Lionel Messi – Back To Being The Best

13 days ago Cristiano Ronaldo was deservedly named the best player in the world at the 2015 Ballon D’Or ceremony. No one could truly dispute Cristiano had been the best player in the world throughout 2014. However, in the first  few weeks of 2015 Lio Messi has quickly moved to reassert himself as the greatest player in the world, and indeed arguably the greatest ever seen.

Some of Messi’s performances, such as the demolition of Atletico Madrid, one of the strongest defences in world football, have been utterly mesmeric. With Neymar Jr alongside him Messi has found the perfect foil. Many of Neymar’s goals this season have come from moments of genius by the little Argentine. This weekend’s masterclass against Elche was a perfect example of this.

All top players need one or two players near their level to bounce off as Messi now has exactly that with Neymar and Luis Suarez up front at Barca, forming a front three capable of competing with Real Madrid’s BBC of Bale, Benzema and Cristiano.

Barcelona’s front three: Suarez, Messi and Neymar

It seems almost as if Ronaldo picking up another Ballon D’Or has inspired Messi to up his game, and he is now doing things no other player on the planet is capable of. This is not wholly similar to Ronaldo’s reaction to Messi’s last Ballon D’Or win when he pushed himself harder than ever to remain the crown, and retain it.

The football world is lucky to have Ronaldo and Messi pushing each other, each determined to be not only the best player in the world but the best of all time. They surely must both rank in the Top 10, possibly Top 5 and it would not be at all surprising for one to end their career hailed as the greatest ever.

2015 looks to be another fascinating year with Messi back to the peak of his prodigious powers. There is no doubt Ronaldo will not ease off. The other question will be for the seventh year running, is there anyone else out there who dares to challenge these two?

Real Madrid’s front three: Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema

2012 – The Year Spain Dominated World Football

This year’s Ballon D’Or saw Barcelona’s Leo Messi claim his 4th title as the world’s best player and all 11 players in the World 11 being Spanish-based players with 5 from Barca and 5 from Real Madrid.

Messi with his 4th Ballon D’Or

This has led to a huge deal of moaning from those in England who can’t deal with the fact that they no longer have the best league in the world. The truth is, La Liga is far superior to the EPL or any other league at this point in time.

As someone who watches both leagues every weekend its easy to see that La Liga now has the best players, and so I thought I’d outline my World 11 below, which evidently is really not that different from the official one.

Even as a Manchester United fan I don’t see Robin Van Persie as deserving a place in the team, with both Radamel Falcao and Zlatan Ibrahimovic being steps ahead of him.

As for Messi, there is absolutely no doubt he deserved to win the trophy, he’s been in a different class to everyone else in 2012 and may well be the greatest player of all time. I would have been delighted to see Iniesta, a player I love, get the trophy but any unbiased fan will tell you Messi deserved it.

Iniesta celebrating a goal for Barca

My World 11:

Buffon

Arbeloa – Pique – Ramos – Alba

Xavi – Alonso – Iniesta

Messi – Falcao – Ronaldo

 

As you can see, that’s still 10 La Liga!

Also, Sergio Busquets and Pepe are unlucky not to make the final team.

Dutch legend Ruud Van Nistelrooy retires from football

It was a milestone in my footballing life as my favourite player Ruud van Nistelrooy announced his immediate retirement today.

Ruud was the free scoring frontman in the Manchester United team when I first became properly obsessed by the club and has remained my footballing hero to this day despite his subsequent transfers to Real Madrid, Hamburg and most recently Malaga.

The deadly Dutchman once scored 44 goals in one season for United proving himself to be a contender for the most clinical marksman in world football.  He then went on to win the Golden Boot in Spain for Real in his first season, making many question the logic of United selling him. I personally was gutted when he left the club.

He hasn’t quite captured such form in latter years and has decided to bow on on top having helped Malaga secure 4th place in La Liga at the weekend. A true legend of modern day football and a player I’ll never forget.

All the best for whatever the future brings you Ruud.

 

 

End of an era as Pep Guardiola leaves Barcelona

Pep Guardiola has done an unbelievable job at Barcelona, making them undoubtedly the world’s greatest teams for several years. I would go as far as to say the Barcelona side of 2010-2011 is the best football team I’ve ever seen play. These thoughts were echoed by many in the game including the greatest football manager of all time Sir Alex Ferguson.

It’s a real shame that he felt the need to leave the Catalan institution last week, but in reality it’s a move that’s been on the cards for a long time. As far back as a year ago Pep was hinting he would leave Barca in the near future. Having suffered badly from stress since taking over the job Guardiola has endured severe hair loss and has commented he would be worried about his health if he carried on long-term. It always seemed possible he would leave this, or next summer, but it’s still caused a great deal of shock in the world of football.

