Sad to see one of the greatest dribblers of a football and such an iconic player slowly being forgotten like this. Messu and Ronaldo really did do a number on him, huh.

I see people talking about "oh he played during Messi Ronaldo era it was unfair" dude Harry Kane played for trophyless tottenham most of his life, he's only a year younger.

The staggering difference between Harry Kane and Neymar shows one thing, no matter how talented you are, if you don't work hard, you will lose to the person who goes at it again and again day in and day out, its rather inspirational really to see this happen in football

Nothing short of embarrassing

To preface this, I am a Coventry fan. I will always have a place in my heart for Gyokeres so this isn’t a completely unbiased take.

But the things I see about him are ridiculous to me. I’ve been seeing slander from even his own fanbase from the second he made his debut. He gets no recognition when he performs, and last night I still see people hating on him for no apparent reason. “I don’t care he scored a goal” that’s one more thing than any other Arsenal player could do.

It’s not his fault that nobody creates for him. In 5 premier league games this season he has only had one shot. Meanwhile Havertz gets all the chances in the world, 14 shots in his 8 games. Yes, Gyokeres has been a sub for some of them but in the one game he started he got an assist.

His numbers are better than anyone recognises. Outperformed his xG last season. Goals every 161 minutes - better than Ekitike, Pedro, Welbeck, Watkins, Mbeumo, Palmer, Semenyo, etc. And still nobody appreciated him for it. Instead they focus on every time he makes any sort of mistake. But what does he do wrong? Never missed a penalty for Arsenal, scored in the CL final shootout, and in the semi final first leg. His “bad games” are due to his play style and the way Arsenal are set up. He’s not, and never was, as striker who was very involved in the build up. Keep giving him the ball in the box and he will score.

I really think he needs to leave Arsenal, not because he’s not good enough, but Arsenal isn’t really for him and he’s still making it work as well as he can and the spotlight really doesn’t help him.

Mbappe was not even playing as a forward or a striker when PSG was getting knocked out by Bayern..

But now since he is gone people act like he was the problem??

I often come accross "x player does not shoot, or cross" "why would x player not just cross it there"

"How could player miss" "that was never a red card" (this one comes down to anyone who has played any level higher than the park with the boys).

And whilst you're there live, you see a completely different interpretation. I dont think those fans realisise how small and compresed a pitch is, how each player actually ocupies a lot of space, how when taking a goal kick, everyone rushes to one corner etc.

Anyway, some takes are just based on a 2d reality.

Invest in this man guys. He is the future.

Why people just talk about messi and ronaldo when the goat debate happens,i really see r9 ,maradona , neymar,george best,cruffy,Zidane etc are just amezing and fav also,apart from that in my view why people don't talk about Ronaldinho.

He is the most skillfull,great dribbler and scorer also ,for me i consider ronaldinho as goat .

I know messi is greatest dribbler and cr7 is best goal scorer and skill player and i love both of them and enjoyed the both of them peak era's.

Don't you think that Ronaldinho is greatest of all time player 🤔?

In recent years, Ronaldo fans have started discrediting the entire World Cup just to downplay Messi winning it. Like bitch, are we actually doing this? 😭😭

The World Cup is THE most prestigious tournament in the entire sporting world not just football, and it's not even close in terms of cultural significance. My grandmother, who lives under a literal rock and barely watches TV, knows when the World Cup is happening. That's how big this shit is.

Football is a whole different thing in countries like Argentina and Brazil. It's not just a sport; it's literally part of their identity. Players have been killed, vilified, and hated by an entire nation over their performances. Just ask the family of Andrés Escobar, who was murdered in Colombia in 1994, following his own goal at that year's World Cup. Ask Higuaín how it feels to be ridiculed for over a decade because of missed chances in finals. Ask the French how they still wonder what would've happened in 2006 if Zidane hadn't headbutted Materazzi. These moments become part of a country's history, and the players involved have to live with them for the rest of their lives.

And that's what people don't understand about the World Cup. The pressure is on a completely different level. You get one shot every four years, and sometimes your entire country's hopes rest on your shoulders. You fuck up, and there's no next season to make things right. No transfer to a different club. No UCL next year to distract everyone. You might not even get another chance at the tournament.

