The essence of Lionel Messi is not in the bare statisticthat now makes him the most prolific scorer of goals in a single year in thehistory of the game.
It is in the way that he does it. It is the desire of theman who, at age 25 and possibly just reaching the middle of his career, makesevery game seem like such a joy, for himself and others.
There is a child in Messi that will not grow up, thankgoodness.
He was injured last Wednesday. His left knee took the weightof Benfica’s goalkeeper, Artur, in a challenge. As Messi was carted away by themedics, the distress of missing perhaps several months was writ large acrosshis face. When tests proved nothing was broken, merely extensively bruised,Messi did as Messi invariably does. He demonstrated that impulse, that absolutedetermination, to play the next game.
“He doesn’t need this kind of effort to show how much heloves this sport,” Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova tried to tell us, and to tellhim.
Messi wasn’t listening. He was focused on the flight toSeville and on showing his coach Saturday that he was good and ready to playagainst Betis.
This is a tough opponent. Physically and spiritually, Betisis a team that even Barca finds hard to beat, especially in its tightly packed,emotionally charged Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium.
Messi, with another pair of goals Sunday, made sure that Barcelonawon the game, 2-1.
Though Messi’s first instinct after scoring was to raiseboth index fingers to the heavens as he always does, he knew how much the otherBarca players wanted these goals for him. Andres Iniesta, himself a Spanishidol after scoring the goal that won the 2010 World Cup, had a touch in bothgoals.
For the first, Iniesta’s pass found Messi lurking withintent just outside the penalty box. Alexis Sanchez also assisted because,without the ball, Sanchez made a decoy run that pulled one of the Betis centraldefenders out of position.
The rest was down to Messi. He darted a few paces to hisleft to give himself a sight of the target. Just the three tall Betis defendersand the goalie remained. But none really came to Messi, or at least not quicklyenough to prevent him off loading his shot with that wonderful left foot ofhis.
Six minutes after that, Iniesta’s back heel laid out thegoal that would take Messi past the all-time record of 85 goals scored in onecalendar year, set by the German Gerd Muller in 1972.
Pele's record of 75 goals, set in 1958, was already out ofthe equation.
It was now just Der Bomber, as we will forever rememberMuller, and La Pulga, The Flea, as Messi’s countrymen in Argentina refer tohim.
If comparisons across different eras mean anything, we madethem long ago. If proof were needed that soccer is a team game, the way thatIniesta and Sanchez passed and moved for Messi reiterated that.
One thing largely overlooked as people obsess about thestatistics of Messi’s feat is that he is the very opposite of a one-man attack.He plays for others, and he exudes joy in setting up goals for his teammates.Attempts to count assists are irrelevant because his presence alone “ whereverhe is on the field, defenders will follow him “ opens space for others.
We did wonder whether other dimensions to his life mightdull the singularity with which he adorns the game “ on the field, he is morelike a butterfly than a flea. Neither the new love of a son, nor the pain of aninjury, seemed to distract him.
That is another aspect to these great goal scorers in theirprime. They become such obvious targets for opponents, yet Pele and Mullerescaped serious harm in their careers, as has Messi “ so far. God willing, thatwill continue through the second half of Messi’s merrymaking career.