Rumours are abound that he is set to join Chelsea, but this seems unlikely. Pep has said he wants to take time out of football. Maybe he will return one day, maybe he won’t. But I’m sure football fans the world over will wish him all the best in his time off, he’s given us endless treats to watch over the last few years.

It will be interesting to see how the new coach Tito Vilanova and the players deal with his departure next season and whether they can play to the same standards. Vilanova seems a natural choice for the job. He knows the players, he knows the style and I’m sure Guardiola supported his appointment.

 Guardiola will have one last chance to shine this season when Barca take on high flying Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey final, sparks may fly!

Chelsea hit form at the right time

With the season winding down it looks like Chelsea have picked a good time to hit top form, with two cup finals impending in the Champion’s League and FA Cup.

The club have been undoubtedly dire at points this season but have recently dismissed Barcelona over two legs and today scored six with Spanish striker Fernando Torres grabbing a hat-trick against QPR, in a move to separate himself from Liverpool’s Andy Carroll. The pair have linked in the media due to their complete lack of form since moving to their current clubs.

Torres though appears to have turned a corner and could well have put himself on the path to actually carving out a respectable career at Chelsea. But we shall see, it’s early down in terms of that currently.

Meanwhile Carroll still shows no signs of quality. In fairness to him he’s not the only poor player at Liverpool with playing like Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing routinely going through matches without doing anything at all of note. At least Carroll jumps about a bit.

As for Chelsea, in the time they’re in you wouldn’t put it past them doing the double this season. It really does just enforce the fact that sacking AVB was precisely the right thing to do.

Andy Carroll: Making Fernando Torres Look Good

Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres are often bracketed together by many fans because of their huge transfer fees and terrible performances since moving to Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.

However, it seems to me that whenever I watch Liverpool Carroll is just invariably dreadful whereas Torres at least shows a bit of enthusiasm for Chelsea and has a bit of pace. This blog isn’t just a reaction to Carroll’s horrorshow today and Torres’ goal yesterday, its an ongoing trend I’ve been noticing throughout the season. Andy Carroll seems every bit the modern day Emile Heskey (without the humours links). He’s good in the air and he can hold the ball up. But ask him to score? Please…

Torres has also looked abysmal and demoralised all season but at least he has a track record as one of the best strikers in the world to fall back upon to justify his whopping £50m fee, whereas Carroll had very little top level experience when Liverpool bought him for £35m.

Time will tell how both of these players will actually develop and whether they will eventually become success stories for their teams but for now they look like a pair of donkeys.
I’ve always praised Carroll’s physicue as a striker though, big and powerful he seems like a natural number 9 so maybe given the right strike partner and supplying midfielder (Like Barton when they played together at Newcastle) he could flourish. I think for Torres he just needs his confidence back and he’ll be banging in 20 goals a season again. But then really, who knows?

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Mario?

Someone’s almost certainly used this title before but it’s pretty much a perfect title for this article. From almost the moment he arrived in Manchester, Mario Balotelli has been causing problems and stirring up trouble. Talented footballer, he is. Nutjob, he also is.

Balotelli storms off as his manager shouts at him

I need not list all his pieces of bad behaviour but to mention a couple he threw darts at youth players and showed disrespect to an oppoising team, his team mates and his management.

He more recently said that he doesn’t like Manchester and has given many signs that he wants to go back to Italy.

He is not the only want away striker City have to deal with, as captain Carlos Tevez has again stated he wants to leave the club. City have the cover to afford to let both of them go thanks to their recent £38 million move for Sergio Aguero. But who would take them?

Tevez in happier days

Balotelli is clearly a liability so it would be a risk for any club to offer what would have to be a large fee for him. Similarly, Carlos Tevez never seems to know his own mind and keeps moving so he would be a costly and risky signing.

But keeping them at the club could be risky for City who have approximately 43 forwards at the club.

As it happens I don’t care if they solve the problem and would rather they didn’t. But until they can shift these two lads, they’ve got a real problem on their hands.

Not to mention that Tevez is their best player…

 

Partick Thistle 2 – 1 Stenhousemuir

I had a rare feeling of optimism before the start of the season today in the Ramsden Cup against Stenhousemuir. It’s not so much that Thistle have strengthened our team but that other teams in our league seem to have lost a lot of players while we’ve only lost a couple. Beating Celtic last weekend only helped to increase the good feeling. 

So a home game against Stenny seemed like a good chance to get off to a winning start, which we did. It wasn’t the most glamorous of victories but it was a victory nonetheless and that’s what matters.

