Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini :One of the greatest footballer of all time

'Messi:All time top scorer in La liga'

'Messi:All time top scorer in Champions league'   These are the two biggest headlines which features in sports newspapers over last four days.

At the age of just 27 years 152 days this man from Rosario,Argentina had achieved the biggest milestone in football history.He recently has became the greatest goal scorer in the most prestigious tournament in club football-UEFA Champions League and just has surpassed Telmo Zarra's record for must goals in history of la liga.

Messi has now scored 74 goals in Champions league,( that's four more than his fierce rival Cristiano Ronaldo-who will feature vs FC Basel latter today)beating previous record held by Real Madrid superstar Raul Gonzalez of 71 goals.In the same week he became highest goal scorer in history of Spanish league,he has now achieved another milestone with his wonderful hatrick against APOEL.

Having already won six La Ligas, two Copa del Rey, Six Supercopas, three UEFA champions leagues ,two Club Word Cups and two UEFA Super Cups at club level And being awarded as the best football player of the year by FIFA for four consecutive season. This latest milestone means lot to him and his wonderful football carrer.With a total of 21 trophies he has now achieved almost everything at club level.

Here are some of the records broken and created by lionel Messi along his successful carrer:

1.All time highest goal scorer in La Liga.(253)

2.Most numbers of goal by any player for Barcelona.(399)

3.Highest goal scorer in history of Champions league.(74)

4.Most numbers of Goal in single year by any player(91)

5.Most numbers of international goal in single year(25)[shared with       Cristiano Ronaldo and Vivian Woodward]

6.Most consecutive league matches scored in: 21 matches (33 goals)

7.Most goals in single Champions League match(5)

8.Winner of four Ballon d’or awards and in consecutive years.

9.Most away goals scored in La Liga history: 107 goals.          

10.First footballer ever to score consecutively against all teams in a professional league.

This is just too much for a 27 years old boy who has long carrer ahead of him.

Man utd:Louis Van Gaal era so far...

Under the managing of Van Gaal. The Red devils are beginning to show some  signs of recovery from disappointing last season.

After a quite successful  transfer market, Manchester United start their pre-season in very fine form. But this form was always hard to carry in the different height of premiere league and that's what happens in their opening games of the new season. However after a few stumble they now seems to be finding their feet.

New signings

Man Utd undergoes extraordinary £150m squad overhaul in the transfer market, with about 14 players leaving and 6 coming in, as the new era of Louis Van Gaal began. And the new players always get tough to cope with new club and playing style.

Out of the new six. Di Maria has been remarkable with 3 goals and 5 assists in his first 9 games for The Red Devils justifying £ 59.7m record fee. Herrera, currently sidelined . has also proved a success in central midfield and so has Daley Blind. Although of some injury concerns for Falcao he has already netted one goal and has two assist to his name and is expected to be a huge success at Old Trafford.

Marcos Rojo in defense has proven good in left central back and Luke Shaw after his lengthy absence from injury is expected to do same as he did for Southampton at left back.So only problem in defense will be a high class center back. This tactic somewhat has been successful and Van Gaal might stick with it even after International break.  

Performance so far

Manchester United after first eleven games played stands in seventh position with 4 win,4 draw and 2 loses and two points above their traditional Liverpool.                                            

Lack of high class reliable center defense has left Van Gaal to use four men defense rather than his favorite three men defense and In last few matches the manager deployed the formation looking diamond in midfield, where Blind stand in the base of it with either Juan Mata on tip and Di Maria and Januzaj or Fellaini at sides.The formation complete with Van Persie and Falcao at top of attack.

Major concerns

A long list of injury has hampered LVG at the start of his job at United, with 10 players sidelined at one stage of season. That blow seems to be easing, with Smalling ,Evans along with Carrick back to boost the defense. Herrera also might recover earlier than expected from his injury.

Other major concerns are the role of Juan Mata and Januzaj ,the young star of last season.Juan Mata is repaced by captain Rooney as LVG'S no.10 but Mata has proved his quality while subbed with defining goals and plays in various matches and Januzaj also hasn't been that impressive as he was last season.

However it has been a hard learning period for Louis Van Gaal and his men so far this season, What is clear to see is that united are only some couple of key players away from being formidable side again and get back to glory days. And hope this void can be filled in next transfer market with couple of good defenders.

Cristiano Ronaldo–Lionel Messi rivalry

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are both regarded as one fo the greatest footballer active…

      

Argentine Lionel Messi, and Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo are the best players of this generation, and both are among   the highest paid players in football today. Having won a combined six FIFA Ballon d'Or awards they are regarded as football sensation and superstar. They both have scored in two UEFA Champions League finals and have consistently broken the 50 goal barricade in a single season and Both have scored more than 400 goals in their Football career including for their respective clubs and countries.

In appearance Lionel Messi is of modest height and slim body and on the other hand Ronaldo is comparatively taller and muscular .In helping for charity and needy Ronaldo's  spend funds are even more than the total gross domestic product of a small country in Africa to the hair.

About personality, Cristiano Ronaldo looks arrogant and loud, far from a lionel Messi's humble and quietly behavior. Even the clubs they play for are traditional rivals and the brand they are sponsored by are two rival sporting brand .(Ronaldo is sponsored by 'Nike' and the barcelona's no.10 is sponsored by 'ADIDAS')

In brief, it seems that these two football giants were born to do rivals and The world might have to weight for long time to witness a new pair of rivals together to shine and peak the football summit in the period as a duo of these. These two aces of Real and Barca along the way see themselves as enemy and as a thorn in the eye regardless they plays down their rivalry in front of media and this is also understandable.

