A chip, to put the club ahead against Granada in their fight to claw back Real Madrid’s lead in La Liga.
Messi has been simply unrivalled in recent years. Cristiano Ronaldo, an incredible player in his own right, has been left behind and on his own behind the brilliant Argentine.
Messi is a phenomenon in so many ways. Not just a brilliantly skilful player with a tremendous scoring record, but he is able to drop back and track back, putting in a defensive shift. He runs past players, he can put his foot on the ball and slow down play, to become a playmaker a la Xavi. And he can play the final pass. And poach goals in the six yard box. A video is now up on youtube showing every one of the 234 goals Messi has scored.
It is some collection.
This is a player for whom superlatives are not enough. For whom words don’t come close to describing his brilliance. The most fitting praise for him comes in the form of the fans of the teams who are left exasperated and beaten by his excellence. Watching him tear apart my team a few years ago, only a part of me was disappointed with defeat. Most of me was watching, in awe, and delighted to have been entertained and given the chance to see a player producing the kind of brilliance Messi was. To paraphrase Dara O’Briain, it’s like watching someone sleep with your wife, but been helpless to admire their brilliant technical skill.
That is what is so great about Messi. He is not a player who attracts controversy, like Ronaldo. Only admiration. A player of unrivalled brilliance. Is he the best ever? That can’t be said until his career is over. Part of what made Pele and Maradona the players they were, was not just their ability to carry their teams and produce moments of magic, but that they did so consistently for a decade and a half of their careers. Messi still has that to do.
As he beat the record of César Rodriguez, El Pais said: “At 24 years of age it is impossible to know what his impact on football will be. At the moment he is the best in the world and he aspires to be the best of all time.”
Mundo Deportivo tried to describe him with this: “On Twitter yesterday it was written that Messi is the only player better in real life than on PlayStation. With his goals, work, assists, playing football like one does in the playground, he is the number one.”
Having scored 54 goals in 45 games this season, and with 16 more games remaining for Barcelona if they reach the final of the Champions League, it is not unrealistic at this goalscoring rate to think he will break the 70 goal mark.
This is the player forever raising the bar, despite no-one being within a hundred miles of him in world football. As his own coach Pep Guardiola simply put it: “He does everything, and he does it every three days.”
