All these are words, but in fact Messi without Barcelona is an ordinary average player.
Messi without Barcelona did not exist so we cannot make any assumption on what he was or would have been. The closest we can use is his National team and Messi without Barcelona in this situation is a,
- World Cup winner,
- Copa America winner,
- Olympic gold medalist,
- 2× World cup Golden ball,
- Two times world cup finalist.
A very fine record if you ask me.
If you watch football, then you must have heard about Iniesta, Xavi and others who were consistently better than Messi (and achieved the greatest achievements without him, while he failed without them) but did not win a single Ballon d'Or.
On what criteria are they better than Messi?
And what greatest achievement are you talking about, world cup? Yeah, he has achieved that.
- Jay -