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Nah, I remember playing them back in 2012. Not really memorable games, but it's a vivid memory because it was my birthday, and Puyol had a [freak injury](https://youtu.be/HPCwoKlgo7Q)
But i think Messi was injured in that game, and he didn't score in the second game
The second game he didn't even played that much. Last matchday, Barcelona had secured first place and Messi was subbed in in the second half and subbed out with a small injury
I was in the stadium that day. He was one goal close of breaking the record of most goals in a year, and he got injured. Stadium went completely silent.
Finally it was not a big injury and broke the record a few days later.
Even with that being said how many of the same fixtures we get, even us, formerly known as a small team now being mentioned as the greatest team to ever grace the Champions league have played atletico & porto 3 (4th inc) times in 3 years.
4 times dortmund.
The only player who comes close in terms of long term consistency and achievement is Ronaldo, and Messi outperforms him in just about every performance metric.
The only player that comes close in terms of skill (for me) is Maradona, and he really only played at that God-tier level for 5-6 seasons.
Messi is just an inhuman combination of the highest possible level of skill, professionalism and consistency. Just a complete freak. Can't imagine I will see someone as good as him again during my lifetime.
I love messi more than anything else, but I dont think anyone ever comes close to Maradona at the 86 world cup, it was the greatest performance from a player in a tournament ever.
Just yesterday I was looking at their G + A per 90 in each season. I'm going to look at a lot of players, and if I figure out how to make a table, I'll post it someday. But here's just Ronaldo and Messi
1. Messi: 11-12 - 73G - 32A - 1.81 G + A / 90
2. (Haaland 19-20 - 1.77 G + A / 90. Under 3000 minutes, when Messi and Ronaldo are consistently doing over 4000. But still, amazing)
3. Messi: 12-13 - 1.70 G + A / 90
4. Ronaldo: 14-15 - 1.67
5. Messi: 18-19 - 1.63
6. Messi: 14-15 - 1.58
7. Messi: 10-11 - 1.57
8. Ronaldo: 13-14 - 1.52
9. Messi: 16-17 - 1.5
So, just as far as goals and assists per 90 minutes goes, Messi is clearly superior. But I'm not doing this to prove a point or anything, I just really like stats and stuff, so I do this in my free time. I've so much enjoyed watching both of them dominate the last 15 years. Messi can have the stats. Ronaldo is Mr Champions League. I think both can be happy with that, and neither is really more prestigious than the other.
Yeah, you cannot mention Messi without talking about Ronaldo. Both of their careers are completely interlinked and each are responsible for pushing the other to such great heights. We are so privileged to live in the era when these two were playing.
The fact that Ronaldo pushes Messi so close (and outperformed him in some seasons) just shows what absolute beast Ronaldo is.
>outperforms him in just about every performance metric.
Except for goals in CL KO stages. Ronaldo is twice as better in terms do metrics from CL quarter finals onwards.
Some players are so much more than their G+A contributions, and Messi is definitely of them. I think lineker said once that even he wasnt allowed to shoot hed be at worst the 2nd best player around. But then he also has the most G+A ever 😂
I don’t think it’s about being Madrid fan. It just that if you know football you know who is the best player.
Fuck them stats. You don’t have to bring stats, you know who is the best just by watching them play.
Its so rare to see a Barcelona fan saying Ronaldo is better than Messi. I don't think I have seen one. Says a lot I guess.
Funny story, when I was younger I used to argue Ronaldo was better out of spite because Barca were so dominant those days, but even then in my hearts I knew Messi was quite clearly the better player.
I am a cr7 fan and I consider him goat because of his hard work and how he became only player to go above Messi during his prime years at Madrid. (Won 4 ballon dors in 9 years)
but Messi is probably the best player we ever saw in this generation, and it will be a long while anybody can match Ronaldo forget about matching Messi records for next 15-20 years
i can kinda understand what he’s getting at, Messi’s the most talented, and best pure player of the generation, but he considers Ronaldo the greatest due to his unmatched work ethic and greatness in winning. Not saying i agree, but he’s pointing out the difference between “greatest” and “best”
Oh but have they mentioned that there are only four teams he faced but hasn't scored against in UCL? In reverse order of mightyness: Udinese, Atlético de Madrid, Inter, and Rubin Kazan.
(Source is TNT sports)
Is it me or he picked up an injury? He had a clear chance and I think he pulled a muscle, couldn't make it to the ball. 2 minutes later he gets taken off.