This rivalry began ever since Ronaldo was still on Manchester united's red color and Messi was shining as a great young talent with very high prospect in la liga.Ronaldo has ability to run down the defender in the flank with his high speed and some trickery of the foot.His capability to shoot the ball with accuracy and pace is very much admirable.He is good with is left foot and even better with his favorite right.

On the other hand Messi simply do magic with the ball ,his foot movement vision of the game and through balls to team mates are very enjoyable to watch.They both are outstanding goal scorer and always problem for the opposition defense to handle and They both are very good at set pieces like Free kicks and penalties.

The rivalry between these two promises to be more dramatic and attractive in the coming years.After Ronaldo fail to overshine lionel messi in his earlier season with Real madrid he is nowadays getting better of the Argentine Lionel Messi which is seen with his second Ballon d'or win in 2013 and leading as favorite to lift his personal third this year.For a while, Messi proved marginally better performance by winning six La Liga, three Champions League and along the way becoming first player to win four FIFA Ballon d'or in a four consecutive years. ( CR7 La Liga 1 times,  two Champions League and three times the Premiership and two FIFA Ballon d'or). 

But now, the balance between the two players are now leaning toward Ronaldo. After Real won the  Decima (European Championship 10th) last season with the help of Ronaldo's staggering 17 goals in competition , the 29-year-old Real madrid star  has shown impressive form since then. With a record of 23 goals from the start of the season, he is considered as the leading candidate for FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2014 .

Even if Ronaldo is dominant, but Messi with the high qualities on the pitch it's still possible to reverse the situation if the player of Real madrid proved subjective and drop form. In summary, the two stars are always self-conscious and focused  about going to play with more than 100% every time they play  or risk being left behind of other. Hence the saying, for them to add their names to the history of the story, but the conflict or collision individual is a breeze.

While Messi’s legacy is overwhelmingly larger than Ronaldo’s after his side's sucessful run to final of world cup in Brazil and the way he perform on world cup after being criticized for his low form in playing for argentina for long time, Messi also has the age factor on his side as he his more than 2 years younger than his rival and will probably put more distance between himself and his supposed rival at the end of their careers But people will consider that there never was a rivalry between them as One was Football genius, while the other was extraterrestrial.

The Most Successful Football Clubs In England

                      "Which is the best football team of all time?" This is the debate raise in every football fans and in every corner around the world.The answers might be mighty Brazil in 1970 , irresistible Hungary of early 50s , Netherlands team of the 1970s ,Pep Guardiola's Barcelona Or Liverpool in 1980s.It seems like a natural question to debate that 'Who has been the best of all time?'and very difficult to say one name among these mention above.we might not have an conclusion to this big question – yet – but we can certainly find out the best team ever played in English soil.

                     Fans of beautiful football look away now. The greatest ever team is apparently the Chelsea team of the 2005/06 season. Defensive skills To figure out which team from which era tops the rankings, McHale and Baker created a statistical model of team strengths. They used this to analyse goal data from 200,000 matches in England and Wales that occurred between 1888, when the Football League was founded, and 2012 in the top four English leagues, the FA Cup and the League Cup. In the model, each team scores goals at a rate determined by its attack ability divided by the opposite team's defensive skills,
                          With an extra boost for the home team to model home advantage. Using the model, McHale and Baker could work out the most likely outcome of any English football match played over the 124 year study period – and use the results to calculate which was the all-time greatest team. Doing so revealed that the Chelsea team of 2005/06 comes out top, followed by the Manchester United team of 2007/08 and Arsenal's 2003/04 squad of "invincibles", which went unbeaten in the league. The similarly invincible Preston North End team from 1888 came just tenth. "As a Liverpool fan, I was convinced they would at some point be the best, so it was a bit of a surprise," says McHale – the club's 1987/88 squad is ranked fourth. Best of the best An alternative measure looks at a team's strongest average performance over a 10 year period, and gives the same top three teams. A third measure, dominance, gives the probability of a team winning against the second-best team over a 10-year period. The Manchester United of 1992-2002 come out on top with a 37.7 per cent chance of beating their next best rival, closely followed by Liverpool during 1979-89 and Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1951-61. As well as coming up with all-time rankings, the pair's model lets them set teams from different eras against each other. "Even the guys in the physics department can't time travel, but with this model you can," says McHale. For example, a match between Manchester United's 1998 team would have a 28.9 per cent chance of beating Liverpool's 1980 team, but a 39.7 per cent chance of losing the game. There's a 31.4 per cent chance the two teams would draw.

                       Out of time "I think it is interesting, but it just focuses on what happens on the pitch," says sports historian Matthew Taylor of De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. "It's very difficult to wrench them out of the social and cultural context of the period and imagine how they would compete against each other." "You need to be careful how literally you take this," agrees McHale, because the model can't account for wide-ranging shifts in the training and diets of all players over a number of decades. "I cannot accept any modern day team wouldn't absolutely destroy Preston North End 1888." Sanjit Atwal, who runs football stats site Squawka, says the model's top picks are in line with what he would have chosen, but he's not sure the model will work as well in other countries where football is played according to different tactics. "They are weighing attack and defence equally. In other styles of play, possession of the ball is very different." As for whether this will settle the argument of the greatest team ever, these statistics are just more fuel for the debate, says Atwal. "Fans will take whatever they can out of the data to win an argument."