Machine Gun Kelly, the worlds best NBA team in the world, and the best city celebrating a historic win. What a year 2016 was in Cleveland. 🏆🎊
Video: https://t.co/MBTd6xjKOZ
“You’re really in real time watching the greatest soccer player that’s ever played the game. … This isn’t normal.”
@herculezg after Messi became the all-time leading scorer in men's World Cup history 🙌
All the records broken by Lionel Messi today:
Most FIFA World Cup finals goals by a football (soccer) player - 18
Most FIFA World Cup matches played in by an individual - 28
Most matches won by a player at the football (soccer) FIFA World Cup - 18
Most minutes played in the football (soccer) FIFA World Cup - 2,489
We are witnessing history.
Some of Lionel Messi’s all-time records:
🥇 Most Ballon d’Ors - 8
🥇 Most major trophies - 46
🥇 Most goal contributions - Over 1,320
🥇 Most World Cup goals - 17
🥇 Most La Liga goals - 474
🥇 Most La Liga assists - 192
🥇 Most goals in a calendar year - 91
🥇 Most goals for a single club - 672 (Barcelona)
🥇 Most goals for Argentina - 121
🥇 Most European Golden Shoe awards - 6
And many, many more 🤯
The “This Is Football” doc has great segment of Pep Guardiola watching his Barcelona game tape and adressing idea that Messi walks lazily around the pitch:
“He’s walking. That’s what I like the most. He is not out of the game, he’s involved. He’s moving his head. Right, left, left, right. He knows exactly what is going to happen. But his head is always…moving.
He’s not running, but he’s always watching what’s happening. He smells where are the weak points in the back four. After 5-10 minutes, he has the map in his eyes…in his brain to know exactly where is the space and what is the panorama.
It’s like being in the jungle and I have to survive. And he knows if I move here or here, I will have more space to attack."
🚨🗣️NEW: Zlatan Ibrahimović on FIFA’s new mouth-covering red card rule: as Almiron was given a red card for covering his mouth in the game between Paraguay and Turkey
“I have seen football at its highest level, the real football. Not this watered-down version they are serving us now. What happened with Almirón? A straight red card for covering his mouth? This is not football anymore. This is a circus run by bureaucrats in suits who have never felt the fire of the pitch.”
“Covering your mouth is now a red card? What is this, Big Brother on the field? FIFA wants to read lips, punish thoughts before they even become words. Next they will put muzzles on players like dogs. Players cannot even talk, cannot even breathe passion without some VAR robot or referee deciding your emotions are illegal. This is dystopian. Football is dying.”
“This rule was born because some players cry every week. One incident in the Champions League and suddenly the whole world must change. But elbow a man, break his leg, or spit — sometimes you get a yellow and a pat on the back. Two-tier football. Protect the protected, punish the rest. I have played in every league and I have seen it.”
On the softness of the modern game:
“Maradona would be sent off in the tunnel. Roy Keane? He would laugh at the referee and walk off with a smile while the stands burn. Pepe would have collected five reds before half-time. Today? Players are becoming actors, not warriors. They fall, they cry, they hide behind rules. Where is the masculinity? Where is the character? Football is not ballet. It is war. And they are turning it into a polite conversation with red cards as punctuation.”
“I, Zlatan, have scored goals that made stadiums shake and said things that made opponents tremble — without hiding. This generation is being raised soft. If you cannot handle words on the pitch, how will you handle life? FIFA is not protecting football. They are burying it. And one day, the real fans will rise and say: enough. Bring back the game.”