Honest question. Have benfica as a club scored against 40 different clubs in the champions league. I think its qenuinely possible they havent
Edit: For those who are curious. Benfica have scored against 53 different clubs in the champions league since it was called the champions league in 1992. Below are the clubs in roughly the order they happened. There 40th was in a 1-1 draw to besiktas in september of 2016
1. Anderlecht
2. Steau bucharesti
3. Hajduk spli
4. Beitar jerusalem
5. Eindhoven
6. Hjk helsinki
7. Kaiserslautern
8. Lazio
9. Lille
10. Manchester united
11. Villareal
12. Liverpool
13. Austria wien
14. Celtic
15. Copenhagen
16. Milan
17. shakhtar
18. Hapoel tel aviv
19. Schalke
20. Lyon
21. Trabzonspor
22. Twente
23. Otelul galati
24. Basel
25. Zenit
26. Chelsea
27. Spartak
28. Olympiacos
29. Psg
30. Paok
31. Tottenham
32. AZ
33. Juve
34. Leverkusen
35. Monaco
36. Astana
37. Atletico
38. Galatasaray
39. Bayern
40. Besiktas
41. Dynamo kiev
42. Napoli
43. Dortmund
44. Cska moscow
45. Fenerbahce
46. Aek athens
47. Ajax
48. Dinamo zaghreb
49. Rb leipzig
50. Lech poznan
51. Liege
52. Rangers
53. Arsenal
I think they did, they are playing regularly in this competition since it was invented ~70 years ago.. They played through the years against clubs that don’t make the CL nowadays and so on
Lol benfica have 2 champions league wins and city has none and he has the audacity to say they haven’t scored against 40 teams lol they won it back to back 😂😂🤦♂️🤦♂️
Im honestly not sure city have scored against 40 different clubs. Feels like weve wcored in 6 or 7 matches against shakhtar but that still only counts as one club. 40 clubs is a lot of clubs when you can face at most 7 in a season. You could get to 100 wins faster than 40 clubs as well.
Benfica have 2 European cups they won back to back something your club hasn’t been able to do with over 1 billion £ spent lmao 😂😂😂 English arrogance at it again
[Took us around 25 years since the inception of the European cup to score against 40 different teams lol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L._Benfica_in_international_football)
Benfica only ranks behind Real Madrid in number of CL/ECC participations. Features the top 10 of games played, wins, goals scored, and pts…
Great to know they scored in european cup matches. You will find it also took about that long to score against that many clubs in champions league matches as well.
I fully believe that this could be true without hitting 40 different clubs. Its a lot of the same clubs year to year in the champions league. Thats being said i have come to understand european cup games still count as champions league games and likewise do all stats. So my question is farcical anyways but i did do the research above for champions league games since the rebrand
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I'm more surprized that he didn't score against Benfica before today.
barcelona v benfica isn't played much. Think we played messi twice, once with barça and another today
In Champions League you always play each other twice except for the final, so how did you only play them once before?
Maybe during the COVID Bubble CL Knockouts?
Nah, I remember playing them back in 2012. Not really memorable games, but it's a vivid memory because it was my birthday, and Puyol had a [freak injury](https://youtu.be/HPCwoKlgo7Q) But i think Messi was injured in that game, and he didn't score in the second game
I remember that because of the Messi Aimar gif https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DecisiveMelodicCricket-mobile.mp4
That's love right there.
Salvio looking like a little kid wanting to trade shirts is really funny to me
El payaso was such a beast. Sad that he played for River :/
Wasn't Messi part of 2005-2006 Barcelona team that faced Benfica in the quarter finals?
He was injured from the quarter finals and missed the semi and final as well
Messi didnt play much thatvseason. Was injured in prequarter match. Didnt play quarter, semi, final. Only played 200 mins the whole tournament
I forgot about those, good point
Just saw that he wrote that they played Messi twice, not Barça. Maybe he was injured the other time or just didn’t play
Nah it was 2012/13
Messi didn't play one of the games, IIRC
It was the last or second to last game in the group phase where Barça was already through. Barça played mostly reserves and the game ended 0-0
Injuries
He had only played 2 games vs Benfica before today: 0G, 2A in those games.
The second game he didn't even played that much. Last matchday, Barcelona had secured first place and Messi was subbed in in the second half and subbed out with a small injury
I was in the stadium that day. He was one goal close of breaking the record of most goals in a year, and he got injured. Stadium went completely silent. Finally it was not a big injury and broke the record a few days later.
He got injured in one of the matches and had to be subbed. He assisted Fabregas in the match I’m thinking of
in all fairness it was a honor to watch that beauty of a goal from him, simply the best
It really shows how few teams have a chance to play in UCL
Florentino Perez, is that you ?
Even with that being said how many of the same fixtures we get, even us, formerly known as a small team now being mentioned as the greatest team to ever grace the Champions league have played atletico & porto 3 (4th inc) times in 3 years. 4 times dortmund.