Compare that to the UCL. Obviously, it's an elite competition, and winning it is an incredible achievement. But let's not pretend the mental pressure is anywhere near the same. You miss a penalty in a UCL knockout game, and you'll get trolled for a year or two before people move on. Unless you're Gabriel, apparently. 💀

But win a World Cup for your country, and you're immortal. Generations will remember you. Your name becomes part of your country's footballing history. You're not just a footballer anymore; you're a national hero.

**You can win 10 UCLs and still never experience what it means to bring a World Cup home to your country.** The UCL is the pinnacle of club football, but the World Cup is something else entirely. They're not the same thing, and pretending otherwise just because your favourite player never won one is pure cope.

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.

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

Obviously it's not the same as an assist (different skills) so it shouldn't be tracked with assists (like I've seen suggested), but winning a pen usually means you were threatening enough to force a foul in the box.

Sure sometimes a pen is just gifted by a defender brainfart, but that's also true of most stats we track already like successful dribbles.

It's a huge, often match-defining moment that wins a goal 70-80% of the time, and yet it's never tracked. People measure everything including things that matter much less, but somehow not 75% of a goal. It's odd.

In these 2 games, Mbappe dropped massive stinkers which led to his team losing

This was just before the deadline closed and considering the vote difference between Mbappe and Kane was tiny

This idiot really bottled the Ballon Dor by ghosting in these 2 games. It’s hilarious

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.

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...

Confuses me to no end that obvious dives are a yellow but going down in pain only to get right back up because play is continuing isnt. It's embarrassing.

I've been seeing a lot of posts where people say that, since Harry Kane won this Ballon d'Or, it means the 2023 Ballon d'Or was stolen. Here's some quick context: Messi won the Ballon d'Or because of his World Cup performance, and this year, none of the players who won the World Cup won the Ballon d'Or. As a result, people think the World Cup doesn't matter as much as they thought and that it was only given so Messi could win.

Well, to start with, Haaland was one of the strongest candidates to win the 2023 Ballon d'Or because he had an incredible club season, winning not only the Champions League but also other trophies such as the Premier League, the FA Cup, and the UEFA Super Cup. He also won individual awards, including being the top scorer in both the Champions League and the Premier League, as well as winning the European Golden Shoe. The only problem was that Norway didn't qualify for the World Cup, unlike England in 2026.

What I'm trying to say is that Harry Kane not only had a good club season but also performed well at the World Cup. He won the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, and on top of that, he finished as the second-highest scorer in the previous Champions League campaign, just one goal behind Mbappé, while Bayern Munich reached the semifinals. Meanwhile, with England, Harry Kane reached the World Cup semifinals, losing only to Argentina throughout the tournament, and he also finished fifth or sixth among the tournament's top scorers. What I'm trying to say is that if you're going to compare a current player to the "2023 Haaland," the most logical comparison would be Kvaratskhelia, who had an excellent club season but didn't play in the World Cup.

Messi, during the 2022–2023 season, won the World Cup, where he was the best player and the second-top scorer, just one goal behind Mbappé. He also won Ligue 1 and the Leagues Cup, and his individual statistics (goals + assists) were still good.

Just keep in mind that the World Cup carries a lot of weight when choosing the Ballon d'Or winner because a player can only play in a maximum of six World Cups throughout their career, whereas the Champions League takes place every year. Why do you think Rodri finished in fourth place despite not scoring any goals or providing any assists? It's simply because he won the World Cup's Best Player award (although I think Messi or even Mbappé deserved it more). If Lamine had performed well at the World Cup, considering he was already a key player in the Spanish Super Cup and La Liga, it would have been pretty obvious that he would have won it. Also, Iniesta finished in 2nd place in the 2010 Ballon d'Or just for winning the World Cup, but his stats were really lacking at his club and in the World Cup. If Iniesta had won that ballon door is the equivalent as if Ferran Torres would be chosen over Harry Kane 2026 just for his one goal in the final.

In other words, Messi did deserve the 2023 Ballon d'Or because he had an excellent World Cup and a good club season. Meanwhile, Haaland had the best club season but didn't play a single match at the World Cup. However, it's worth emphasizing that if Haaland had qualified for the World Cup and reached the round of 16, or even just made it to the group stage, he would have had a very good chance of winning it.

Neymar's first season (first 6 months) was his peak right before he got injured