I really do believe history gets conveniently rewritten where certain older players are concerned, and the goalposts constantly get shifted around when it comes to Messi. it's funny, for instance, how 98 and 02 are remembered as Zidane's and Ronaldo's World Cups, when I distinctly remember them being poor and average at best respectively for most of those tournaments. and, because I was only 6 and obviously couldn't fully appreciate what I was watching at the time, I'm also starting to question the sacred cow that is Maradona's World Cup in 86. for those older than me, was he dazzlingly brilliant in every game, or did he just put together some incredibly decisive (and mostly spectacular) moments, the likes of some of which just hadn't been seen before? if it's the former, then fair enough, but if it's the latter then is it really fair for Messi's current campaign to be compared so unfavourably against it? the games against both England (where we have to remember that one of those goals was fraudulent) and Belgium are obviously well-remembered, and I know he was held very quiet for the large part of the final v Germany (until the moment he again proved decisive), but what about the games against South Korea, Bulgaria, and Uruguay? I'd love to fish out some match reports written during the tournament and compare them to everything written after it, in order to try and make a judgement for myself on just how much holds true.
I also think Messi has become a victim of his own ability to pull off some of the most incredible things on such an unprecedentedly consistent basis, and in doing so makes them appear routine, and then gets hammered whenever he's not doing so. there simply shouldn't be this number of caveats and asterisks raised against his achievements at this stage of his career. and if he's going to be penalised for not doing ALL the things that others have previously done between them, then it's only fair that the reverse is also applied, and others are retrospectively penalised for all the things he's done that they never came close to. no-one else is being required to tick every single possible box, so why is he?