7 players we cannot believe have been compared to Lionel Messi: Werner, Young…
Few, if any, footballers can match the footballing CV of the great Lionel Messi. One World Cup, two Copa Americas, 875 career goals, 389 career assists, 12 league titles and four Champions Leagues.
You’d think such a legendary career would make coaches and pundits think twice about mentioning young players in the same breath as Messi, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves.
Not counting the ironic, tongue-in-cheek “[insert nationality here] Messi” (we’re looking at you, Mateusz Musiałowski, Ryan Gauld and Gai Assulin), we’ve picked out seven footballers we can’t believe have genuinely, seriously, been compared to Messi.
Ashley Young
“I think Ashley’s a world-class performer, I really do,” an absolutely bowled over Martin O’Neill told reporters after Young shone in Aston Villa’s 3-2 victory away to Everton way back in December 2008.
“I don’t use [those words] too often but he’s absolutely class. And he’s far from reached his peak.
“If you look at other top quality players who are 22 or 23 and who are absolutely brilliant … you look at people like Ronaldo and Messi and ask how they can improve, but they do, they just get better.”
“Yes. I’ve just put him in it. This is my opinion,” O’Neill responded when asked if he would really put Young in the same category as Messi and Ronaldo.
“I look at players; I see a lot of games in Europe, I watch a lot of football and you see a lot of players playing the game who are very functional.
“Some are decent, some are more than decent and some are very good. And then you have players who are absolutely exceptional and Ashley Young is absolutely exceptional.”
No shade on Young, who has been a top professional for over two decades.
Thirty-nine caps for England. A Premier League winner with Manchester United. A Scudetto winner with Inter. Almost 500 Premier League appearances. Wonderfully versatile, always committed.
But in the words of Roy Hodgson, let’s not take the p*ss here.
Good as he’s been, Young has never been close to Messi’s level – as he himself would surely admit. Not once has Young ever made the Ballon d’Or shortlist. Messi won the thing eight times.
Bojan Krkic
In the wake of Barcelona’s 2008-09 treble, won with a largely homegrown core of players, there was a period in which the media were obsessed with unearthing the ‘next Messi‘ out of La Masia.
It only took about 15 years for Lamine Yamal to emerge.
Bojan burst onto the scene at a similarly young age, showed bags of potential, and went on to enjoy a decent career. But he never hit anywhere near the heights of Messi.
“I think it has always been the same and it will always be the same,” he reflected on the Messi comparisons in an interview with ESPN.
“It’s a reflection of society. We want everything in the moment, and we don’t value what we have and we don’t value ourselves.
“Sometimes we value the person next to us more and that sometimes takes away the satisfaction that we could have if we felt and observed what each one of us has.
“Having said that, I also don’t really understand the need to find or want to find that ‘new Messi’ or, before Messi, that ‘new Ronaldinho.’
“Because, in the end, each one of us is losing the essence of what that player can become, who has nothing to do with another one and the beauty of this is that it is so.”
Words worth heeding.
Gerard Deulofeu
A few years after Bojan, Deulofeu started to catch the eye in the Barcelona youth ranks, when the Spanish sports dailies inevitably started comparing him to Messi.
“In the end, [the comparisons] were more detrimental than beneficial,” Deulofeu told Forza Milan.
“Normally, I don’t read newspapers, but that headline I remember well. It created too much expectation among Barcelona fans. There’s only one Messi.”
Deulofeu broke out of La Masia and had a couple of spells in and around Barca’s first team amid loans away, but it was only with more settled stints at Everton and Watford that he found form as a perfectly serviceable winger.
A Messi-level generational talent, though? No chance.
Marcus Edwards
“The qualities – it’s only looks, his body and the way that he plays – remember a little bit from the beginning of Messi,” Mauricio Pochettino told reporters when Edwards was first catching the eye in Tottenham’s academy.
“He’s small, he’s left-footed, I remember a little bit [Erik] Lamela when he was at River Plate, remember he had long hair, when he was 14, 15 years old, there is a lot of videos on YouTube that you can see, that he took the ball, didn’t give a pass and shot straight away.”
Oh, Poch. Stick to Lamela – no one’s going to get carried away with that comparison. Citing Messi’s name is never a good idea.
Edwards is a fine footballer. He did really well for himself out in Portugal and helped get Burnley’s promotion push over the line last season.
But at 26 years of age, he remains uncapped by England and has never quite lived down Pochettino’s well-intended but ill-advised Messi comparison.
Timo Werner
Ah, Timo. We might have a winner here for the comparison that’s aged the worst.
“For me, Leipzig is one of the secret favourites to win the Champions League,” Germany legend Berti Vogts wrote in a column, back in 2017.
“They have brilliant and speedy players. Timo Werner even reminds me of the young Lionel Messi.”
To be fair, there was a time when Werner established himself as one of the most coveted young forwards in Europe. But reading that line in 2025 made us spit out our coffee.
But did his Champions League dark horse shout fare any better? No, not really. RB Leipzig were dumped out in the first round, ending up third in a favourable group that featured Besiktas and Porto.
Facundo Buonanotte
“When he brakes and accelerates, he reminds me of [Lionel] Messi. He is at a very high level,” Carlos Tevez famously said of the Argentinian playmaker when he was his coach at Rosario Central.
In fairness to Tevez, he was only picking out a specific aspect of Buonanotte’s game and wasn’t trying to suggest he’ll be quite as good as his old Albiceleste team-mate.
The talented Brighton youngster appreciated the compliment, but downplayed the comparison.
“No, it is impossible,” he told The Telegraph.
“He was my idol growing up, my absolute hero. I’m only 19 and he was playing many huge derbies for Barcelona against Real Madrid by then.
“It was great of Tevez to say that and I think maybe he was referring more to my speed and acceleration off the mark.
“It went viral and exploded everywhere, but it would be a lack of respect towards Messi to make a direct comparison.”
Kendry Paez
“He has everything to be better than Leo Messi, better than Neymar, but it depends on him and his entourage,” former Ecuador stalwart Carlos Tenorio told L’Equipe.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen a player with these characteristics. I think he has everything to become one of the most important players in world football.”
Paez is still only 18 years old and has a whole career ahead of him to vindicate Tenorio’s bold claim. You never know.
We’re big fans of the Chelsea wonderkid and will be keeping close tabs on how he fares out on loan at sister club Strasbourg this season, his first experience of playing outside his native Ecuador.
But c’mon now. Be serious. Claiming any teenager can be “better than Neymar” (Brazil’s all-time top goalscorer, for what it’s worth) is cranking the hype meter way too far. Let alone Messi.
Tenorio would be wise to take a leaf out of Pep Guardiola’s book.
“Let him develop his career,” Guardiola said of Lamine Yamal. “And the fact that he’s being compared to Messi is a big deal.
“Like if you compare a painter to Van Gogh, they’ll say, ‘Wow, he’s not bad, it’s a sign he’s good’. And that comparison is a sign he’s good. But we have to let him develop his career. And we’ll see.
“Messi has been a big deal. 90 goals in one season, for 15 years, non-stop, without injury. That’s a big deal. Let him go. Let him go.”
Guardiola was saying that of Yamal, the one young player who might one day actually hold a candle to Messi. It should go without saying that applies to everyone else, too.
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