There is a running joke about Lionel Messi’s status as the greatest footballer ever to play the game. It seems there is only one man standing between Messi and the tag. No, not Cristiano Ronaldo. But Gonzalo Higuain. In each of Argentina’s last three finals — 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2015 Copa America and 2016 Copa America Centenario — Higuain has missed gilt-edged chances.
For football watchers of this era though, it’s a never-ending, almost futile debate. Barcelona is the greatest club as we speak, and Messi is its identity, they attest. He has scored 500 goals for the club, won eight La Liga and four UEFA Champions League titles. The 29-year-old is a five-time FIFA Ballon d’Or winner, given to the best player on the planet.
And in perhaps the greatest annual sporting spectacle, the El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the most-recent episode of which played out last Sunday, he has scored a record 23 goals. There is no new evidence to be unearthed. Everything is just a reiteration of a long-established fact.
Herein lies the catch. For legions of Messi fans, it might not matter. But it matters to the man himself, often deeply, best captured when he tearfully announced his retirement from international football after the 2016 Copa loss only to reverse it later. This is no doubt an era in which footballing philosophies take root at the club level. But there is still a generation which eagerly looks forward to the once-in-four-years extravaganza and feels disappointed when Messi doesn’t end up on the winning side.
On Argentina
Argentina, as a nation, is symbolic to this. The current team is arguably its golden generation. But none of the stars play at home as they are mostly poached by the elite European clubs. So if Messi can play his best only for Barcelona, of what relevance is he to Argentina? The common refrain being that he is no Diego Maradona, who single-handedly won the 1986 World Cup. In a purely footballing sense, the 2016-17 season might settle this debate too. Often in the past, Messi was said to be shooting from the shoulders of the Barcelona midfield troika of Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez and Sergio Busquets. The Catalan club’s identity is its midfield and former manager Pep Guardiola was not averse to even filling all ten outfield positions with midfielders.
The current season has seen this famed midfield unravel. Barcelona wins, but it doesn’t win well. That it is still in with a chance of claiming the La Liga is purely down to the individual genius of Messi. In the aftermath of his 500th goal, it emerged that 120 of these have come after the 75th minute; a clear indicator of them mostly being either match-saving or match-winning. In early November 2016, Jorge Sampaoli, one of the great Argentinian coaches, now in charge of Sevilla, said, “We have a plan for Barcelona and another for Messi.” Sevilla, like Madrid on Sunday, succeeded in the former but not in the latter. The debate on the greatest ever can go on, but this season might just be Messi’s greatest ever.
