I hope you didn’t click on this article thinking I was going to trash Messi (Spoiler: This isn’t the article you’re looking for).
In all seriousness, I am sorry for the clickbait in the title. However, while the title is a little bit sensational, it’s not really clickbait. The title is a question. To which the answer is obviously a resounding no.
This is probably the greatest player of all time.
The reason for the question is that, as we all know, his form since arriving in Paris has been spotty, to say the least. A series of small injuries and niggles have been keeping him side lined far more than he or we would want. And as a result of that, we have people all over social media claiming he’s lost it almost overnight, as if the past 17 years didn’t happen. In fact, even news outlets have been reporting his decline for some time, even before he left Barca.
Of course, we also have the classic Messi vs Ronaldo debates resurfacing too. They both went to a new team this year, but Ronaldo, on an individual basis, is outperforming Messi this season even though Messi went to a “farmer’s league”. Objectively, this is true. However, as I just mentioned, the man has been injured and has struggled with fitness in a new league and a new country.
It may sound like I’m defending him- because I am- but if anyone’s earned some time to get back to their best and be defended in the meantime, it’s the Messiah himself.
A few weeks back I made a video arguing why Cristiano Ronaldo should never be doubted, by pointing out a small handful of moments where he’s silenced his critics.
We’re gonna do something similar today. For whatever reason, public sentiment towards Messi is far less aggressive than it is towards Ronaldo in my opinion. So we’re not going to look at times where he’s proved people wrong per se. I mean, I’d like to imagine that relatively few have ever dared to doubt the man.
Instead, we’re gonna look at 10 reasons that detail why Messi is, in many ways, in a class of his own. This will include both isolated moments, games and overall achievements.
So without any more waffle, why is Leo Messi so great?
Let’s kick things off with the early days and work our way up.
Table of Contents
Encara Messi
By 2007, Messi was 19 years old, turning 20. He had been embarrassing first team defenders in training and impressing just about everybody who had the privilege of watching him play for years at that point.
Despite this, he was still young and the likes of Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o held significantly more star power in the team. Messi had been in and around the senior team and had been making competitive appearances for them since he was 17, back in 2004.
However, by the 2006/07 season, things really began to pick up for him. Ronaldinho slowly began to lose form leaving open a spot for a new star to step up. Naturally, Messi stepped into the role.
Before he even hit 20, people had already been saying this kid was the next best thing for years. It’s not uncommon to hear or read snippets of quotes from Ronaldinho stating Messi would be the best player in the world when he was 15, or Ludovic Giuly claiming Messi would destroy the entire first team in training as a teenager.
People even compared him to Diego Maradona. To which many other people would respond with “come now, he’s only 19. We’re talking about Maradona here. Don’t forget, this is the same Maradona that scored insane goals such as the incredible solo goal against England in the quarter finals of the 1986 World Cup.”
Well.
As if he was responding directly to those people, he scored an eerily similar and downright outrageous goal in the semi-final of the 2007 Copa del Rey first leg against Getafe.
Insane goal, right. But before we move on, can we all give a round of applause to the most impressive part of this goal. That’s right; the assist. Look at that pristine execution by Xavi. This is passing mastery. This is tiki taka at it’s finest.
1 Ballon d’or
Fast forward 2 years to 2009 and Messi was now pretty much the best player in the World.
Pep Guardiola had stepped into the manager’s position at Barcelona and ushered in an era of unprecedented success for the Catalan club. Trophies galore, so to speak.
And as you can imagine, Messi was at the centre of just about all of it. Literally. It was around this point where he began finding success in the false 9 role that he dominated for so long.
Anyway, when it comes to Europe’s biggest trophy- the Champions League- Messi had already won the trophy with Barcelona back in 2006. But seeing as he only made 6 appearances in that year’s competition and never played in the final, it’s no surprise that he discounted that victory at the time.
“I feel completely differently about my league title medal compared to my Champions League medal — I feel a champion of Spain much more than I do a champion of Europe. But God willing, I’ll be back to win this tournament again.”
The words of Messi himself following the 2005/06 football season where Barca won the CL and La Liga. And he returned alright.
With a headed goal to seal a 2-0 win against Manchester United in the final and his first ever Ballon D’or victory, he undeniably ascended both physically and metaphorically to the top of world football.
Little did we know, the man would stay there for the next decade and beyond.
91 goals
By 2012, at only 24 years of age, many people had already made up their minds when it came to the greatest of all time debate. Which realistically made a lot of sense.
Apart from the butt load of trophies he had already picked up, including 3 Ballon D’ors, 3 Champions Leagues and 5 League titles, there wasn’t really a single player in history that you could compare him to.
Again, at only 24, he was already Barcelona’s top scorer of all time and was operating as a ridiculous amalgamation of an 8, a 9 and a 10. Even playing on the wing at times. Messi was quite simply mesmerizing.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn the actual year 2012, he only managed to pick up the Copa Del Rey when it came to team awards. But I guess to compensate for that, he decided to claim all of the individual awards and records for himself.
