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Lionel Messi completely deserved to win the Golden Ball
Lionel Messi completely deserved to win the Golden Ball, because he was brilliant at the World Cup
The decision to award Lionel Messi the Golden Ball moments after he had lost in a World Cup final was certainly a strange one, but any suggestion that he didn’t deserve to win it is, quite frankly, utterly mental.
Messi was superb, brilliant, incredible… all of the other words, in Brazil at once. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed? Let us show you the ways:
Teams set up their entire defence in order to stop him
It’s easier to do great things when the team you are playing against hasn’t decided to man mark you with all of their players.
Iran did this brilliantly for 90 minutes but all it took was a yard of space against tired legs and this happened:
messi-space
leo-messi-space-2
messi-nigeria-1
Yes, James Rodriguez was absolutely superb throughout the tournament but teams didn’t focus almost all of their attention on just him, all of the time. Messi hasn’t had the space that Rodriguez got for his brilliant volley for about eight years, in any competition. He probably gets man marked when he goes to Tesco.
A little known secret about Messi is that there is one way you are guaranteed to stop him, and that is to foul him repeatedly. Messi “suffered” 26 tackles in the tournament, a number bettered only by Alexis Sanchez (34), Neymar (35) and Arjen Robben (31).
The major difference between some of these players (HINT: NEYMAR AND ROBBEN) and the Argentina captain is that he never dives. Not that they do of course. (HINT: THEY DO, A LOT)
http://babb.telegraph.co.uk/2014/07/...the-world-cup/
The decision to award Lionel Messi the Golden Ball moments after he had lost in a World Cup final was certainly a strange one, but any suggestion that he didn’t deserve to win it is, quite frankly, utterly mental.
Messi was superb, brilliant, incredible… all of the other words, in Brazil at once. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed? Let us show you the ways:
Teams set up their entire defence in order to stop him
It’s easier to do great things when the team you are playing against hasn’t decided to man mark you with all of their players.
Iran did this brilliantly for 90 minutes but all it took was a yard of space against tired legs and this happened:
messi-space
leo-messi-space-2
messi-nigeria-1
Yes, James Rodriguez was absolutely superb throughout the tournament but teams didn’t focus almost all of their attention on just him, all of the time. Messi hasn’t had the space that Rodriguez got for his brilliant volley for about eight years, in any competition. He probably gets man marked when he goes to Tesco.
A little known secret about Messi is that there is one way you are guaranteed to stop him, and that is to foul him repeatedly. Messi “suffered” 26 tackles in the tournament, a number bettered only by Alexis Sanchez (34), Neymar (35) and Arjen Robben (31).
The major difference between some of these players (HINT: NEYMAR AND ROBBEN) and the Argentina captain is that he never dives. Not that they do of course. (HINT: THEY DO, A LOT)
http://babb.telegraph.co.uk/2014/07/...the-world-cup/
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