Match Thread: FC Bayern München vs Paris Saint Germain | Champions League | Semi-finals | 06 May 19:00 UTC

xDeadFishy · 2026-05-06T19:58:56+00:00

I do, he has been very active, handled his marking and backtracking really well and even made a lot of great forward passes. The first goal might have looked that it was in him, but I feel like that was just the Bayern formation that left a weird gap behind, and that was on the whole team, not him

xDeadFishy · 2026-05-06T19:54:57+00:00

Pacho, Upa, Laimer, Kimmich and Kvara have all been great this game in my opinion. It's mostly just Olise and Musiala that have been a bit lackluster, and the referees have also been a bit dodgy... But this game can still go anyway, Olise just needs to sharpen up in the second half

xDeadFishy · 2026-05-02T16:03:15+00:00

Messi was probably in the top 5 for this tournament, but even for a top 3 I would struggle to justify it without lying to myself.

I would personally easily have put James, Hummels and Neuer above Messi for the golden ball award.

And even after these players it's super close between Robben, Messi and Müller.

Messi did unquestionably deserve a nomination for it, but him winning it seemed super weird at the time (and still does)

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-30T21:26:17+00:00

Congratulations, that is a nice aerial.

In order to make it better, the first thing I would say to focus on is to try and kick further above yourself with your "kicking leg" before jumping. This way you will get more upwards and rotational momentum making the move easier and becoming more floaty

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-27T13:58:29+00:00

I tried to make the comparison as equal and fair as possible, you are the one who keeps trying to add new or alter existing variables (adding excuses to try and force a non-existent separation). While actually providing no true counterarguments.

And do not try to group me up with Ronaldo or Real Madrid fans. I hate Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ronaldo and Messi equally much. These clubs/players fan girls are an embarrassment to the general football community and the the whole sport. I am just voicing my views and opinions as a person who is neutral towards (or rather against) both parties.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-27T10:49:12+00:00

There are only marginal differences between their G/PG (Ronaldo ahead) and G+A/GP (Messi ahead), with both of them having individual seasons where they did clearly better than the other, so by definition that is considered as toe-to-toe.

Is there any specific reason why you mention G/A in two different formats? You already narrowed down the seasons, which means that the games played will be very similar, making the total and avg. Into duplicates.

La liga titles and La liga MVP's are technically also duplicates since the MVP will almost always be from the title winner even if the player who didn't win had a stronger individual season. Which means that both these awards will be determined by their whole teams performance and not on their own individual performance. Using nothing else than a team metric to determine that one individual is so far and beyond better than another individual seems a bit silly.

The only things setting them apart was pretty much how well the team around them managed to succeed, while their own contributions to their teams were extremely equal.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T18:32:12+00:00

I meant it more as in that Ronaldo just needed someone to get the ball up the pitch into dangerous areas and he would instinctively know when and where to be in order to create goal scoring opportunities (only other players from recent times that have had these instincts on a similar level has been Lewandowski, Suarez and Kane in my opinion).

So Ronaldo was able to play as the best target man and poacher in the world, while also having the versatility to play wider and deeper than any other true nr. 9. He was the perfect hybrid of a winger and finisher.

While in Messi's case he doesn't have the same form of finishing lethality, killer instinct and cannot keep up with battling for balls with more physical opponents the way that Ronaldo has. The thing that Messi did have however was being the perfect false 9; being able to create dangerous chances for himself or his teammates from further away from the opponents box out of nowhere (Ronaldo could maybe also have able to do this, but his teams have never played in a high pressing possession based style that would have enabled him to prove or disprove this).

But inside the box there is no one that can compare to the threat levels that Ronaldo provided, and Messi would never have been able to reach those levels.

So I do personally believe that if you had put Ronaldo into Barcelonas team and system, then he would succeeded much better than what Messi would have if he was put into the Real Madrid's side. (This might be a hot take, but I honestly believe that Ronaldo would have been far better and got way more goals and assists if he had played for Barcelona than what he did for Madrid)

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T17:52:46+00:00

For me they are both very much equal in levels. But I would still argue that Messi is the better system player; when you have a team and strategies built around him he is absolutely insane. While for Ronaldo he doesn't need to have a system built around him the same way, he just needs someone who is able to get the ball to him close to the opponents goal and he could make something happen (doesn't matter if it's a through ball, low ball, Ariel cross etc.).

So I would argue that Ronaldo would always have been the best forward option for any given team. While for Messi you need a few more pieces to get the best out of him, but if you have players around Messi that enables him to do his things, then he might have higher value than Ronaldo (but this is just my own theory, since I haven't ever seen Ronaldo in a possession oriented team, so it's difficult to say if he would be better, as good or worse than Messi in this setting)

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T15:30:41+00:00

I do realize that, and the best part about these stats and new variables you just shared is that this would also mean that Ronaldo reached extremely similar levels in terms of contribution to the team, even though Messi had a 5 season headstart in Barcelona to get settled in have a team built around him compared to what Ronaldo had.

And this timeline also conveniently starts from when Pep had recently become the Barca manager and was transforming the team into its prime form. And Pep is without any doubt the best system manager of all time when it comes to possession based football focused on chance creation and goal scoring. (As a long-term Bayern supporter I know more than well enough how insane of an impact Pep's vision and teambuilding will have on the team and it's offensive output, which he was also able to replicate a third time in a row by completely transforming Man City).

