The Lional Messi Thread

[robdog 2,084]

who needs Da Messiah when you have this guy:

[capriccioso 2,545]

The Shark of Messina is closer to being the greatest of all time than The Messiah.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Also why is it that defenders are never mentioned in debates of GOAT players? This about says it all, I think:

IMO Maldini > Messi.

[Spike 12,049]

Also why is it that defenders are never mentioned in debates of GOAT players? This about says it all, I think:

IMO Maldini > Messi.

Yet, Maldini was booed by the Milan Ultras upon his last home game for the club.

This guy wasn't.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Yet, Maldini was booed by the Milan Ultras upon his last home game for the club.

This guy wasn't.

Who would boo Maldini? What's there to dislike about him?

[Spike 12,049]

Who would boo Maldini? What's there to dislike about him?

He made some nasty comments about the Milan support. He called them things along the lines of 'glory hunters', 'plastic' and 'spoiled'. So he was heavily booed during his last game at Giuseppe Meazza.

[capriccioso 2,545]

He made some nasty comments about the Milan support. He called them things along the lines of 'glory hunters', 'plastic' and 'spoiled'. So he was heavily booed during his last game at Giuseppe Meazza.

Perhaps he is telling the truth. They certainly were spoilt seeing guys like Maldini strut their stuff for a quarter century.

[capriccioso 2,545]

And re: Messi doping:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/messi-neymar-included-in-fifa-antidoping-trials/203309-5-21.html

If they're copying the UCI's methods, as a cycling fan, I can tell you that the biopassport is not reliable and can be cheated on easily.

[Spike 12,049]

And re: Messi doping:

http://ibnlive.in.co...03309-5-21.html

If they're copying the UCI's methods, as a cycling fan, I can tell you that the biopassport is not reliable and can be cheated on easily.

It's not really doping with Messi as he needed Performance enhancing drugs to be a fully functional adult, it was used as medicine not to improve his footballing. A lot of cyclists take performance enhancing drugs to be better cyclists but Messi was perscribed them aid his puberty developement.

It's not as if he still takes them. It would be a completely different thing if he still took them.

[capriccioso 2,545]

It's not really doping with Messi as he needed Performance enhancing drugs to be a fully functional adult, it was used as medicine not to improve his footballing. A lot of cyclists take performance enhancing drugs to be better cyclists but Messi was perscribed them aid his puberty developement.

It's not as if he still takes them. It would be a completely different thing if he still took them.

I wasn't talking about the hormones, I was talking about allegations of him/Barcelona still doping. They could get away with it through blood transfusions, which the biopassport cannot pick up. Doping in football and cycling is much more geared towards improving recovery rather than improving physical ability. So if Barcelona were doping they could spend a lot more training time on technique as they wouldn't have to worry about getting players fit for the next game.

Here's a brief article on the biopassport:

Several of the UCI’s biological passport experts have voiced concerns that riders may be continuing to dope in races such as the Tour de France, albeit at a smaller scale than in the past. The bio-passport was heralded as a major breakthrough when it was launched by the UCI, but as Floyd Landis recently highlighted, it is possible for athletes to circumvent the controls by using micro-doses of substances such as EPO.

“I’m afraid things are as bad as they’ve ever been,” said Michael Ashenden, an Australian anti-doping expert, to Bloomberg. “I’m not saying they’re using the same degree of doping. What I see is the incidence of riders trying to dope and avoid detection isn’t very different to how it has been throughout history.”

Landis recently confessed to taking banned substances for most of his professional career, including 2006, the year he won the Tour de France. He was subsequently disqualified after he tested positive for large levels of testosterone. Subsequent examinations showed that he was using synthetic testosterone, thus invalidating his claims that his natural levels were high.

The former US Postal Service team rider implicated various team-mates, including Lance Armstrong. In a recent interview, he then outlined how some riders are managing to side-step the biological passport. According to Landis, blood transfusions are used to make the most gains, with micro-doses of EPO being used to mask the tell-tale drop in reticulocytes (new red blood cells) which then occurs.

It was thought that EPO would be traceable for several days, but Landis said that the window of detection drops to six to eight hours if the drug is injected into a vein rather than into muscle, as had previously been the preferred method.

BMC Racing rider Thomas Frei recently made similar suggestions, and said that once a rider drinks a litre of water, then the hormone cannot be traced the next day. He failed a test for EPO but said that he had not consumed the required amount of liquid.

“You can escape,” confirmed French bio-passport expert Michel Audran. “Cheats adapt quickly to doping detection methods.”

The UCI bio-passport system depends on the UCI to make the initial call as to which profiles are suspect. The scientists on the board are then sent an email with details of the abnormal readings. They are not told the identity of the riders in question, and must make a judgement based on those values as to whether or not the levels are suspect.

According to Ashenden, he has seen some profiles which are suggestive that manipulation is taking place, but that the levels involved are not pronounced enough for sanctions to be applied.

Fortunately, Yorck Olaf Schumacher believes that the controls are at least reducing the advantage that unscrupulous riders can gain.

“You will never catch all the cheats for sure but the door is narrowing,” he said. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to squeeze through.”

Robin Parisotto, who is also part of the bio-passport committee, thinks that progress is being made, but that it is important to keep the pressure on, and continue to perfect anti-doping methods.

“I still believe there are pure, clean sporting performances out there but there is still a long way to go,” he said.

