Pele, Maradona, Best…Messi? A first touch as if playing in silk slippers, the ability to go from naught to sixty and back down again in the blink of a dizzy defender’s eye, majestic with his left and right, and despite what many think, head; everything about Lionel Messi belongs on this illustrious list.
Messi’s detractors argue he has to perform at a World Cup before he can be regarded as this generation’s best, however too many unchangeable variables affect international football for it to be the crucial element used to gauge the world’s finest talent. Great club sides are built through the developing, buying and gelling of great players; great international sides are built on the off chance that you get a great generation. Ryan Giggs’ career attests to that. While the Argentina sides of recent years have had a forward line capable of supplementing Messi’s outrageous talent, a back four built on Newcastle United’s defensive rocks Jonas Gutierrez and Fabricio Coloccini puts Messi’s lack of success with Argentina in context. Not to mention the fact it took the Argentinian FA two years to work out that Maradona wasn’t quite as good with his head off the pitch as he was with his feet on it.
Similarly, an argument that the Argentine wizard needs to win more trophies to be considered the best player of his generation can be left on the turf like the majority of defenders he has come up against. Gary Neville and Clarence Seedorf have won 37 major honours between them, but few would place them on this short-list. Regardless, Messi has already collected 13 major trophies, including two champions League titles; only one European Cup less than the evergreen Seedorf twelve years his senior.
Moments of magic define the careers of Messi’s two closest challengers for this title, Brazilian Ronaldo and Zidane, with their legacies built on goals and performances in the finals of the world’s biggest two tournaments - think Zidane’s volley in the 2002 Champions League final or Ronaldo’s double in the World Cup final of the same year. But moments of magic should never be placed above prolonged levels of genius when judging the best player of a decade. As Ferguson and Mourinho always state, the league is your bread and butter, and no true football fan would rank a stunning cup run alongside a brilliant march to a league title. It should be no different with players. While Messi’s career is littered with similarly breath taking moments of magic, take his four goals against Arsenal in the champions League quarter-final last year, his mesmerising run from the half way line against Getafe that brought comparison with his hero Maradona, or his header against Manchester United in the Champions League final that put Barcelona out of sight, it is within this sphere of ‘prolonged brilliance’ that the young Argentine really stands alone. Both Zidane and Ronaldo suffered dips in form at points in their careers, but for the past three years Messi has sparkled in almost every game he has been involved in.
In many respects stats speak for themselves, and 92 goals in his last 93 games is an outstanding return, but with Messi one must go beyond them. Like the greats before him Messi has taken football to what people thought were the highest possible echelons and then gone higher. This season Messi has performed at a level beyond anything seen before in the modern era. Not only has the youngster already recorded 47 goals and 21 assists in just 41 games, (Ronaldo’s best ever season saw him score 47 in 49 with 11 assists), he has managed to do so with an irrepressible level of panache and skill. Messi has managed to combine repeated moments of magic comparable with Zidane in his pomp with goals at a greater rate than Ronaldo at his most prolific; a combination no one in the last decade has come close to achieving.
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