I agree with him, on championships like CL you can buy your best team and get through, you can't do that in a WC.
That's not the point he made though, he said that Messi is almost capable of winning games by himself and turn around matches, but not capable.
He didn't win the world cup final by himself. He's won plenty of Barcelona matches by himself. He's won three matches in this World Cup pretty much single handledly.
As for your other point, that's taken. But look at players like Bale. If he scores one hundred goals next season and every season for the next ten years, is he automatically not the GOAT because he hasn't won a World Cup? Because his country are shit?
It's a bit of a silly argument. I'm not arguing that Maradona or Pele aren't the greatest, but Maradona didn't score any of the goals in the final, and one of his goals against England was a cheat, and he was not the only good player in the side. Pele was part of some stunningly good teams, he was injured in 62 and all his goals came in Brazil and America.
Cryuff never won a World Cup and people will still think he's one of the greatest. Did George Best even play at one? Di Stefano didn't.
It's just an odd reductive argument to make that he cannot be the greatest player purely because he hasn't won it. Is Klose a better player than Messi because of all his World Cup goals and the fact he's won it? No, because we take the rest of their career into consideration.
And of course, Pele and Maradona had sterling careers. But I think Messi's has certainly been above Pele's club career. Argument can be made for Maradona's achievements with Napoli, but another thing is Messi's consistency. He's been the best player in the world for probably eight years now. He's been in Barcelona's first team for around ten. He's got three champions leagues and scored in two finals. He's got the la Liga scoring record. Last season was probably his worst since he was 20 and he scored 40 goals.
It's really not as reductive as many make out.