The UCI currently only screens for certain blood markers. It plans to introduce steroid profiling next year, and this should succeed in tightening the net a little more.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4723/Bio-passport-experts-worried-some-riders-are-side-stepping-controls.aspx#ixzz212vziSFU

[Spike 12,049]

I wasn't talking about the hormones, I was talking about allegations of him/Barcelona still doping. They could get away with it through blood transfusions, which the biopassport cannot pick up. Doping in football and cycling is much more geared towards improving recovery rather than improving physical ability. So if Barcelona were doping they could spend a lot more training time on technique as they wouldn't have to worry about getting players fit for the next game.

I hope it isn't true. Serie A never recovered from Calciopoli and this would essentially make La Liga a monopoly for the next decade. The day when Valencia regains La Liga is when everything will be alright with the world.

[capriccioso 2,545]

I hope it isn't true. Serie A never recovered from Calciopoli and this would essentially make La Liga a monopoly for the next decade. The day when Valencia regains La Liga is when everything will be alright with the world.

Don't worry about it. I'm so cynical these days that I work off the assumption that 9/10 are doping. I'm sure PL players, and even clubs, indulge in it.

I can 100% guarantee it's happening in Spain though. Operation Puerto busted a Spanish doctor as well as cycling stars (who were instantly exposed- kudos to the UCI on that), tennis stars and footballers that had been involved in a program of doping, all controlled by Dr. Fuentes.

On 5 July 2006, Fuentes was indignant that only cyclists had been named and said he also worked with tennis and football players. On 27 July 2006, IAAF was assured by Spanish prosecutors that no track and field athletes were involved. On 23 September 2006, former cyclist Jesús Manzano told reporters from France 3 that he had seen "well-known footballers" from La Liga visit the offices of Dr Fuentes.

In May 2007 Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, at a World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in Montreal, was reportedly interested in the contents "of the Puerto file". Le Monde had reported in December 2006 that they had possession of documents of Fuentes detailing "seasonal preparation plans" for Spanish football clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. These plans did not specifically name any players.

[bababoom 4,478]

He's got it all, best player in the world, no debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6mXp99kDE8&list=FLovgJg0S6DoJ_K3XnY5i9zw&index=1&feature=plpp_video

[blueghost 0]

F*ck Him!!

[capriccioso 2,545]

He's got it all, best player in the world, no debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6mXp99kDE8&list=FLovgJg0S6DoJ_K3XnY5i9zw&index=1&feature=plpp_video

There's no doubting that. It's the best of all time that I disagree with.

[capriccioso 2,545]

Let's re examine his HGH treatment:

He got it at Barcelona at age 12-13, when it was already apparent he had massive potential technically. He was already at the club when they gave it to him. He was a sportsman at that point, it should be illegal. It would be in other sports. It's not like they gave him HGH before he showed the potential to be the player of his generation.

It's no different to what US Postal did with Lance Armstrong. Actually I take that back, its a world apart. Lance showed no potential whatsoever to be anything other than an average cyclist. Messi on the other hand had abnormal levels of technical ability at 13, it was clear that with careful coaching and a big increase in size he could go on to be a very good player. Though he has been unprecedentedly good.

[Spike 12,049]

Let's re examine his HGH treatment:

He got it at Barcelona at age 12-13, when it was already apparent he had massive potential technically. He was already at the club when they gave it to him. He was a sportsman at that point, it should be illegal. It would be in other sports. It's not like they gave him HGH before he showed the potential to be the player of his generation.

It's no different to what US Postal did with Lance Armstrong. Actually I take that back, its a world apart. Lance showed no potential whatsoever to be anything other than an average cyclist. Messi on the other hand had abnormal levels of technical ability at 13, it was clear that with careful coaching and a big increase in size he could go on to be a very good player. Though he has been unprecedentedly good.

There was no gaurantee that he was going to make it, just because he showed potential doesn't mean a thing. He was a child a that time and from a poor family that couldn't afford treatment, the fact that you say he can't do what he loves because of illness sickens me. I've said it once I'll say it again a 12 year old taking Growth hormones is different to an adult taking them. If he were to take them now, I would be against it, but as a sick 12 year old? I'd say that is fair.

[capriccioso 2,545]

There was no gaurantee that he was going to make it, just because he showed potential doesn't mean a fucking thing. He was a child a that time and from a poor family that couldn't afford treatment, the fact that you say he can't do what he loves because of illness sickens me. I've said it once I'll say it again a 12 year old taking Growth hormones is different to an adult taking them. If he were to take them now, I would be against it, but as a sick 12 year old? I'd say that is fair.

Do you think they would have offered to pay for the treatment if Messi had been some street kid with no talent whatsoever?

[Spike 12,049]

Do you think they would have offered to pay for the treatment if Messi had been some street kid with no talent whatsoever?

Stop taking things to extremes, I never once said or implied that Messi was 'just some street kid with no talent'. Just because one is talented as a child doesn't mean necessarily translate to being a talented adult.

[1chelsea 864]

There was no gaurantee that he was going to make it, just because he showed potential doesn't mean a fucking thing. He was a child a that time and from a poor family that couldn't afford treatment, the fact that you say he can't do what he loves because of illness sickens me. I've said it once I'll say it again a 12 year old taking Growth hormones is different to an adult taking them. If he were to take them now, I would be against it, but as a sick 12 year old? I'd say that is fair.

love your reasonableness.