I used to be football mad growing up, I played regularly and went to various international tournaments following England. When I got to my late 20s I lost interest in it totally.

To me, football became so monetised, so corporate, that it lost its appeal.

Things like FFP, changing of major tournament formats, where teams play them, taking knees, wearing rainbows and ever increasing prices made me lose love for the game.

When you look at top clubs, they have shareholders, corporate sponsors and media and PR departments.

It got to the point where I realised people are paying to watch a business perform, not a club.

It’s like watching Tesco PLC play Lloyds Banking Group.

When you start to see this, you look at fans buying shirts or insulting people online over their team and think ‘that’s embarrassing’.

You wouldn’t stand outside Tesco and sing ‘Tesco till I die’. You wouldn’t go to Sainsbury’s and give people abuse while shopping there.

That’s my spicy take: football fans are just corporate fanboys.

Luckily Harry Kane was not offended and replied to Henry normally.

These were their stats and mbappe is just too much ahead and they both played in the same league

Yes in wc messi was better but mbappe was second and top scorer of wc

Mbappe was much better than messi in ligue 1 than messi was in wc or international than mbappe overall

Mbappe also won ligue 1 pots and ligue 1 golden Boot

Also mbappe wasn't that far behind in terms of chances created and has more dribbles and xg than messi

I think mbappe should have won this but yeah whatever now it is

World class player, ultra consistent and did it over 8 years in the Premier League and also got a golden boot in 21/22.

However, I do think it gets to a point where his kind demeanour and conduct outside of football are hugely admirable, but hear some people put him in conversations he doesn't belong.

His flaws from when I watched Spurs were: hold-up and aerial threat (6ft), crossing ability and I remember him being quite poor against low blocks.

I also think there is a reason none of the big teams really came in to sign him pre 2020.

I think he's in the same tier as other PL forwards such as: Vardy, Sterling and Mahrez.

He sits below the likes of: Mane, RVP, Drogba and Yorke IMO.

Have I got this completely wrong?

I don’t get why La Liga gets a pass in the “farmers league” debate. The point isn’t that a league has no good teams. It’s that a few elite clubs can make the league look stronger than the quality across the rest of it. La Liga has Real and Barca, but that doesn’t mean the teams they score against are good.

People still use the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 to dismiss players’ numbers, even though Leverkusen won the Bundesliga and Monaco and Lille have won Ligue 1. Those exceptions don’t suddenly make the leagues deep. So why is Atlético supposed to prove La Liga is different? One team breaking up the usual title race doesn’t change the quality of the league week to week.

If you’re going to discount goals because a league has too many weak teams, apply that same standard to La Liga. The Premier League is miles ahead in depth. La Liga is much closer to the leagues people call farmers leagues than it is to the Premier League.

That’s my spicy take.

Bale so obviously better than Neymar, individually and career wise. But it feels like the consensus would put Neymar above.

Edit:

See a lot of downvotes for saying Neymar is overrated. He’s obviously extremely good. But his name carries the weight of one of the all time greats. His career panned out to be, individually impressive but with 1 CL and 2 La Liga being him best titles, not what you call a
Career of a great. I don’t think that’s spicy to say at all and quite commonly accepted that his career didn’t reach his potential.

Bale on the other hand, not considered one of the all time greats, but has 5 champions leagues and 3 La liga. It’s just not even close to me, and my surprise to see people putting Neymar ahead of bale.

Because only Messi can do what Messi does with the ball. I always hear people say if Messi won it in this year why didn’t x player win the ballon D’or this year. And the answer is simple, they weren’t Messi so how can you make that comparison. You can copy his stats, maybe even his dribbling but you can never be Messi.

The vote is out, CR7 wins the France Football B.O.A.T award for his 2008 achievement with Man United. Reminder that this is not an official award, as the winner was chosen by popular public vote and not France Football journalists. You had to pay 1 pound to cast a vote.

Making the Ballon d’Or fan voted would be unbelievably stupid. Imagine having the season of your life and losing because someone else’s fan accounts organised a bigger voting campaign

You might as well give the trophy to whoever wins an Instagram poll. And to the Ronaldo fans pushing this because they think he’d win - you’re basically admitting you trust his fanbase more than his performances. “Our guy has more supporters, so let us pick the winner” is playground logic. The complete lack of self-awareness is embarrassing.

Fans would pick their favourite before a ball was even kicked, then spend the season defending that choice regardless of what happened. You’d turn an award for footballing achievement into a competition over whose fanbase can spam a voting link hardest.