It’s always nice to see David Rowson get a goal even if his opening goal today was somewhat of a fluke, taking a huge deflection off off a Stenny defender. There was nothing flukey about Tommy Stewart’s goal though, with the striker taking the ball well from a Kris Doolan pass and slotting a cool finish into the far corner whilst running away from goal.

Thistle looked pretty tight at the back all game despite the absence of club captain Alan Archibald, with David Rowson taking over the captain’s armband. Centre back pairing Conrad Balatoni and Willie Kinniburgh strolled through most of the game with full backs Aaron Sinclair and Paul Paton both strong on the attack and in defence. Stenny’s goal was a strange one, a looped ball to the back of the defence where Stewart Kean knocked the ball down into the ground before it bounced over ‘keeper Scott Fox and into the net.

It’s good to get the first match out of the way with a victory and Thistle now move onto the next round of the Ramsden Cup and look ahead to playing Berwick at Firhill next week in the League Cup.

David Rowson

Thistle line up:

1. Scott Fox
2. Paul Paton
3. Aaron Sinclair
4. Stuart Bannigan
5.Willie Kinniburgh
6. Conrad Balatoni
7. Iain Flannigan
8. David Rowson
9. Kris Doolan
10. Tommy Stewart
11. Chris Erskine

Whilst i won’t put the Stenny line up here, I’ll mention they had six ex-Thistle players, pretty unbelievable! (Stevie Murray, Kev McKinlay, Eric Paton, Martyn Corrigan and Brown “what a wierd name” Ferguson and Chris McCluskey). Murray in particular looked threatening throughout the match and it was lucky for the Jags that his team mates didn’t match his standard, although their big #5 certainly did.

El Not So Classicos

Real Madrid against Barcelona is generally cited as a classic football match, an ideal spectacle for the neutral. But that’s changed this season. Why? That’s easy, Jose Mourinho. Jose’s a top class coach, no one could doubt that, but he really has no interest in nice football.

That’s why it’s so enjoyable to see Barca beat their greatest rivals to progress to the Champions League final. Real may have put one over them in the Copa Del Rey final but the last laugh looks to be Barca’s as they are set to win La Liga and will be strong favourites to do the double with the Champions League.

There has seldom been a team more deserving of winning these trophies than Barca. Their current team is arguably the greatest team of all time. I realise this is a hugely contentious point but I think it stands up to inspection.

They’ve won everything. I mean really, everything. Pep Guardiola has become the first ever manager to win all six trophies his team played in in one calender year. In Lionel Messi they’ve got one of the best players the world has ever seen. Only true greats like Maradone, Best or Giggs could match Messi in terms of his ability to dribble past players.

Valdes, Alves, Puyol, Pique, Abidal, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pedro, Villa.

Every one of these players is a contender to be the best player in their position in the world. They’re the only team who could honestly say that.

So let’s celebrate Barcelona. Let’s celebrate Lionel Messi and co. But let’s condemn Real Madrid. Let’s condemn Jose Mourinho. This match is about beautiful football and creating a great spectacle. Neutrals should rave about this game. We were just lucky that in one of the matches Messi scored a true wondergoal.

And let’s simply rejoice that Eric Abidal made his comeback from cancer tonight, a beautiful moment that no one with a heart could not enjoy. His team mates raised him above their heads at the end of the match, a touching tribute.

Eric Abidal

Bad Day To Be A Blue (Or An Accounting Student)

I’m not a blue, but I am an accounting student. So I know how it would have felt to be a Rangers or Chelsea fan today. Although, as it happens, in the Old Firm I didn’t care who won and I was delighted to see Chelsea fall at the climax.

However, alongside watching today’s football I had to endure the pain, the suffering, the inhumanity of accountancy studying. Something which I have been known to moan about at length. A thought so dark it strikes fear into the heart of the late Raoul Moat. Although this thought was followed by a stranger though:

It would have been darkly poetic if Raoul Moat had drowned, in a moat.

But, moving on swiftly. It’s tremendous to see Chelsea continue to falter, and even concede a goal from the powerhouse that is Emile Heskey. I still remember the joy his goal for Wigan against Chelsea brought me several years ago. Which, while sad, is a nice thought.

I still stand by my prediction in Scotland though that Rangers will win the league. I don’t mind who wins it, unless Hearts sneak up in Scottish history’s greatest ever shock.

I’m more interested in the First Division, where it’s just grim. Really grim. Not just for the Jags, the whole league is just rubbish this year. Even more than usual. All of which makes me a want a revolution in the league system. A proper one with big leagues, not the pathetic notion of 10 teams with play-offs or something ludicrous like that.

Ranting and accounting aside though, it’s been a good start to 2011 and a good end to 2010. So, onwards and upwards!