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Greatest Athlete We Will Ever See?

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I am not a golf fan but Tiger made me watch every tournament during his run.

I'd put Tiger 1 and not think twice.

"Pinnacle of their sport?" How can anyone dominate a sport more than he did?

Scoring 73 goals in one season would do the trick.

Again, easier to dominate when you're not playing against someone else directly.

More context: Scoring 30 goals puts you at one of the 2-3 best players in the world.

73 is literally like averaging 40 in the NBA
 
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This is the American bias that I'm talking about.

You speak of American bias, yet your posts sound arrogant as hell. Did you see Jordon play? Messi can't even compare the Michael Phelps. Phelps is the greatest Olympian in the last 50 years. One has 6 NBA titles and is widely thought of as the greatest basketball player of all time, the other has more Gold medals than anyone in Olympic history.........and you claim some soccer player I never heard of is better than they are. :lgh (21):
 
You speak of American bias, yet your posts sound arrogant as hell. Did you see Jordon play? Messi can't even compare the Michael Phelps. Phelps is the greatest Olympian in the last 50 years. One has 6 NBA titles and is widely thought of as the greatest basketball player of all time, the other has more Gold medals than anyone in Olympic history.........and you claim some soccer player I never heard of is better than they are. :lgh (21):

Yes I've watched more Jordan games than I can count.

Whose fault is it that you've never heard of him? That's American bias...we don't talk about it. Have you ever watched Messi play? You're actually arguing against yourself.

Did you even read the post? Messi has like 12 titles. Haven't counted them all.

Swimming makes it possible to win a lot of medals because there are 1,000 different events.
 
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And I'm not trying to put anyone down guys, just trying to open the door so that you can witness history before it's over, that's all.
 
You're right that no one should just be disregarding Messi. He is definitely one of the best players in his sport ever.

But comparing title numbers is basically meaningless because Messi has 3 opportunities every year to win a legit title (La Liga, UCL, and Copa del Rey).

I also think you're overrating how hard it is to score a goal, especially for really talented scorers playing against bad competition, like he does on 30 out of 38 weeks in Spain.

Also, for your information Gerd Muller scored more goals than Pele, so you might want to throw him in there too when you are making your arguments about dominant soccer players.
 
You're right that no one should just be disregarding Messi. He is definitely one of the best players in his sport ever.

But comparing title numbers is basically meaningless because Messi has 3 opportunities every year to win a legit title (La Liga, UCL, and Copa del Rey).

I also think you're overrating how hard it is to score a goal, especially for really talented scorers playing against bad competition, like he does on 30 out of 38 weeks in Spain.

Also, for your information Gerd Muller scored more goals than Pele, so you might want to throw him in there too when you are making your arguments about dominant soccer players.

Well obviously we have a difference of opinion on the talent between the two leagues.

Messi is the all-time leading scorer in the Champions League too, so....looks like he can do it against anyone.

Scoring goals is fucking hard man. Ronaldinho is in the top 10-15 and I believe his high mark was 27.

You got me on Muller, honestly did not know that.
 
Messi is the all-time leading scorer in the Champions League too, so....looks like he can do it against anyone.

The Champions League is also much bigger than it was back in the day though, when it was purely the teams that were actually champions in their domestic leagues/cups, not second, third, fouth best too.

I'm just saying, it's hard to go purely by numbers. Pele scored a lot more goals than him, but a lot of people think that Maradona is the best player ever. All this shit is subjective.

As a proud soccer fan (Everton is my club) though, I agree with you that I wish people would give the sport more love.
 
What's your issue with Shaq? Did you watch the guy in the 90s-early 2000s. He was a top notch athlete.
 
Gretzky seems more dominate, Phelps was ridiculous, Carl Lewis, Bo Jackson for a few years, but injury prevented sustained greatness.

Those are just a few that come to mind that were more dominant than Messi or Jordan.
 
In addition to Jordan and Gretzky, I'll throw Edwin Moses in the mix as well. The guy won 122 consecutive 400 meter hurdle races from 1977 to 1987... basically for a DECADE, you had ZERO chance of beating him.

Messi is a good person to have on your list if you're in your mid-20s and know very little about sports.

Just saying.
 
Messi should have a big plus because he plays by far the most popular sport in the world. There is an amount of competition there that just doesn't exist for any other sport. Basketball is going to try to make a run at it but all other sports are arguably regional in nature when compared to the soccer
 
What's your issue with Shaq? Did you watch the guy in the 90s-early 2000s. He was a top notch athlete.

In Messi we're talking about a potential GOAT. Shaq is just on of the 3-4 best at his position.
 

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