As Lionel Messi picked up the ball on the right wing against Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey final in May 2015, no-one could have predicted what he was about to do. There’s an electricity that crackles through a stadium whenever he is in possession of a football; a feeling that something special is about to happen every single time - but even this was remarkable. The spectacular is so routine to Messi, so natural and almost effortless, that sometimes we only realise the scale of what has just happened as he is celebrating and we return to our seats.
He turns to face the midfielder, wriggles his way past three more, outpaces another two as he sprints down the line - using both feet to control the ball at lightning speed - and cuts inside towards the box. There he pulls another defender completely out of position with a drop of a shoulder and opens up enough space to launch a shot at the near post, catching the keeper off guard even though everyone in the stadium knows Messi is about to shoot.
It was as though once Messi had spotted all the pieces in the right place laid out in front of him there was no preventing the goal. He just needed to connect the dots and finish whatever puzzle it is he had solved before everyone else - no-one could get close. It was incredible.
Thierry Henry has described his old teammate as “a freak”, which is a lot kinder a compliment than it sounds but one entirely accurate; the scary thing about this Bilbao goal is that it was not even the best scored by Barcelona’s virtuoso that season.
It's almost disappointing when there are only a couple of Vine worthy moments from a Barcelona match, but to watch Messi play is to enjoy watching a maestro, a freak of nature, play the game like it never has been. In his last game, a 4-1 win over Espanyol, Messi scored two and assisted two. He is relentless.
It has become something of a cliché to say it, but Lionel Messi is so good we take it for granted at times. A goal and an assist is just about the very least you’d expect from Messi in any game he plays and he usually does at least that in almost every single game he is part of.
Messi sprints past a River Plate opponent in the Club World Cup Photo: 2015 FIFA
Ronaldo fans will deny it angrily, but there is… a feeling (that word again)… that Messi almost gifted Fifa’s prestigious individual award to Ronaldo in 2014 by simply not being at his best that year, for whatever reason. By default, Messi is naturally the greatest player in the world, though Ronaldo (and we) has learned from his career that hard work can do wonders – and that is not to say that Messi does not work hard either.
Since losing out on that Ballon d’Or in January 2014, Messi has been incredible. He has won five trophies with Barcelona, including the Champions League – his fourth – a La Liga title and the Club World Cup. Crucially, all of this has been done while sharing the stage with his partners in crime: the MSN (not the messaging app), and facilitating the development of superstar teammates.
Championeee: the MSN celebrate winning what is supposed to be the most important trophy in club competition Photo: 2015 FIFA
In 2015 Neymar scored 41 and assisted 16 in 53 games, Luis Suarez bagged 48 goals and 22 assists in 57 – a phenomenal strike rate for an attacking partnership. But still Messi is better - joint top scorer with 48 goals and the provider of 23 assists in 53 games. Neymar is becoming the most likely candidate to be the next non-Ronaldo/Messi holder of a Ballon d’Or under Messi's guidance but will always be the apprentice. Messi is keen to see him develop - the team is always the focus of his achievements.
• Messi spat at by River Plate fans in Japanese airport after Club World Cup victory
For all of Barcelona’s trophies in 2015, Messi has produced those individual moments (and entire games) of brilliance that make him worthy of football's most prestigious individual award.
Pep Guardiola’s reaction to a nutmeg on James Milner, that left the experienced international and Premier League veteran look like he was playing a different sport, said more than any words ever could. Guardiola has seen this kind of trickery at close quarters for several years but still felt the need to cover his eyes in disbelief, laughing at what he'd just seen.
Messi doesn’t do things like this to show off, it is a part of his natural game. There are no flash tricks or fancy flicks - he just goes past opposition players like they are hardly even there. It isn’t even as though Messi is five steps ahead of everyone else at any particular time - he reacts and solves problems instantly like some sort of advanced cyborg super computer man, as though he sees the world in neon green binary like Keanu Reeves in that film. Bill and Ted 3: this time it's digital (may not exist).
In 2015 Lionel Messi scored two of the greatest goals of this generation. One was that wonder goal against Athletic Bilbao in a La Liga game, the other in a Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich.
Pep Guardiola knows only too well what Messi is capable of but no number of instructions or amount of preparation could prevent Messi leaving a defender flat out on his back, doomed to watch a stunning winning goal.
"I was laughing at myself, too!” Jerome Boateng – one of the world’s best defenders on current form – told ESPN after that goal in Barcelona. “When you fall down or slip in a situation and somebody scores a goal, it's normal.
"These things happen. For me, he's the best player in the world. That's football. Sometimes you look bad or something happens. I'm a defender, that doesn't kill me or anything."
There are moments like these in most games Messi has played in this year. Since returning from injury in the last couple of months and in between scoring goals from sharp, quick bursts that define Barcelona’s attacking play, Messi has scored two ridiculous 30 yard freekicks, including this against Espanyol:
And this against Deportivo La Coruna:
But it’s not just goals that Messi brings to the team. In that same game against Deportivo he drifted inside from the right to play a trademark curled throughball over the defence and to the back post (the goal disallowed for offside from Alba’s subsequent pass), an example of a pass that we just expect Messi to make since he does it all the time. He does it multiple times in some matches – it’s just another weapon in his impressive arsenal - but even it requires incredible vision, accuracy, timing…
There is no other player in the world capable of such spectacular and routine brilliance. The 2015/16 season so far has allowed Neymar to blossom into something truly special but over the entire of this year Messi has been on a different planet and returned to his rightful place as the star of Barcelona and of galactic football. Magic, and creating it this consistently, shouldn’t be this easy. I, for one, cannot wait to see what he does this year.
Messi and Ronaldo
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét