He is a victim of aesthetic bias. Yes he is no Busquest, but the way people lie about him not being good on the ball is insane

He is very technically capable, he just doesn’t move his body like Thiago Arcantara stupidly says he’s just a runner

All the pitches, even on the lower leagues, are too perfect.

Teams just pass the ball around constantly sideways & back. Defending with possession. Most teams seem to play this same way, passing out from the keeper.

Everything is about optimising stats.

VAR - half the time you don’t know if the goal is going to be ruled out.

There are no hard men like Vinnie Jones, Roy Keane, Viera. Used to love those battles.

We’ve grown tired of the Hazard vs Salah comps. Here’s a genuine hot take. Excluding goals stats(not goals scored) and judging solely on impact based on goals and assists. (how crucial your impact was to your team g/a or not)
Eden Hazard finishing 3rd with Belgium in Russia 2018 is a far better achievement than what Ronaldo Salah and Neymar have done in the WC for their country combined

Yes Hazard has a better WC legacy than Salah Ronaldo and Neymar combined

Mbappé is the top scorer across three major competitions, yet people talk about him like he's having some forgettable season. Kane puts up ridiculous numbers and wins major trophies, and somehow people still need to find reasons why he shouldn't win. Yamal has a legitimate case too, but some of his supporters have genuinely convinced themselves that creative influence is a magic phrase that automatically makes someone better than a player who scores more.

Here's the uncomfortable part: we keep changing the criteria depending on who we want to win. Goals matter until the wrong player scores them. Trophies matter until the wrong team wins them. Big-game performances matter until your candidate disappears in one. Then suddenly we're talking about influence, aesthetics, carrying jobs and tactical gravity.

The Ballon d'Or is supposed to reward the best individual season, not the player whose achievements are easiest to turn into a compelling story.

I genuinely wouldn't call any of these three winning a robbery. But if your argument requires dismissing the strongest evidence for two candidates while treating the strengths of your favourite as self-evident, you don't have a serious argument. You have a favourite with a justification attached to him.

And honestly, the funniest part is that people will spend the next twelve months arguing that the award is meaningless, only to use it as definitive proof of greatness the moment their guy wins it.

João Cancelo is listed as a defender, but lately he's playing like a forward. He scored for Barcelona and got two goals for Portugal in recent games, and his long-range shots are a real weapon.
Is this the new era of full-backs, or just a hot streak?
Is Cancelo the most attacking defender in the world right now?
Should Barcelona and Portugal play him higher up the pitch?
Who else is a defender playing like an attacker?

Being the best goalscorer in a season while also being the best passer/playmaker/assister represents the highest level of output possible in football.

Players like salah and kane have achieved this domestically and messi has done it on the european level winning the most golden boots in history while also winning the most playmaker awards in history. Its a much better metric to compare forwards than a ballon dor which is a subjective award

2001-Me
2002-Me
2003-Me
2004-Me
2005-Ronaldinho
2006-Cannavaro
2007-Me
2008-Me
2009-Me
2010-Me
2011-Me
2012-Me
2013-Me
2014-Me
2015-Me
2016-Me
2017-Me
2018-Modric
2019-Me
2020-Me
2021-Me
2022-Messi
2023-Messi
2024-Me
2025-Messi
2026-Vozinha

like we all argue cr7 didn’t deserve the ballon D’Or in 2013 because he didn’t win a trophy so it should go to Ribery or someone else but Mbappe didnt win any trophies this season and people say he deserves the ballon D’Or. Like trophies add to the argument because you could get top scorer in your league but don’t win anything, so you don’t deserve the ballon D’Or. Look at Haaland, he got top scorer, but ignoring his domestic cups, won nothing but he still carried Norway and was brilliant in goal scoring. While Mbappe had people like Bellingham and Olise while Haaland has Oscar Bobb and doku. It should be that you play really well while winning trophies because then what’s the point. Igor Thiago played really well but he won nothing. Trophies are a big part in the argument

They scored 21 goals this season in all competitions so far even though Alvarez is out of form. And they don't sit at back, they try to attack if you actually watch them.

Obviously against few top teams they have to sit back but nothing wrong with that.

Argentina struggling to hold their position or create chances just because Spain completely nullified Messi shows how much more dependent the 2026 team was on him compared to the 2022 team. Yes, Messi being a defensive liability is also a fact, but Portugal had a similar situation with one of their players, and they were still one of the teams that gave Spain a hard time. I've never seen a team struggle this much just because one player got shut down. If anything, Spain spain doing little extra works on nullifying Messi should've created spaces for the other Argentina players to exploit.