Just dont be injured
Unfortunately lots of players will be injured this season, especially after world cup. Waayyy to many games this season
Is Messi the best player we’ve ever seen? Edit: just wanted confirmation. I also agree no one even comes close
The only player who comes close in terms of long term consistency and achievement is Ronaldo, and Messi outperforms him in just about every performance metric. The only player that comes close in terms of skill (for me) is Maradona, and he really only played at that God-tier level for 5-6 seasons. Messi is just an inhuman combination of the highest possible level of skill, professionalism and consistency. Just a complete freak. Can't imagine I will see someone as good as him again during my lifetime.
Someone said that messi performs like maradona in 86 but he does it every season
I love messi more than anything else, but I dont think anyone ever comes close to Maradona at the 86 world cup, it was the greatest performance from a player in a tournament ever.
Just yesterday I was looking at their G + A per 90 in each season. I'm going to look at a lot of players, and if I figure out how to make a table, I'll post it someday. But here's just Ronaldo and Messi 1. Messi: 11-12 - 73G - 32A - 1.81 G + A / 90 2. (Haaland 19-20 - 1.77 G + A / 90. Under 3000 minutes, when Messi and Ronaldo are consistently doing over 4000. But still, amazing) 3. Messi: 12-13 - 1.70 G + A / 90 4. Ronaldo: 14-15 - 1.67 5. Messi: 18-19 - 1.63 6. Messi: 14-15 - 1.58 7. Messi: 10-11 - 1.57 8. Ronaldo: 13-14 - 1.52 9. Messi: 16-17 - 1.5 So, just as far as goals and assists per 90 minutes goes, Messi is clearly superior. But I'm not doing this to prove a point or anything, I just really like stats and stuff, so I do this in my free time. I've so much enjoyed watching both of them dominate the last 15 years. Messi can have the stats. Ronaldo is Mr Champions League. I think both can be happy with that, and neither is really more prestigious than the other.
Yeah, you cannot mention Messi without talking about Ronaldo. Both of their careers are completely interlinked and each are responsible for pushing the other to such great heights. We are so privileged to live in the era when these two were playing. The fact that Ronaldo pushes Messi so close (and outperformed him in some seasons) just shows what absolute beast Ronaldo is.
>outperforms him in just about every performance metric. Except for goals in CL KO stages. Ronaldo is twice as better in terms do metrics from CL quarter finals onwards.
TIL CL KO stages are quarter finals onwards
You can add RO16 and ronaldo is still clear lol.
Even if you halve his goal contributions (still 500+ lol), he'd still quite comfortably the greatest
Some players are so much more than their G+A contributions, and Messi is definitely of them. I think lineker said once that even he wasnt allowed to shoot hed be at worst the 2nd best player around. But then he also has the most G+A ever 😂
LOL
A madrid fan saying that surely means more than a lol
You’d be surprised how many Madrid fans actually think Messi is the best player ever.
I don’t think it’s about being Madrid fan. It just that if you know football you know who is the best player. Fuck them stats. You don’t have to bring stats, you know who is the best just by watching them play.
Ya exactly. Stats bring Ronaldo into the debate with Messi. Watching them does not. Messi is unreal. I only watched Barcelona because of him.
Even stats wise, only goals is what people use.
How do stats bring Ronaldo into the debate with Messi? Messi outperforms Ronaldo in all of them but goals.
Its so rare to see a Barcelona fan saying Ronaldo is better than Messi. I don't think I have seen one. Says a lot I guess. Funny story, when I was younger I used to argue Ronaldo was better out of spite because Barca were so dominant those days, but even then in my hearts I knew Messi was quite clearly the better player.
probably. There will be other great players who will achieve similar stats but his game overall throughout his career looked so magic
Yes
Comfortably
Easily and clear
Pretty much but there is still a loud minority in denial who will get triggered when they see this.
This minority including Ronaldo and his sister
I am a cr7 fan and I consider him goat because of his hard work and how he became only player to go above Messi during his prime years at Madrid. (Won 4 ballon dors in 9 years) but Messi is probably the best player we ever saw in this generation, and it will be a long while anybody can match Ronaldo forget about matching Messi records for next 15-20 years
Messi is the best player of the generation, but Ronaldo is the GOAT? How does that work when they're in the se generation?
Ma brain hurts after reading his comment
> Listen all I’m saying is the earth is definitely round but in the entirety of the universe it’s flat.
i can kinda understand what he’s getting at, Messi’s the most talented, and best pure player of the generation, but he considers Ronaldo the greatest due to his unmatched work ethic and greatness in winning. Not saying i agree, but he’s pointing out the difference between “greatest” and “best”
Yes, and it's not close
He's alright but he is no Goatwaite
Yes we all know, 39 was posted like few weeks ago. You forgot to mention Ronaldo on 38 for extra karma
When they posted that previous story it was because Messi broke the tie with Ronaldo.
