🗣️“When all is said and done, one player, in my view, stands above any player I've seen in the art of ball dribbling.
Stanley Matthews pushed the dribbling envelope across the '40s and '50s. Garrincha and Sivori took it a tad further across the late '50s to early '60s. George Best and Johan Cruyff moved that dribble envelope a bit further across the late '60s and '70s. And then Maradona took it to a level never seen before. His '86 World Cup still stands as the greatest World Cup display of dribbling to date. Ronaldo threatened to blow the back out of things across the late '90s. The speed, power, intensity of his dribble runs and the quickness of his touches were mind-blowing.
Messi took it beyond the outer limits of what appeared humanly possible.🚀
No player has gotten out of tight corners like him. Sometimes surrounded and hemmed in by up to four players, he'd shoulder drop, throw shadow feints while rooted to the spot without even touching the ball, and have defenders collapsing this way and that way before taking incredibly fast touches to escape the cul-de-sac trap. Just mind-blowing.👽
Sometimes he'd turn around to find one or two defenders right in front of him, that were behind his back that he was unaware off and with incredible Bruce Lee-like reflexes, he'd take a couple of mind-blowing fast touches and dribble through them, even throwing in a nutmeg for good measure.
No player has scored as many slalom dribble goals coming from deep zones like him.
For every Ronaldo Nazário Compostela goal, Messi appeared to be doing them at least twice a month at the height of his peak years! Undoubtedly, THEE goatlier dribbler. 🐐"