Messi for sure.

Messi chokes on PKs and then cries and retires from national team. Being the best is mental as well. Messi is great but not the best.

Also don’t forget Salah was also on a tear…

The crazy part is that Messi is considered a winger / attacking mid (like Neymar and salah) and Mbappe is a true forward (like Haaland)

Lol - Mbappe has an 81% pk make rate and Messi has a 77% make rate. With 100 more penalties taken …

What?

Messi can do it all. He can create for himself and as well as his teammates and is a goal scoring phenom. He's easily the most complete player.

I will agree though that those moments are holding him back from being the greatest ever.

Argentina puts their best at an attacking mid. Maradona was a magician.

Also I understand you might call Messi weak mentally but no one would survive the argentina press when you lose 3 finals in a row and everyone blames you when there is no on else on the team - messidependencia was real.

No denying his skills. It is just the mental part for me. How can you be the best and be around 75% effective at something that tends to be deciding factor in all major championships. Seems more often than not these big games end in Shots From the mark.

Think about what he has done at Barcelona with a supporting cast. I wouldn’t want to play on the national team if all they do is wine and complain and it was all corrupt at different levels inside AFA

I miss peak Zlatan. That guy had the craziest skillset

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Imagine if the USA could ever develop a player like him!

Berhalter would probably only use him as a sub.

Lmao - you’ve been a participant of this thread since day 1 and you have constantly corrected people about the smallest shit that didn’t matter. Or when you do you have this entitled tone behind your posts.

Literally the point was how we damn near won the game but got scored on in the 95th minute by Ronaldo, but because it was Ronaldo who made the assist and not the goal you felt the need to quote and reply to that tiny mistake.

If you were a bro, or a cool person, your response would have been “I believe it was Ronaldo who made the assist, not the score but yeah”. Instead you have some entitled tone behind your post that really doesn’t correct the point of the post just the smallest body part of it.

So you got upset because you misinterpreted the tone. Got it .

Oh please. The best penalty takers aren't necessarily the top 50 players in history. Guys like Le Tissier, Brehme, Shearer were awesome penalty takers, but they're not on Messi's level as players. Messi is the best player of our generation, along with Ronaldo. He's decent at penalties but not great. There's other things he's not great at offensively (headers). I wouldn't call him a choker or question his mental fortitude. He's been playing under immense pressure for over a decade now and delivering unlike anyone else.

Because there's more to soccer besides penalties. Messi is about 80% from penalties in his career (at least he was recently). Ronaldo around 85%. I haven't seen the recent stats but I wouldn't put too much stock in penalties in deciding who the best players are.