# Congratulations Argentina



## Amon Rudh (Dec 18, 2022)

Just to mark their superb World Cup win after possibly the best final in history, I thought I'd post to say congratulations to the team, their fans and any of our Tolkien obsessed Argentine members once they get back online after what I presume will be days of partying!
Cheers! 🍻


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## Deimos (Dec 18, 2022)

Amon Rudh said:


> Just to mark their superb World Cup win after possibly the best final in history, I thought I'd post to say congratulations to the team, their fans and any of our Tolkien obsessed Argentine members once they get back online after what I presume will be days of partying!
> Cheers! 🍻


Yeah, they were great. I was glad they won it all. 😁


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## Olorgando (Dec 18, 2022)

It was the one deficit megastar Lionel Messi still had in comparison to Argentina's other megastar, the late Diego Maradona: the latter had led Argentina to its previous, second World Cup win in 1986 in Mexico. Two of the greatest players the game has ever had, now each with a World Cup win.
As far as having won it more than once, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, much better known as Pelé, holds the record that is probably for eternity. He won with Brazil's national team three times, in 1958, 1962 and 1970. Brazil also won in 1994 and 2002 for the team record five wins. Only three other teams, Italy and Germany with four each, and now Argentina with three, have matched Pelé's record.


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## 1stvermont (Dec 18, 2022)

I was happy for Messi, the greatest ever? probable.


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## Rivendell_librarian (Dec 19, 2022)

Odd game - Argentina looked well on top and France were lifeless until they got their first goal - it then stirred into life like a certain dragon who was woken up. After that you couldn't tell who would win until the shoot out.


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## Olorgando (Dec 19, 2022)

1stvermont said:


> I was happy for Messi, the greatest ever? probable.


it's extremely difficult, in fact close to impossible to compare players from different eras.
For example Messi now ranks shared fourth in total lifetime goals in World Cups with 13 - tied, ironically, with France's Just Fontaine (still around at age 89). There's a marked difference in how many WC appearances each needed to reach that total: Messi needed 5 (2006 / 10 / 14 / 18 / 22), scoring more than half in 2022 (7). Fontaine scored *all* of his goals in the 1958 WC (which had far fewer games than nowadays), which still stands as the all-time record for a single WC. But four years later, Brazil's Garrincha was the top scorer at the 1962 WC in Chile, with the all-time *low* of 4! Styles of play change, though rarely as drastically as between 1958 and 1962.
The really great players were world class for several years, being a crucial player both for their national and their club teams. By that yardstick, there's a foursome at the very top:

Brazil's Pelé
World Cup winner three times (1958 / 62 / 70), and six-time Brazilian club champion with Santos FC, with which he played from 1956 to 1974.

Argentina's Diego Maradona
World Cup winner 1986 (and in the final again 1990 when Germany avenged the 1986 loss), and a crucial player for top European club teams in the 80's to early 90's.

Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo
European Champion 2016. He was hampered in national team play by the fact that the rest of the team were not quite strong enough to compete for big titles except for 2016. His play for European club teams, especially perennial Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid (always competing with Messi's FC Barcelona), but also England's Man U and Italy's Juventus Turin, was outstanding.

Argentina's Lionel Messi
World Cup winner 2022, South American Copa América champion 2021. He joined FC Barcelona as a youth in the early 2000's, and continued playing for them until 2021, racking up some stupendous records, for 9 years in competition with Real Madrid's Christiano Ronaldo.

There are a few players no far behind these four, like France's Zinedine Zidane, leading his team to a World Cup win in 1998, another WC final in 2006, and a European Championship in 2000, as well as being a crucial player for the club teams he played for. But play at this level for roughly a decade is rare.


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