Now, the vast majority of everyone watching this already knows the tale of Messi’s 2012 all too well. It’s the stuff of legends, after all. But on the odd chance that you’re unfamiliar, note that all of these numbers are 100% real and there’s video evidence to prove it.
I’d understand if you might think it’s weird that I just said that. But I’m only saying this because I quite literally remember watching this man every single week as he did what he did this year. However, 9 years later, and I’m still coming to terms with the fact that he did in fact do what he did.
So basically, Messi scored 91 goals this season. 91. That’s a 9 and then a 1. For obvious reasons, this is the highest scoring calender year in the history of recorded football. Of course, a shout out goes to Gerd Muller who previously held the record with 85 goals in 1972.
In any case, just to put this into perspective, here’s a list of the top calendar year goal scorers since 2010. As you can see, Messi’s 2012 is simply lightyears away from even the second closest.
If you need a visual representation, here’s a scatter of these goal tallies. Really puts this into perspective, right? Another way of thinking about it is that Lewandowski scored 47 goals in 2020 and was crowned top scorer for that year. Back in 2012, Messi was 3 goals shy of doubling that… Unreal.
During this year, he made 69 appearances in all competitions for club and country, scoring 91 and assisting 22. Meaning with an overall goal contribution of 113, he was statistically guaranteed to be involved in 1.6 goal per match. But since there is no such thing as 0.6 of a goal, that’s essentially a goal contribution every 53 minutes, assuming he played the full 90 each time.
It only makes sense that people call him an alien. These numbers are out of this world. And before you ask: yes, that pun took me hours to write. And, yes: I am proud of myself.
“I’ll do it myself”
We’ve already covered Messi’s insane solo goal against Getafe back in 2007. Pretty good. But again, that assist- breath taking.
In any case, I want to highlight another insane goal of his.
Now bear in mind, Messi has scored literally hundreds of goals in his career. About 755 at the time of making this video. Several of them are, perhaps, objectively better than the one I’m about to highlight, but I often find myself coming back to this one just because of how effortless it looked.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe scene is the 2015 Copa Del Rey Final between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao. Barca were overwhelming favourites as you can imagine. So it was no surprise that they came out as 3-1 winners with Messi scoring 2. But the first of his goals was just laughable, if I’m honest.
He gets the ball and halts to a static stance and is faced with a one on one with an opposing defender. You can guess who comes out on top. Messi skips passed him momentarily but is now faced with a 4 v 1. You and I both know those odds are terrible… for the defenders. In an instant, 3 of them are taken out of the game and Messi probably hadn’t even broken a sweat. Quick shimmy off to the left and like clockwork, Messi scores.
This goal was basically the football equivalent of Thanos going “I’ll do it myself”. And just so we’re all on the same page, this was in a cup final.
My man Messi has ice in his veins.
Barcelona’s Greatest Ever
I’ve been recounting stories and only briefly touched on numbers thus far in this video. In this segment, I’m gonna let the numbers do the talking.
Messi’s broken an insane number of records in his career. Far too many to list in one video alone. So instead, in this segment we’re gonna list a few of his most jaw dropping records and stats at club level, just so we’re all on the same page with regards to what this man has achieved.
- For starters, he holds the all-time record for most appearances for Barcelona with 778 between 2004 and 2021. Quite astonishingly, he hasn’t made less than 31 league appearances per season since the 2008/09 season. Fitness, longevity and professionalism has clearly never been a problem.
- He’s Barcelona’s all-time top goal scorer with 672 goals. And, get this, in second place we have César Rodríguez, a man who played in the 50s, with 440 less goals than him, having scored 232.
- In the 2011/12 season, he scored the most goals in a single season in La Liga history with 50. 73 in all competitions that season.
- He’s scored 120 goals in the Champions League for Barca. Luis Suárez in 2nd with uhh, 25.
- He’s the all-time La Liga top scorer with 474 goals. A record which includes 126 braces and 36 hat-tricks.
- And of course, he has the most assists in La Liga history with 193.
- Taking those past two stats into consideration, this next one is perhaps the most mind boggling stat you’ll find in this entire video. Between the start of the 2004/05 season, where Messi debuted for the club, and the end of the 2020/21 season where he left the club, Barcelona scored 1632 goals in La Liga. Lionel Messi either scored or assisted 41% of those goals… What? Talk about a team carry.
- He’s won 10 La Liga Titles, 7 Copa Del Rey trophies, 4 Champions Leagues and 3 Club World Cups.
I’m almost out of breath and that was a criminally watered-down list of records and achievements. But we’ve got a few more coming up.
6 Ballon D’ors
Okay, onto number 6 on this list. Uhh, 6 Ballon D’ors. That’s uh, that’s it. It’s the number of Ballon D’ors that Lionel Messi has won. More than any other player in the history of the award.
So, just to reiterate. He’s won 6 of these things. So far, at least. That is all.
“Messi would fail in the Premier League”
Onto number 7 and, admittedly, this one isn’t a reason for why Messi is so great as much as it is debunking a common sentiment. By now, after all these years, you’ve probably heard some sort of variation of a rather infuriating statement.
