Manu Ginobili is living his best life at the moment, having just been enshrined into the Basketball Hall Of Fame. The San Antonio Spurs man is a legend, both in America and in his home country of Argentina. While contributing to 4 championships in the NBA is a huge accomplishment for any player, arguably the crowning glory of Manu’s career came in 2004 when he led Argentina past the United States to claim an Olympic Gold Medal.
In a country that is primarily obsessed with soccer, but still has a proud history of basketball, it was a very big deal. Manu is loved in his home nation; he commands the respect and love of a lot of fans. And even the biggest stars in Argentina have nothing but great things to say about Manu, and there’s arguably no bigger star there than Lionel Messi.
Lionel Messi is considered the GOAT of soccer by a lot of people, although there is no consensus, with Pele, Maradona, and his rival Cristiano Ronaldo having claims to the mantle as well. And while Messi has enjoyed tremendous success in his playing career, he still humbled himself when asked about Manu Ginobili.
Lionel Messi Says People Should Call Him The Manu Of Football
Ginobili made his Hall Of Fame Enshrinement speech on Saturday, and to celebrate that, a lot of content around it was shared by the San Antonio Spurs social media team. Among all that stuff, there was a quote from Messi speaking about Ginobili that was incredibly sweet.
Lionel Messi:
“It makes me very proud to hear a journalist say that ‘Manu is the Messi of basketball’, in fact they should say that I am the Manu of football.”
(via @spurs) pic.twitter.com/kIp5W4mBFZ
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) September 11, 2022
“It makes me very proud to hear a journalist say that ‘Manu is the Messi of basketball’, in fact, they should say that I am the Manu of football.”
Considering that Messi has won football’s greatest individual honor a record number of times in addition to the many trophies he has won with his teams, this is very huge praise for Ginobili. Manu was never quite on the level of Messi, that’s more the tier of Michael Jordan and LeBron James. It goes to show how deeply his leading Argentina to the gold medal is valued.
Messi has struggled to achieve the same thing in a certain sense, while the Argentine has won trophies with the national team, he hasn’t been able to deliver the World Cup. They did make it to the final but ended up losing to Germany. It’s weird how sports work sometimes, but Ginobili will surely feel good when he reads this quote.