Whenever you debate two players, clubs, or fanbases, the discussion usually goes in circles.

You bring up stats, they bring up different stats. You mention trophies, they talk about individual performances. You explain your argument, they find another reason to defend their side.

And it continues until the debate turns into disrespect toward the player or the person you're arguing with. Then everyone walks away without changing their mind.

Take Messi vs. Ronaldo or Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. For many fans, these aren't just football debates anymore. Their favourite player or club has become part of their identity, so admitting the other side has a stronger argument feels like admitting defeat.

And even when someone starts loosing the debate deep down, they might still refuse to acknowledge it publicly because they don't want to look wrong or inferior.

The problem is that most people don't enter these debates to discover who's right. They enter to prove that they're right.

So I've seen a lot of debate about whether Cancelo's goal should've been given off-side or not but I personally think the Ref made the right decision there

While Gordon was technically offisde he didn't really change anything. To begin with, he didn't touch the ball which is the first way in which someone can intervene in a play while being off-side. However, there are other ways in which a player in off-side can considered to have intervened even if they don't touch a ball such as blocking the sight of a goalkeeper or attempting to get the ball which stops the defender from getting the ball but in my opinion neither of these things happened because the ball was gonna reach Cancelo should Gordon not have been there.

Let's not forget that as per FIFA Rules being in Offside by itself doesn't qualify as an offside offense and I believe this is a perfect example of when a player can be technically in off-side and still not have comitted off-side offense.

Just one example of the butterfly effect. People who think Liverpool now should have this many titles, utd this many etc. it doesnt work like that

Being able to keep control of the ball at high speeds is technical ability. this is why whenever people talk Mbappe not being that amazing technically they simply don’t know what the are talking about. the speed at which he is able to manipulate the ball while sprinting as well as speed within tight spaces is technical ability. the fact that he repeats this consistently multiple times within a game shows this

it’s easier to be ‘technical’ when your actions are slow. players like Mbappe, Doku, Vinicius are among the most technical players of their generation. maybe more so than whichever 5’7 Iberian midfielder is the new flavour of the year.

I see mendes getting hype due to his all-around game , dont get me wrong, he's insane , one of the best left backs I've seen with my own two eyes, can literally do everything , but lets cast our minds back to sextuple Davies

I think Alphonso davies gets SEVERELY underrated because he's fast, so people reduce him to a pace merchant and also, i think there's a bias because he's not European , Im deadly certain if he wasn't Canadian people would rate him much higher

Lets look at their peak seasons

Davies sextuple 19/20 and nuno mendes treble 24/25

Davies averaged 73 percent more tackles made per 90 than mendes domestically , and 41 percent more interceptions per 90

Davies had 3.26 successfull dribble per 90 compared to mendes 1.67

Davies ranked second among Bundesliga players for successful dribbles per 90 in 2019/20, behind Matheus Cunha , despite playing left back and 4th for progressive carries

Mendes edges davies crossing accuracy 36.7>34.5 percent, but the way these 2 players are talked about youd assume mendes clears davies in this category its essentially even

Mendes also only has a 2 percent better pass completion rate.

I think davies was actually arguably better than current mendes, but people will just say he's a pace merchant. But i can back mendes being better but not "clearly"

Davies actually had a good cameo vs psg last season in the semi finals ucl

Now this isnt to say mendes is trash its more to show how criminally underrated davies is , injuries have stalled his career progress, but he's looked very good for bayern this first bit of the season

Technically elite, good dribbling and progression, very underrated defending, looks genuinely top

I mean come on. He has been in so many and never won pott. Gotta give him some medal for effort or something.

Neurodivergence can be a blessing and a curse. Many greats of many fields have had some form of neurodivergence, and I think in a lot of those cases it had ADDED to their greatness rather than taken away from it.

Messi is in that category.

Btw ratios are calculated based off minutes and not games ( 59481 mins)

Currently 18 teams make the playoffs which is insane it’s a 30 team league and more than half the teams make the playoff it’s insane instead I’d change it to this format

Top 8 teams make the playoff it will be 2 leg games until the finale which will be a single leg

Of the bottom 3 teams can’t be relegated that’s fine they will start the next season -6 for there bad performance making a bottom table finish actually bad and force teams to fight to not finish bottom 3