Why Lionel Messi is(n't) the best footballer ever

Diego Maradona

This part refers to the rather cheeky “[n't]” added to the title of the article, so if you are Messi fan who doesn’t want a reason to believe that Messi isn’t the best ever footballer, please go sip on a nice hot cup of shut the hell up while I present a logical reason to contradict (or should I just say ‘add a dimension’?) to my previous argument.

Why would Messi be placed on a comparatively lowly 13th rank while other people who just weren’t as good as him placed significantly higher? The reason is as simple as they get: competition.

While Cristiano Ronaldo may not have even featured in our top 20 list, he alone is the reason why Messi can never become #1. Players can very rarely be compared with the figures who had graced the game in the past, since all the ratings ever made were based on their peers in that era, and not a marking system based on the players to come in the future.

Maradona was head, shoulders and knees beyond any player who had the misfortune of playing in the same era. Messi, while being significantly more talented than Maradona, can’t be placed in the same echelons of football due to his stellar compatriots and opponents, can never be considered ‘the best ever’.

He might be better than anyone who had put on football boots, but his ‘better-ness’ (new concept, new phrase!) as compared to the people in his era is nothing special. Messi might be the best player in the world right now, but he won’t be for long. The human gene is evolving.

The person who will break Messi’s record is born already. It’s the people like Maradona who find their way to the numero uno spot. Not because they were better than Messi, but because they were better at the game in their situation, with their opponents, with their equipment, in their time.

And therefore, till Messi does something that will place him apart, something that will prove that he isn’t just the best footballer in the planet, but one from a different universe altogether, he will have to be content with the 13th rank. All the best to him.