Football / Soccer / Calcio / Futebol / Fußball

People have fully lost the plot with Messi comparisons

It's like they already forgot what prime Messi was capable of

There's not a single player in the world that back then and right now rivaled the quality of his first touch + dribble + passing + ball control + balance/agility/strength + vision + runs + pressing (yes prime Messi used to press, defend, track back and not just walk around) + assists + goals

Even if someone surpasses his goals and assists they'll still have a tough time also rivalling the quality of his passing/touches/ball controll/dribbling. Haaland for example COULD rival/surpass his amount of goals. Assists and all those attributes? Nope. Same with Mbappé, same with Vini, same with Bellingham.

Messi also did it from the 2000s all the way into the 2020s. In 2009 I was saying ''if he could keep this up for at least 4 years he's without a doubt the best ever. Look at us now. He went above and beyond. I swear a lot of people have really already forgotten what it was like pre-Messi. If a striker had a few seasons where he touched 30 goals people were praising them like crazy. Then Messi came around and ''merely'' scoring that amount would make him into a failure. It's like Messi's previous season where he played more like a playmaker and still scored 16 goals and gave 16 assists in Ligue 1. If Zidane used to have a season like that it would be seen as something incredible. While for him it's been called a failure lol.