“Messi is great, but he could never hack it in the Premier League. The league is far too physically demanding for the little man”.
I feel like this notion comes about far more frequently than many would like it too. This is especially the case when it comes to Messi vs Ronaldo debates and Messi’s recent almost move to Manchester City last year and again in the most recent transfer window.
So let’s investigate further.
Apart from the fact that he’s broken just about every record he’s ever been in contention for on a domestic level, he’s violated teams all across Europe on an international stage too. As a matter of fact, he’s quite partial to violating English teams too. The best teams in England, for that matter.
Whether it’s Chelsea, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs or United in Champions league finals (twice), he’s putting goals past your keeper. My man doesn’t discriminate.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn Europe, he’s played 35 games against English opposition, scoring 27 goals in the process. This includes 9 against Arsenal, 7 against Manchester City and 4 against Manchester United.
For comparison, Harry Kane has played against big 6 opposition about 54 times in his career and has managed 26 goals.
Now, having said all of that, I’m not going to act as though the circumstances are the same. Teams rarely use the same tactics they employ on a domestic level while playing Europe. This goes for all Champions League teams, Spanish, English etc.
For example, the shape and personnel of the Man City team Barca played in the 2013/14 Champions League, where Messi scored 2, may not necessarily have been the same one that played Stoke the following weekend. So, one can argue that if he were to play week in week out in England, Messi wouldn’t have as good of a time.
I’m obviously not of that opinion. And it’s more or less likely that we’ll never get a chance to prove each other wrong. But at the very least, hopefully we can agree that all notions of Messi hypothetically struggling in the Prem are grossly overblown, to say the least.
Dealing with critics
Alright, so this one isn’t necessarily a testament to his playing ability per se. More, his ability to handle criticism and keep pushing on. And just so we’re all on the same page, I’m not talking about criticism from the media: that’s small time. The critics about I’m talking about hit far closer to home than that. As a matter of fact, they actually come from the Messi household itself.
Lionel Messi’s youngest son, Matteo, has consistently been reported to support his father’s opposition. For example, here’s a clip of him celebrating as Barcelona missed a chance against Real Betis back in 2019. Suarez doesn’t look to please, not gonna lie.
Even further to that, the kid apparently supported Liverpool and Valencia after they had knocked Barcelona out of the Champions League and the Copa Del Rey back in 2019. Masterful shithousery, if you ask me. Although, bear in mind, he’s only 6 and apparently only trolls like this to annoy his older brother. But still: he’s a wild boy.
So why am I telling you this? As you can see, Messi is a master at looking his haters in the eye and still being a phenom. Elite mentality. A lesson to us all: don’t let the haters get in your head. Keep pushing on and you’ll slowly get to where you need to be. Looking at you, Matteo.
Embed from Getty Images(Kidding, he looks like a good kid)
Carrying Barca at 33
Onto number 9, and after a tumultuous 2020, where it was looking like Messi was on the brink of forcing a Barcelona exit, he stayed on for a further season. And Barca really should be thanking their lucky stars, that that happened. If you were to liken the fiasco that has occurred at Barca over the past year or so to the cracks beginning to show, this season would be where the walls came tumbling down.
At the time of me making this video, Barca have played 12 games this year, winning only 4. Yikes.
It shouldn’t be surprising that, had it not been for this man, we likely would’ve seen this meltdown occur a year earlier. A third place finish in La Liga is bad enough, but when you factor in that Messi contributed to 46% of the goals scored by Barca last year, you realise just how bad it could’ve been and bad it could potentially get.
But who knows, let’s see what Xavi can do with this team.
Also, Messi won the La Liga top scorer for the 5th time last year. Oh, sorry, I misread that; for the fifth time in a row, that is. It was his 8th overall top scorer award in La Liga.
Pray for Barca, guys.
Winning the Copa América
And finally, number 10. The 2021 Copa America. You knew this one was coming. I even made a whole video about it. Feel free to check it out if you haven’t. But you know, it’s whatever, no big deal.
Ever since the start of Messi’s career, he’s drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo and many others. After 6 Ballon D’ors and countless team and individual awards, many believed he was the undeniable GOAT and wouldn’t take no for an answer:
“Lalalala, I can’t hear you. Unless your next words are Penaldo or Tapnaldo is bad, your opinion doesn’t matter.” -Someone on twitter, everyday
You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’ve definitely read that on football twitter before, and I can only imagine those people sound like that in real life…
On the flipside, many still refused to acknowledge that he was anywhere near some of the aforementioned players due to the fact that he had no international silverware to his name. Well, all that changed only a few months ago. Finally, my man was a winner in a major tournament with Argentina.
Having watched on for almost 2 decades, the winning celebrations after the victory were just something else.
No matter who your allegiances lie with, you simply had to acknowledge how iconic of a moment this was. Although, if you’re Brazilian, I’d understand if you didn’t share that sentiment.
In any case, the man did it. The son of a gun did it.
Embed from Getty ImagesAnd there we have it. 10 times, matches, reasons (whatever you want to call it) when Messi showed us why he’s not of this planet. I fully expect him to come right in France and continue his story in successful fashion.