Best option is to make ballon Dor voted by players and managers

As the title says…..

messi was the most deserving winner and the only one who came close was xavi not sniejder, here's why-

back then the ballondor was judged by the CALENDAR YEAR PERFORMANCE not the seasonal performance, mess in 2010 had -

60 goals[highest of any player that year] and 17 assists [0.94 goals per appearance {highest of any player that year] , 1.20 goal contribution per game[highest]

messi was the first person after gerd muller to score 60+goals .

messi won laliga [won laliga with 99 points and messi was the mvp+topscorer] and super copa de espana[scored the hattrick in the final to win barca the title]

messi that year also won the pichichi award,european golden boot , ucl golden boot and the laliga MVP.

he was also argentina's best player[people who watched the 2010 world would know how magical he was]

Sneijder didn't win Serie A MVP (Milito did), UCL MVP (Milito again), or the World Cup Golden Ball (Forlán did). On top of that, Sneijder fell off in the second half of the season, while Messi maintained elite consistency from start to finish.

Invest in this man guys. He is the future.

Neymar is like 1 year older than Kane. While Neymar is WASHED, Kane is more or less peaking. They will say "but, but Neymar played in the Messi and CR7 era". I feel like this excuse shouldn't be allowed. Neymar got several injuries before his body couldn't keep up anymore, yes.But it is known that he didn't take good care of his body as well.

Now this may sound like i hate Neymar, i don't. He was obviously an all time player at his peak, but people should realize that you can be a great player and still be overrated by the mass and i feel like Neymar gets a lot of passes other players aren't getting...

L'est be fr actually Bundes its Just behind premier

And slighty Better than la liga and Serie a

While ligue 1 usualy their teams expect PSG are awful

Monaco Wouldent finish top 5 in bundes

We all have different definitions, mine is a bad definition to be honest its just who I feel like. Its not a hard top 5 cutoff, because some positions are loaded (midfield) while others are lacking (there are not 5 world class left backs in the world). Anyways, heres my list (not in order of world-classness).

Goalkeeper: Raya, Courtois, Joan Garcia, Yassine Bonou when he plays for Morocoo.

Left Back: Nuno Mendes, Cucurella

Center Backs: Saliba, Gabriel, Pacho, Upamecano, Cubarsi borderline not yet

Right Back: Hakimi, Timber in one more year.

Midfielders: Pedri, Bellingham, Vitinha, Declan Rice, Rodri, Joao Neves, Kimmich

Left Wingers: Kvara, Luiz Dias, Vinicius

Right Wingers: Olise, Yamal

Strikers: Kane, Raphina, Mbappe

EDIT - Forgotten but should be here: Caicedo, Haaland, Messi

Messi in 2009 , 2011,2012,2015

Ronaldo in 2008,2014,2016,2017

So many people always talk about how leaving Barca was a mistake for his career when it was clear that he had to leave for so many reasons. I’ll start with the hotter, less obvious points.

1. I remember one of points being bought up was that he left because he thought that he could be the main guy at PSG like Messi… and he was right. It wasn’t fuelled by ego or resentment for Messi having the spotlight, on contrary Neymar adores Messi. Neymar’s quality as player was so good that only he and Messi could influence a game in the ways that they did in that era. Messi’s free roaming playmaking, dribbling in the midfield, elite passing and scoring, vision, Neymar built all that up as well and was actively fulfilling that role for Brazil already in the later years of his Barca career. Mind you NO ONE could do it like Messi, but Neymar really was close. He could not be kept on the wing high and wide like he’s a 19 year old flashy kid again when his game had evolved to such an elite all-round playmaking standard. He genuinely COULD play the Messi role for another team and it made sense for him to go out and do that.

2. Obvious point here, man, Barca was broke. No chance in hell they could afford MSN’s wages at the same time and honestly that was a big part of why he, and later Saurez had to go. The literal GOAT also had to leave somewhat unceremoniously because the of the wage problems.

3. As to why the PSG move “failed”, injures from overuse. Neymar best season as a player came while he was at PSG and he reached a UCL final with them, he was definitely succeeding as player as expected. Injuries killed everything because he’d been playing a ridiculous amount of football since before he even joined Barca. Fans where fighting for him to join the 2010 WC squad already while he was 17, he played the 2011 Copa América and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup before joining Barca. He had 257 senior club and international appearances combined BEFORE even putting on Barca shirt. The amount of football he played with how demanding his style of play was (his own choice) caused his injuries to mount and cut his career short.

Going unbeaten is iconic, but is not the same as being the best. City got 100 points, 106 goals scored, won 32 and finished 19 points clear. The Invincibles got 90 points scored 73 and drew 12 games.

Twelve draws is too many point man. City were winning a game every other week.