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Why do many professional footballers and managers see Messi as the best player of all time?
I think there are a number of things.
The records have all set the standard, the consistency has smashed the records and the onfield feats have literally redefined time and space on the field - at least as it complacently existed pre-Messi and also pre-Ronaldo. There were things that were accepted as the mean, things that were expected of the greats and things that just couldn't be done outwith a hot streak of form.
Previously the standard was 20 goals a season, 10 bravura performances per season, numerous off-colour showings, maybe a golden tournament or season that defied logic and defined a career. That's gone now.
With Messi and Ronaldo the negative stat or performance is noteworthy as the exception to the rule - a new rule they are constantly rewriting as they go along. Now the standard has been defined in tranches 1-2 years, of three years, five years and now a decade or more. And it has been scaled up as Messi and Ronaldo have driven each other on to even greater things.
Messi does in matches what lesser mortals can only aspire to emulate in training or when it doesn't matter, without pressure. Only in international football, with a less familiar/supportive context, does he struggle to play as he does in La Liga and The Champions League week after week, season after season.
Then there's the technical stuff, the left foot, the balance, the extreme pattern recognition, the change of pace, the improvisation and imagination, the supreme concentration and focus, the desire to make the world anew every time he enters the field of play. He has the full gamut of attributes that great players in the past have called on but just more of them.
He sees something even so-called greats can't see and does things other so-called greats can't do. He has a different set of standards and he, along with Ronaldo, has defined a different set of standards for every other footballer to be judged against.
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