Best of the 2011/2012 Season: BEST PLAYER!

By: Ade C. | June 14th, 2012

Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. This is the big one. Who is the player who has made the difference, who has wowed us with their skills, who has… stop saying “duh, Messi!” and wait to read our writers’ votes first, will you? Or just go to the poll at the end of the post and cast your own vote!

This picture is in no way an indicator of who people will vote for.

Natasha: it’s obviously Messi, isn’t it? But I’m going to choose another player who I think has been outstanding – Mascherano. He’s been our most reliable and consistent defender this season, without a doubt. You could say that’s not difficult, given Piqué’s drop in form and Puyol’s injuries, but he’s improved so much since joining the club. Certain commentators like to mention how he’s “not actually a centre back” but the position suits him perfectly. He’s made a name for himself as a top class defender and he’s no longer starting games on the bench. He’s starting almost every game and given his improvement and form, he deserves to.

Kage: You mean, besides Messi? Puyol was a rock — an ancient rock who played a ridiculous number of games with a ridiculous amount of energy. But let’s not ignore the patently obvious. Leo Messi not only led the Champions League in scoring for the fourth time in a row, but tied the 50 year-old record for most goals in the competition. He scored five goals in one game against Bayer Leverkusen. Within La Liga, Leo drove home 50 goals. To give an idea about how astronomical that number is, the previous Barca record had been 34 (set by the redoubtable Ronaldo). No one had ever scored over 41 in La Liga before. Or to put it another way, no one in ANY league had EVER scored more than 47. And that 47-goal haul was in the Rumanian League, and it was over 35 years ago. (Unnoticed went Messi’s total of 28 assists, which I believe is also more than anyone in Europe.) Leo played virtually every game, and did it all thrillingly, modestly. We’ll never see his like again.

Yazan: Pinto, who else?! It looks very worrying when you have more trust in your back up keeper than your first choice one, at least you expect him to do something idiotic. No but seriously, 73 goals in a season is something crazy. This guy has been scoring for fun all season, in every competition, finishing as league and champions league top scorer and winning the European shoe award. The award is quite useful because he’ll probably need it to shut Mourinho’s mouth who say’s his goals meant nothing and CR7 should get Ballon D’Or. I would like to introduce you to Lionel Messi!

Fcbfandrivel: Well, it’s got to be Messi, as cliched as that choice is. Not just for the plethora of records shattered during the season or for his unbelievably high standards and consistency or for being involved in every part of the play or for being such an utter joy to watch or even for doing his very best to keep the rest of the team from noticing our severely depleted front line thanks to a seemingly never ending plague of injuries. But for a whole that is much much more than the combination of parts mentioned above. Best summed up by Drogba to Lampard as “We play football, Messi creates football”.

Ramzi: My ego demands that I say “Mascherano!”, a kind of “I told you so!”, and obviously it is easy to build a strong argument to prove that not only Mascherano can pass, and play for Barcelona, but he can play as a center back – brilliantly. Yet, Barcelona’s best player this season was Busquets. He was just perfect, checked all the boxes, and was the most consistent player thoughout the season. He had to execute the most demanding work for the group both physically and tactically, and had different functionality almost with every match. And he felt at home, all the time. Messiastic!

Ade C.: I’m usually the contrary one, but Natasha and Ramzi have already done that for me, and really, how can you not choose Messi? Just watch this video of all his goals and assists for Barça this season… although I’d like to nominate Andrés Iniesta for Best of the Rest, as he has also had an incredible year.

Now, it’s time for you to vote:

Best Player of the 2011/2012 Season

Some Related Barcelona Posts:

Category: Barcelona, Messi, Players

« Best of the 2011/2012 Season: Best Moment! | Home | News of the Day: Jordi Alba, First Barça Signing of the Summer! »

Sathya

Voting should be done without Messi as an option. We all know Messi as the best player in our team, in the world and in any other universes that might be there... So why vote for the obvious? Rather make a poll for the best player other than Messi
winnie

Some are unfair to Messi, always. Numerous times, I saw similar comments like "Yes, Messi is outstanding, but my man of the match is xxx (any person other than Messi)" "Yes, Messi scored a hat-trick, but I'll choose xxx.." Not the same wordings anyway. But it always gives me the feeling that the writers did not treasure what Messi has done to the team. They always try to give credits to other players. It seems that praising Messi is just not special enough as a writer. Despite the team did not win La Liga or Champions League, Messi had his best season.He scored a ridiculous number of goals. He broke world record. He's re-writing the history of football in nearly every game. He, at the age of 24, is the all-time top-scorer since the club established in 1899, 113 years ago. Cesar had been the club's all-time top scorer for 57 years. However, he took 13 seasons to score 232 goals. Messi needed only 8 seasons to break his record with 253 goals. The statistics could not even reflect half of his talents. If it is said to be chosen the 'best player', then it has to be the best. It does not mean your favourite player, I guess.
Natasha

Yeah, but wouldn't it also be unfair to ignore the contribution of other team members? We know Messi will be outstanding in 9/10 games he plays in. There's no arguing that he's the team's best player - look at all the awards and records he's broken - and he's still improving.

If I feel that Messi's been the best player in a match, I'll say so. But I'm not going to ignore what the rest of the team does and act like Messi is the sole saviour of the team. Support the team over any individual player, and all that. We know Messi is the best. I know that the team would suffer greatly without him. But let's also take some time to look at how well some of the other players have performed this season. I know that in terms of stats and skills, Messi will be the best player of the season and has been for the past few years now, but some of the other players have also done very well this season and that must not be overlooked either.
Kageglantz

Ah yes, Ramzi. Busquets definitely was worth more to the team than Leo. Good thinking. Hey, I have a bridge you might be interesting in buying......

Re the Player of the Year: it is true that Messi didn't have good games in two important ones in that Week of Three Holocausts, but have you all noticed how CR has folded since then? First he basically died after 20 minutes in the CL semifinal, and missed RM's opening attempt in the penalty shootout. Then he was a nonentity against Germany in the Euros. And last night's display against Denmark capped it all. He took a terrible series of free kicks, shot all too often, warmed the ball virtually every time he got it, and twice in the second half was all all all alone with the keeper, with plenty of time and room, oh yes lots of time, for the second one he turned and looked around and then up in the stands and posed for a few pictures and combed his hair carefully before stepping up to the ball.... and missed both times. The second one wasn't even close! He could have basically walked around the keeper; instead he chose to sidefoot it wide wide right. He was awarded the Flop of the Match by goal.com. Should help the best player in the world win the Ballon d'Or yet again.
Ramzi

Dear Sir,

Our investigations showed that you own no bridges to sell. Kindly send the proper documents proving you actually have a bridge so we don't have to call you a liar.

Best regards,