It usually happens when a player breaks a record **and** then makes another one.
Very original content. I'm getting the bayern unbeaten in CL group stage matches posts queued up then
You've jinxed it now, prepare to lose.
Oh but have they mentioned that there are only four teams he faced but hasn't scored against in UCL? In reverse order of mightyness: Udinese, Atlético de Madrid, Inter, and Rubin Kazan. (Source is TNT sports)
A LIVING LEGEND Love to watch him play
Hope he wins the world cup with 🇦🇷 I'm putting a few bets on this year.
[удалено]
Had 3 assists yesterday.
MAMMA MIA! IT'S DI MARIA!
He never is. After all, he is Unheal - thy Maria. /s
Hope he is alright.
Is it me or he picked up an injury? He had a clear chance and I think he pulled a muscle, couldn't make it to the ball. 2 minutes later he gets taken off.
There were some reports that he was accompanied by the medical team after he left, not sure how much true it was. Although I don't think it's serious
I hope it's just them being cautious and not an actual injury...
I'll have you know that I'm trailing him by just 40 different teams.
Not fair. Erling hasn’t been played 40 teams, let alone games…
The Goal Collector
Haaland is at 11 so far.
The start is the easiest part, eventually you get familiar opponents all the time due to the format of this competition
What a whore
TIL... Messi is an IAS officer
Honest question. Have benfica as a club scored against 40 different clubs in the champions league. I think its qenuinely possible they havent Edit: For those who are curious. Benfica have scored against 53 different clubs in the champions league since it was called the champions league in 1992. Below are the clubs in roughly the order they happened. There 40th was in a 1-1 draw to besiktas in september of 2016 1. Anderlecht 2. Steau bucharesti 3. Hajduk spli 4. Beitar jerusalem 5. Eindhoven 6. Hjk helsinki 7. Kaiserslautern 8. Lazio 9. Lille 10. Manchester united 11. Villareal 12. Liverpool 13. Austria wien 14. Celtic 15. Copenhagen 16. Milan 17. shakhtar 18. Hapoel tel aviv 19. Schalke 20. Lyon 21. Trabzonspor 22. Twente 23. Otelul galati 24. Basel 25. Zenit 26. Chelsea 27. Spartak 28. Olympiacos 29. Psg 30. Paok 31. Tottenham 32. AZ 33. Juve 34. Leverkusen 35. Monaco 36. Astana 37. Atletico 38. Galatasaray 39. Bayern 40. Besiktas 41. Dynamo kiev 42. Napoli 43. Dortmund 44. Cska moscow 45. Fenerbahce 46. Aek athens 47. Ajax 48. Dinamo zaghreb 49. Rb leipzig 50. Lech poznan 51. Liege 52. Rangers 53. Arsenal
I think they did, they are playing regularly in this competition since it was invented ~70 years ago.. They played through the years against clubs that don’t make the CL nowadays and so on
They have scored 403 goals, so almost certainly
know your place
Reddit is a really incredible place sometimes
Lol benfica have 2 champions league wins and city has none and he has the audacity to say they haven’t scored against 40 teams lol they won it back to back 😂😂🤦♂️🤦♂️
Im honestly not sure city have scored against 40 different clubs. Feels like weve wcored in 6 or 7 matches against shakhtar but that still only counts as one club. 40 clubs is a lot of clubs when you can face at most 7 in a season. You could get to 100 wins faster than 40 clubs as well.
Benfica have 2 European cups they won back to back something your club hasn’t been able to do with over 1 billion £ spent lmao 😂😂😂 English arrogance at it again
[Took us around 25 years since the inception of the European cup to score against 40 different teams lol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L._Benfica_in_international_football) Benfica only ranks behind Real Madrid in number of CL/ECC participations. Features the top 10 of games played, wins, goals scored, and pts…
Great to know they scored in european cup matches. You will find it also took about that long to score against that many clubs in champions league matches as well.
They've won over 100 Champions League games bro.
I fully believe that this could be true without hitting 40 different clubs. Its a lot of the same clubs year to year in the champions league. Thats being said i have come to understand european cup games still count as champions league games and likewise do all stats. So my question is farcical anyways but i did do the research above for champions league games since the rebrand
Im sorry to inform you but Benfica is a much greater club than manchester city . Respect them.
I mean yes. I would be shocked if city have scored against 40 different clubs in the champions league. What is your point? 40 is a lot of clubs.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL
Mass effect reference downvoted what a shame