It would be immensely fun as a layperson to go up against Messi just to see how many seconds of trying to separate the ball from his possession I could go before I’ve tripped over my own feet and am laughing hysterically at the sheer magic of what he’s able to do.
I used to play semi pro volleyball in late puberty. We had a quite nice school team and we were second in regional championship which was taking place in the largest city of the country. One day while we were having a workout a friend of our coach showed up who was playing in the national team so we asked him to participate. Dude was willing to do so and from the way he played it was obvious he wasn’t really trying. So at one point he’s on the offensive and I jump to block him which I did. The one thing I remember even three decades later is just how much my palms hurt. Both my hands had gone numb. There was a lot of cheer and he came alongside to congratulate me, but all I was thinking at the moment was fuck this hurts so much. I can’t even imagine how it would feel had he gone full force while hitting the ball, although I seriously doubt I could have blocked it if he did.
A layman person can’t realize how vast the gap is between him/her and a pro player, let alone elite players. My guess is that you wouldn’t even have the time to react because he’s so agile he can change direction in a fraction of a second. You wouldn’t trip and fall, you’d simply stood still and by the time you’d register what happened he’d be ten feet behind you.
I'm big into tennis and have worked at a very prestigious (but non-major) tournament before. I've seen some of the top guys hit and it's mind-blowing how good they are.
I've also managed to hit with some former college guys who made top 500 ATP. they are insanely good with hard serves and insanely accurate ground strokes. the difference between those guys and a top level player is night and day...scary how good top athletes really are.
Also several years ago played in a pickup soccer game with a guy who washed out of Manchester United's academy as a 14 year old. In that same pickup game were guys who at the time were playing D1 soccer, and a few had spent time in MLS academies. The ex-United guy was lightyears ahead of everyone else despite having been out of the game for nearly 10 years and having a bad knee. The guys who make it to the top are utterly incomprehensible for a layman to understand.
It's just like how if you're playing a GM in chess, and you might be a decent enough player yourself, you won't even sniff a chance of doing well much less winning. Those same GMs turn around and get effortlessly destroyed by Carlsen or other top players. It's just a different level that us civilians cannot fathom.
I agree. There is so much more talent the higher you ascend. Reminds me of an article about the struggle for someone to make Olympic qualifiers.
I would also like to say that you must be quite athletic and talented to be playing with former ATP 500 tennis and D1 and youth professional football players. Congrats!
Heh no - not really that good. The former ATP 500 player literally lives in my building and hits with a few guys here who he's known for a while (also former college guys who played at the ATP level briefly) and I've been fortunate to be able to jump in on occasion as one of those guys is a good friend of mine who invites me from time to time. Can't say I can really hang at that level for very long. I didn't even play on my high school team!
Football wise, even worse - I just picked up the game playing in college and in local games growing up but was never any good. The ex-United kid quit the sport and moved to the US for school and lived near the local pitch where the pickup matches were held and he would just wander over for yucks. He ran (walked, really, due to his knee) rings around everyone.
I had a similar experience to yours. I used to do MMA and got fairly good. I’ve trained with people who fought locally in the ring and did ok with them in sparring matches. They were clearly better but I did ok against them. One day I ended up sparring with someone who eventually went on to become a semi finalist in the Ultimate Fighter. It was like I was 5 years old fighting a college student. I could do nothing against him. He completely destroyed me. He didn’t have a successful UFC career. I can’t imagine what it would be like to fight a top tier pro.
I read something a while back that was the same for hockey. When you see NHL players passing the puck around the average person has no idea the incredible wrist and arm strength required to make and take those passes.
I think it might have been a reddit thread where a commenter said that a guy came and played on their rec league that had played semi-pro hockey (maybe AHL) and even then nobody on the team could handle his passes. The commenter said it felt like his wrists were going to break.
Yeah, I was thinking about this a bit more and realized that unless he were specifically trying to make an exhibition of it, it would be really mundane. He’d approach, make one quick move and go right by. The sheer futility would still have me laughing though.
Shielding the ball is one the first things you learn to do in football. Even an average player should be able to keep a "layperson" away from the ball indefinitely, no magic required.
Magic only matters when you're trying to beat multiple players or someone who is roughly the same skill level as you, otherwise you can literally just run past them or beat them with a simple cut.
Oh yeah, that is like racing against top drivers! Similar to a sibling comment, I remember a story. It was me taking part in a karts race, just for fun of course, and in the group was this kid who was like 10 or 12?, and in less than 5 laps he built a gap so large, and 10 more laps later I ended up exhausted doing my theoretical best (trying to follow "best" racing lines and all) while he was just doing a warmup. After we finished, I talked to him and he told me that he was going to take part of the world Karting championship in two months later at the time, and I felt so trash compared to him. It was eye opening in a way that makes you wonder if their brain processes the world similarly to you, or if they are built too overpowered for us mere mortals.
Since every Messi thread somehow ends up with Ronaldo, there is a video where Ronaldo is "smurfing" disguised with a fake beard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68E53lcUIKE
The video is not really that interesting.
As for "entire team playing against a team of laypeople" - I would like to see something like this too. Best we can have is probably the match between American Samoa and Australia that ended 0-31
