It is hard to believe Lionel Messi is only 24 years of age having achieved so much in his career.
Last Wednesday night in Europe, Messi again gave us a display that will be remembered for many years to come. You know an individual performance is special when both coaches are talking about him in comparison with the greatest players in the world after the game. Messi became the first player to score five goals in a Champions League match, helping defending champion Barcelona win 7-1 against Bayer Leverkusen.
His coach Pepe Guardiola was in total awe of the Argentinean genius, talking about him like any fan that was lucky enough to be in the stadium that night, “Messi owns the throne and title as the best player in the world and he alone will decide when he leaves it. He is the best!
“When Di Stafano played we thought there could be no other, then Cruyf came, then Maradona – and I cannot forget Pele – and now Messi is with us. “I feel privileged to be, to have been and now be his trainer. I will always be able to say I trained him. He is a unique player.”
Most coaches never talk about their players in this way, especially when they are not even half way through their careers and have the task to manage their egos and keep them hungry for more success, yet Guardiola is talking about him like he is a retired great discussing his amazing career.
It is not often we see such behaviour by a top line European manager in the hardnosed cut throat world of professional modern football so when it happens you must sit up and take notice that this is something special. His statistics and accomplishments at club level are phenomenal: 147 goals in 201 matches playing for Barcelona Most ‘target man’ strikers only dream about such a goal scoring ratio, yet Messi achieves this prolific ratio as a number ten playing behind the main striker. Then add five La Liga titles and three Champions League titles in which he scored in two of those, against Manchester United in both 2009 and 2011. He was not on the pitch as Barcelona defeated Arsenal in 2006, but received a winners’ medal from the tournament.
After scoring 12 goals in the 2010-11 Champions League, Messi became only the third player (after Gerd Muller and Jean-Pierre Papin) to top-score in three successive European Champion Clubs’ Cup campaigns. However, Messi is the first one to win the Champions League top scorer titles for three consecutive years after Champions League changed its format in 1992. Messi is the fourth football player to win three Ballon d’Ors, after Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten and the second player to win three consecutive Ballon d’Ors, after Michel Platini (however, two of his Ballon d’Ors are FIFA Ballon d’Ors, which he won consecutively).
Many will say he has the benefit of playing in the best team in the world, arguably the greatest team of all time, but most great players at their peak have enjoyed that luxury. Di Stefano at Real Madrid, Cruyf at Ajax, Pele at Santos and Van Basten at AC Milan all played in all-conquering superior teams. Which leaves one player that he will always be compared to due to his nationality and his size and that is Diego Armando Maradona. Maradona, his supporters would argue, never had the luxury of playing in the best teams in the world and yet he had the ability to carry them to success like few others.
His club teams in Europe, Barcelona and Napoli, were good strong European teams and the Argentinean National team of ’86 was not brimming with world class players yet Maradona left a legacy few have enjoyed and most will look to Brazil 2014 as the tournament where Messi has the chance to join him and maybe even surpass his achievements by becoming a World Champion for his country. To achieve this in Brazil, his country’s greatest rival, would be the greatest achievement for an Argentinean and this, I believe, is what is left for Lionel Messi to do and possibly become the greatest of them all.
He has so many years left with Barcelona it’s frightening to predict what his list of trophies and achievements will be when he retires at club level considering the quality and age of his team mates, but in terms of the ultimate legacy it will stop at his achievements in the World Cup right or wrong. Some will say club football is at higher level than international football now, that Barcelona is the best team in the world at club or international level, but the whole world stops for four weeks during the World Cup, it will always be the most prestigious title in the world. It allows you the privilege of calling yourself “world champions”.
Sorry Lionel, if you want to surpass your hero you need to lift the World Cup in Brazil 2014 and you need to be ‘Player of the Tournament,’ then you will have claimed your place next to the greatest of them all.