In the middle of the week, the Champions League ended all matches 16-8. Mero's Grand Paris and Manchester United were both eliminated and missed the quarter-finals. With the huge decline in the personal abilities of the 37-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo and the 34-year-old Messi, the two can no longer carry the team forward on their own, is the era of Mero dominating football over?
The Merlot era is over. It's not coming to an end, it's already over. It's over.
The meaning of the Merrow era is that the two are the best double pride, one has the personal ability that is recognized as the top 2 in world football, and the other is to achieve excellent team results in a long-term stable manner. The latter has been in vain for several years, and to this day there is a lament that Mero has missed the Top 8 of the Champions League for two consecutive years; the former has completely ceased to exist this season.
Needless to say, 34-year-old Messi and 37-year-old Ronaldo, their personal abilities have dropped dramatically compared to their peaks. They are far from the best 2. The best top 5 and top 8 ranks, they may not have a share.
Mbappe, Benzema, Salah, Levan, even De Bruyne, and even Haaland and Kane, who have not yet played for the giants, are above Mero today in their ability to dominate or decide the game on their own. This conclusion did not change because Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick against one of the world's most unstable teams after a trough of 1 goal in 10 games.
The probability of Cristiano Ronaldo recovering a 5-7 deficit against Messi's golden ball is 0.0%. Although Ronaldo calls himself "GOAT", no matter the number of golden balls or football skills, he is powerless to change the history of 10 years and 20 years later, most people make messi slightly better than him. However, at least, Ronaldo is better than Messi in terms of evergreen attributes. He was widely regarded as "really old" at the age of 36 or 37, and Messi fell to the altar at the age of 34.
In a sense, Messi's personal ability has declined more obviously than Ronaldo. At his peak, Messi's shots, passes, passes and difficult-to-quantify goal quotient were among the best, and now, at least his first two indicators are gone.
Some people excuse Messi's goal exhaustion at the back of paris Saint-Germain, but remember that for many years, Messi was the long-range shooter of the five major leagues, and his production was more than twice that of the second place? Long-range shots are certainly harder than close-range shots, but they can't rationalize the embarrassment of Ligue 1's 60 shots and 2 goals. Moreover, Messi's shots inside the penalty area and outside the penalty area, as in previous years, are basically half-open, and he has not only long-range guns left because of the back of the position. Yes, Messi has shot the frame the most times in the top five leagues, just as he was also the iron king of All Europe at his peak. But can luck really explain all the shots from nearly 50% in previous years to 28.3% this season?
Messi's decline in individual ability may be more shocking than the reduction in shooting ability. Messi is much more than just a drop in speed, but also the ball feel and physical agility under his feet. His flashing in the crowds is becoming more difficult, and defenders no longer have to be overly proud of cutting off Messi's foot ball. Not only is he able to break through people (which is normal), but unnecessary passing mistakes are also common (not normal), and he has lost the ball as many as 23 times in a single game against Real Madrid.
Equally frightening is Messi's loss of desire to win. Too many times, he showed an eerie smile in the face of adversity on the field, a kind of resignation smile that had no choice but to let him go. Perhaps it was Paris Saint-Germain, a group that lacked a sense of progress, a club that made Messi difficult to belong to, that gave rise to this sad smile.
The decline in ability and the surrounding environment caused by subjective and objective factors are doomed to messi's peak era, and it has begun to play more negative effects on the team. He still receives the world's first salary, and still enjoys a relatively special status - although the tactical position is not as good as in the Barca era, but the privilege is still there, and he naturally starts in key games and is not suitable for replacement, even if he sacrifices more players for this. Against Real Madrid in the first leg, Di Maria made 37 pressing attempts, the highest in the team, to the Bernabeu, the Angels' right-wing starting position was given to Messi, resulting in the MNM combination combining to make 28 pressing attempts.
The impact of the ultra-high salaries of individual superstars on the atmosphere and combat effectiveness of the whole team, especially the negative effects of superstars not being able to match the salary performance, has long been repeatedly discussed by experts. Undoubtedly, although Messi's commercial value still exists, his competitive strength has seriously discrepancy with the legendary annual salary of 41 million euros after tax. After a year of losing your temper at the age of 34, it will be even more difficult to get back into shape.
The dilemma that follows is that even if Messi is rumored to want to return to Barca, if he can't accept the salary fold and then fold it in half, he will most likely remain trapped in Paris next season. History has repeatedly proven that Paris is a club that lacks a great competitive future. After Messi joined, it aggravated their salary imbalance, offensive and defensive imbalance, and the team's combat effectiveness did not rise but declined, even if this was not Messi's subjective fault.
C Ronaldo's current situation is roughly similar, getting a super high salary, getting certain privileges and eager for more privileges, and when he does not get it, he will show dissatisfaction with actions, but the competitive strength has been disconnected from this. Many people are accustomed to exclaiming that the president's divine power is not reduced when C Luo is mighty several times. But the reality is that C Ronaldo's state is becoming more and more unstable, he still has the highlight moments of superb shooting, but more and more times when he is at a loss, it is to have 10 games and 1 goal and the unimaginable single 0 shots at the peak.
