If no one has done what Messi has done then has he influenced the game at all?
I was gonna say this, Messi is the best to ever play the game but Beckham was WAY more influential or other players have inspired kids more to be / play like them. Messi is almost uncopyable (if that even is a word).
No other player can walk around 80 minutes of the game and still have the most goals/assists/dribbles.
That’s what I was gonna say.
How has Messi been influential to the game when nobody can replicate the way he plays? Influential players are ones who start doing something new that everybody starts copying.
If most forwards strolled around the pitch like Messi for 80 of the 90 minutes they’d contribute absolutely nothing to the game. Messi hasn’t influenced anyone to change the way they play because it wouldn’t work if they did.
exactly, compare Messi’s brilliance to that of Cruyff or Beckenbauer who changed the way the game is played with new tactics and positions
I wonder which player in history has made the highest number of people actually change the way they play.
Ronaldo making everyone kick through the valve?
Roberto Carlos convincing a generation of full backs to stop defending?
Vinnie Jones making droves of sunday league players think “midfield hardman” is a legit position?
Same as why The Beatles is considered one of the most influential bands despite no one sounds like them nowadays
The Kinks, Beach Boys, Zombies, The Who, and I could go on.
If you’re saying no one sounds like a band from the 60s in the 2020s then yeah that’s true lol.
Deep
Not all that deep though, You don’t need to create carbon copies of yourselves to revolutionize the game.
Messi has pushed the boundaries of how impactful a player can strive to be.
You genuinely think elite trainers all around the world have not studied every strength and style of Messi to train the future generation of dribble greats ?
Real eyes realize real lies
bro has never heard of Pelé or Cruijff
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.
sadly for most r/soccer users all logic is lost when messi is mentioned
Yeah clearly you guys are in the intelligent group of this sub. Don’t look down on us too hard big brains.
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.
Messi is maybe the best player of all time, but not Top 10 in influence, not even in his own generation
South African politicians lined up to take pics with Messi when came to South Africa, dude has 2 of the top 3 instagram post of all time and has the second instagram followers without an extremely active poster. Did you see what happened when he moved to the MLS.
yeah and the next superstar in the social media era will have similar posts.
Besides we are talking about influence in football, not social media influence
Must be so easy being a sports journalist, just ask everyone about Messi/Ronaldo all the time, and get easy clicks.
I used to work for a sports media page and half of my job was just refreshing this subreddit to source quotes about Messi and Ronaldo to post on Twitter/Instagram. Was always the top-performing content by a mile.
I fucking knew it
it’s hardly a secret at this point with how many articles reference reddit and twitter comments
I even got £50 for a photo of mine the Daily Mail stole off Reddit
Was it paid out automatically or did you have to hound them for it?
That’s also a method for getting upvotes here - find a news story where they asked some schmuck about who the GOAT is, post it here and get like 3K upvotes guaranteed.
Can’t wait to exchange all my upvotes for cash one day.
Whats SM24? 😆
Unpopular opinion, but I don’t think he influenced much. Mostly because no one else can do what he did or can do. He’s extremely unique. His play influenced other false 9s for a very short time until they all failed and moved on. His play as a RW isn’t even attempted to be replicated. No one plays that position the way he does. New Messis pop up if they can dribble and are short. Until they turn 18 and it’s apparent they are too far off track.
The obvious next big name is Ronaldo who I actually think was influential and the most influential player of the last 20 years. Wingers before Ronaldo were cross merchants. Like Giggs. Like Figo. Like Beckham. Then Ronaldo changed how wingers got involved and they were expected to score as well. Now wingers leave the crossing to the full backs.
But no one more influential than Cruyff.
Pelé is the most influential, then Cruyff.
No matter what your favorite player does, Pelé did it first: https://youtu.be/vSpofyhs0P8?si=alNg7YqEo3il-mtq
Figo a cross merchant?! What?!
Yea that’s probably wrong on my part.
Rather wingers were more focused on assists. Figo was the assist leader in La Liga before Messi for example. But he also never scored more than 10 league goals in a season. And won his Balon on a season he scored 11 total goals.
Wingers before Ronaldo were cross merchants.
Motherfucking George Best crossing his way to 181 goals in 474 appearances at United.
I 100% believe messi to be the better player but imho the most influential player is probably CR7. Many young players and fans absolutely idolize him. And I don’t even think they idolize him for footballing reasons.
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…
Obviously there’s many ways to measure influence, but Franz Beckenbauer is worth a shout:
- As a player, one of the all-time greats
- Invented the libero position
- Also played in midfield with great success
- Captain of the first national team to win the Euros and the World Cup consecutively
- Captain of a Bayern team that won three consecutive European Cups
- Manager of World-Cup winning West German national side
- One of three people to win the World Cup both as player and manager
- Chair of Germany’s winning bid to host the World Cup (yes, tainted by corruption)
I’d still give the nod to Cruyff, though.
omg why do these boring ass quotes always get upvoted on here.
GOAT but …idk about influential… Let’s just look at Haaland scoring a billion goals by being a world class poacher… kind of like CR7 and being Haalands inspiration for how to move and get free space inside the box… How do you even get to what Messi does ? You look at Neymar skills and think …I can try that… But how do you weave and wriggle in between 5 players with just body feints and make passes that splits the whole team in half …every…single…match…
The most entertaining and pleasing to watch sure
but most influential? what did he influence lol how to make half a team look like fools? nobody does that but him nobody else does that like messi does
Best player - Messi Most influential - Cruyff
Best player: Pelé, Most influential: Pelé
Messi challenged his throne, and that’s legendary by itself
Pele is undoubtedly one of the greatest but he’s more of a pioneer because he did everything before anyone else, but for me, Messi edges it. As for influence, Cruyff literally changed the way football is played, so I think it’s fair to call him the most influential.
Pele is the most influential player ever. It’s not even close. He made the game truly global. Ffs they had ceasefires during wars to watch him play. Cruyff is the next because of play and managing. Then it’s Messi.