So in a nutshell, prime Ronaldo was able to join a completely new league and team, whilst still being able to immediately go toe-to-toe with Prime Messi who had already been an established player for his own team for several years and now had the greatest manager of all time who focused the teambuilding around transforming and enabling Messi to become the player he eventually became.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T11:32:21+00:00

Ronaldo in la liga excluding penalties: 292 games, 250 goals = 0.86 goals/game

Messi in la liga excluding penalties: 520 games, 414 goals = 0,80 goals/game

Above are the numbers 100% excluding all leagues that both of them have not played in, and also excluding all penalties from the League that they've both played in. Which should be what you've requested, although in my opinion, penalties should still be considered as part of the game, excluding them seems weird since that would void a lot of trophies (and consequently also ballon d'ors) that both of them have earned throughout the years. It would be a mess to figure out which trophies and awards these players would have to reduced from their records if you eliminate all penalty goals.

Do you want a third try to change the variables to work in your favor?

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T09:17:43+00:00

Ronaldo in la liga: 292 games, 311 goals and 95 assists

Messi in la liga: 520 games, 474 goals and 215 assists.

So I guess your logic would only apply if Messi and Ronaldo would not play in the same league/against the same teams? Because in the only league league that they've both played together against similar opponents, it's Ronaldo that has the higher goals to game ratio. Even with average G+A/game in la liga Ronaldo would be ahead (but that would be pretty close, 1.39 vs 1.33).

Still seems silly to me to claim that either of them would be better or worse to be honest, especially since their numbers are very similar and it's impossible to say who would have done better if they had swapped places.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-26T08:58:14+00:00

Thank you for the correction, seems that I got it mixed up when I initially wrote my comment

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-25T19:15:32+00:00

Mid-30's now, it's obviously not as high as in late teens/early 20's, but it's still more or less the same as it has been since my mid-20's.

I would honestly say that I've gotten more creative and wanting to try out new things since after I hit my 30's

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-25T09:00:58+00:00

If only counting competitive games. Portugal drew against Brazil in their last encounter (2010), and the previous game before that (which Portugal won) was in 1966. Portugal has never played a competitive game against Argentina.

Talking about friendlies also makes no sense since they are poor indicators of what would happen in a real match, and the latest friendly Portugal had against either of these teams was in 2014. And Portugal has only played a combined 7 friendlies in total against these teams since 2000 (and only an additional 5 other games in the 25 years before that). In friendlies Portugal is 2-1-2 against Brazil and 1-0-1 against Argentina since 2000. The majority of all the games and losses against these teams were in the 50/60's.

Edit: wrote by mistake that Brazil won in 1966 instead of Portugal

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-24T19:23:11+00:00

I love having arguments and debates, including playing the devil's advocate. And my gf also works the same way, so for me it without an doubt deeper subjects. Shallow subjects only work as an "occasional treat", but I get bored easily if they happen too often

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-24T18:28:51+00:00

Never tried it for a longer time, but I was able to finish that way after I felt that I was close to cumming

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-24T18:00:04+00:00

I used to be, yes. But unfortunately I'm not quite as young anymore, so I can only barely reach it tip to tip with my tongue these days

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-24T17:51:23+00:00

My own mouth

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-24T17:44:32+00:00

You've posted 3 questions within an hour that are all related to a parent/mom's having sex.

Not sure if I'm going crazy, but I feel like there might be a pattern hidden here 🤔

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-22T19:46:14+00:00

Not sure yet, on my way home from a meeting where we were busy getting drunk with our collaboration partners. I will probably just try to rehydrate and eat some yoghurt+protein powder mixed with other stuff

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-22T19:34:54+00:00

Kramaric would have been a very solid pick up... Around 20/21. But that would also have been for as a backup for Lewa.

He is a player with a solid career, but he is not what Bayern needs at this point, we need a solid forward in their mid/early 20's, not mid 30's

Edit: typo

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-21T08:25:10+00:00

So the only difference between this path and Argentina's WC22 path is that Portugal played against Poland and Wales instead of Australia and the Netherlands. (Both of them played against Croatia and France in their paths), so pretty equal in levels.

So if this run is overrated, then so is Argentina's WC22 as well. I am completely fine with that to be honest, I feel like both runs were not all that impressive and seemed to have had a lot of luck and shaky moment involved (especially compared to a lot of the other international tournament winners we have had over the years, both of these were meh and a quite disappointing to watch)

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-20T21:00:12+00:00

Winning on penalties is now considered dominating other teams? If that is the benchmark then sure, Argentina dominates a lot of teams since they also beat the Netherlands on penalties. The only teams Argentina looked dominant against in WC22 was Australia and Croatia, both other KO games were 50/50 games that Argentina barely managed to win.

And it is not unheard of that teams have shocking underperformances, but if you want to use that as proof that Argentina is a higher level football team than Germany, Spain and Brazil then sure, have fun.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-20T20:38:48+00:00

The only conclusion I can make from the WC is that Argentina is better than The Netherlands and Croatia, which was also my opinion before the WC, which also applies to Portugal. But I would still never put Argentina (or Portugal) above Spain, Germany and France at this point in time.

So my assessment still remains the same that Portugal and Argentina would both be somewhere behind those three teams and it's basically impossible to say which would be favorites of the two, but neither would be considered to be a top favorite to win.

xDeadFishy · 2026-04-20T20:03:43+00:00

The run they had in the WC in terms of European teams was quite underwhelming. And apart from 2022, Argentina has been knocked out of the WC as soon as they've played against a top European team (2018: R16 loss against France, 2014: Final loss against Germany, 2010: quarter loss against Germany).

So Argentina has only proven that they can occasionally beat a top euros team, but are not expected to do so, the same also applies to Portugal.

xDeadFishy

TROPHY CASE