The myth that Ronaldo must have an output in big scenes has long been shattered, and to a large extent, his existing shooting ability has also been exaggerated. His team awareness and passing ability have improved, but at the same time, the decline in physical function has also magnified the roughness of his technique under his feet. He may not always shoot with the ball, but how many times he has lost the standard of stopping the ball will make a wave of attack die.
Today's Cristiano Ronaldo is an extremely difficult player to use well. He can't be a centre-forward, he can't be a winger, he needs a team-type center to cover, and he needs a team-type team-mate behind him to make up for his lack of defensive output and concentrate on playing for him, while putting up with his complaints and praying that he will always get away with at least 3 red card fouls in the Premier League this season. Give it all in exchange for a kick in the door that he didn't know today.
Manchester United welcomed back Ronaldo, and as a result, the team fell into the lowest trough of the Premier League era, the results were bad enough, the atmosphere was bad enough, and it was extremely difficult to play a good game. This certainly can't be blamed on C Ronaldo, who didn't do much wrong himself, but a lot of it was attributed to him. Without him, the locker room has not been so compromised and divided, and the coach has not faced such uncontrollable tactical difficulties. If Sarri, Pirlo, Santos, Solskjaer, and Lonnick all fail to make full use of his theoretical might, does it exist?
Like Messi, if Cristiano Ronaldo does not accept the salary slash, it will be difficult to escape the United sea. Many people imagined that Paris was frantically promoting the Integration of Merlot, so that perhaps a year later, people would be able to see the Panic scene of the Parc des Princes booing Merleaux at the same time.
Luo Ming: Is the Merlot era really over?
Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United have been out of the Champions League, and Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have stopped in the Champions League round of 16 for the second consecutive year. Is the Mero era over? Or how did the Merlot era end?
If you only look at the team results, to take the Champions League as a benchmark, after the 2019 Champions League semi-finals, Barca were reversed by Liverpool, the "Mero era" ended. If you look at the individual performance, after all, Mero also won the top scorer in La Liga and Serie A last season, and the top scorer of the Copa America and the European Cup, they cannot suddenly decline in a few months, and there should be residual heat.
Three years ago, I wrote an article "Can Messi and Cristiano still win the Champions League", to the effect that Mero is only a part of the team after all, and whether they can succeed depends on the overall strategy of the club.
The crux of the matter is that Messi and Ronaldo's salaries are too high. Barca and Juventus are already overwhelmed, having been dragged down by the overall rising wage structure over the years. Mero cut his salary after leaving the team last summer, but the salary is still high (Messi is the world's first salary, C Ronaldo is the first salary in the Premier League). A normal, healthy club is difficult to "take over at a high level". In the end, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo went to Paris and Manchester United respectively, two clubs that are not bad for money, but the management is chaotic, and the failure has long been doomed.
Merlot is now the Back cooker. No way, who made them famous and paid high? Then again, with their fame, they did bring a lot of income to the club. Only looking at the individual cost performance, the club's investment in them is worth it, but from the overall point of view, their joining will affect the club's salary structure and even the team atmosphere.
So it's an insoluble situation. Past successes and fame have limited the achievements of Messi and Ronaldo over the years. Unless Mero is willing to lower their salaries in the future and make a healthy team happy to take over, it will be difficult for them to find an ideal environment. Of course, there is also a possibility: paris or Manchester United management has changed its mind and embarked on the road of "health".
Another problem with Mero is that they have limited involvement in defense compared to other veterans (e.g. Levan, Benzema) and are standard "pianists". In modern football, the top giants fighting for the Champions League, one person does not participate in the defense is the limit. This is also why paris's three forwards and even four strikers often lead to imbalances between the team's attack and defense, and the Champions League collapses in the face of Real Madrid's desperate attempts. And if Manchester United has one or two people outside of Cristiano Ronaldo who do not defend, the result is often disastrous.
If Mero can find a "healthy team" and the other 10 people try their best to defend, Mero may still shine. In fact, it is not nothing, and this is the case with today's Argentina team. In previous years, the star-studded Argentine team had too many pianists, but most of the time the results were not good. Now everyone is carrying the piano, Messi plays the piano alone, so Messi found happiness in the national team when he was frustrated with the club, and the Argentine team has been unbeaten in 29 games.
The Portuguese team took the opposite path. At the 2016 European Championship, everyone carried the piano and C Ronaldo played the piano. But in recent years, the Portuguese midfielder has blown up, last year's European Championship Portuguese team, playing the piano too much, the combination of the four stars in the frontcourt (C Ronaldo, B Fee, B Seat, Jota) is not good, B Fee finally became a substitute. At the end of this month, Portugal are facing a life-and-death battle in the World Preliminary Round, how to stimulate C Ronaldo's ability to fully use his shooting skills? The time has come to test Portuguese boss Fernando Santos.
Wen | to Tong Luoming
Edit | ball lightning