more goals.

But yeah, everyone here agrees our team should perform better throughout the years. 2010 we were unlucky, 2014 was a disgrace, 2018 we played better than uruguay but the game is what it is, and 2022 morocco parked the bus as it should have, but they also knocked belgium and spain out.

The rank doesn't really matter specially in knock out stages, we were 3rd for a good amount of time, yet I would never say we were actually the third best national team in that era.

And there is an obvious correlation with the number of games played