Why Messi still has a point to prove
How about a super injunction, then? “Our client, Mr X, dribbled the ball around seven opponents, flicked it over the head of the goalkeeper, ran around him, caught the ball as it dropped on his instep and then turned around to backheel it over the line and complete his hat-trick”.
So, that’d be Carles Puyol then. Obviously.
No, it looks like it will have to be something a tad more traditional, like kicking him – though that requires catching him first – or effectively reducing it to 10 v 10 by deputising someone to man-mark him from first whistle to last.
That, however, is not the Manchester United way, though few would argue that it can be ruthlessly effective when carried out by a master of the black art.
Consider an article in the latest issue of Champions magazine, in which are nominated 21 man-of-the-match performances in the history of the European Cup Final. A few of the candidates select themselves, as they say, like Alfredo De Stefano for Real Madrid against Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960, Johan Cruyff for Ajax against Inter in 1972 and Zinedine Zidane for Real Madrid against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002.
But a rather more surprising nominee is the man who shackled Eusebio in the Milan-Benfica final of 1963 and who did his job so effectively that, apart from breaking clear just the once and managing to get on the scoresheet, the Portuguese great was otherwise rendered wholly ineffective as the Italian side won 2-1.
The name of the tenacious number 6 who followed Eusebio as assiduously as he followed his manager’s orders that day?
Step forward Mr Giovanni Trapattoni.
And, irony of ironies, while the grand old man gets to feature in that 21-man salute, conspicuous by his absence from the roll of honour is the boy wonder of the moment.
Oh, Messi’s Barcelona are represented, alright, but it’s Xavi who takes the gong for pulling the strings in their 2-0 defeat of Manchester United in Rome two years ago, a game which can’t help but cast a long shadow over tonight’s sequel in London.
Proposing any list of greats is never an exact science but I think the editorial board of Champions got it just about right when deciding that Messi was not the man of the hour in the Stadio Olimpico, even though it was from a Xavi cross that he scored the second goal which clinched the game for Barca.
But that was a header and, well-taken though it was, it’s what he can do with his feet which has the world gasping in awe and admiration at the little magician.
I was lucky enough to be in the stadium that night and, from a glorious vantage point high up in the press box, the geometric beauty of their play suggested that the real star of the show was the Barca collective – with Andres Iniesta running Xavi close for the individual honours.
And, yes, of course, Messi was good too, but not spectacularly so – and it’s that wow factor which elevates him above common or garden greatness and into the realms of the supernatural.
Its absence on that night in Rome also draws attention to a persistent anomaly which detracts from the claims made by many for Messi to already be considered the greatest footballer of all time.
The genius that was George Best remains the most persuasive one-man rebuttal of the idea that you need to excel (or even just play) in a World Cup to be considered a true great. But there’s no doubt that it helps – think of the coronations of Pele in 1958 and again in 1970, Cruyff in 1974, Maradona in 1986 and Zidane in 1998.
Lionel Messi has yet to imprint his personality on the greatest show on earth in the same way. In 2006, I was in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin when, bafflingly, Jose Pekerman chose to leave the young tyro on the bench, and a classy Argentina bowed out to Germany on penalties after a tumultuous quarter-final clash.
Four years later, and Argentina again came a cropper against the Germans, exiting a tournament in South Africa in which Messi sparked but without every quite catching fire.
Of course, he’s still only 23, and he has already performed enough wonders to make everyone of us grateful to be simply knocking around the same planet at the same time as him.
But, for all that he is currently, and by some distance, the best player in the world, Messi has yet to deliver the full-blown, command performance, of which he is eminently capable, on the highest stages of all.
Already, one’s thoughts can’t help but turn to the prospect of the boy really coming of age in Pele’s own backyard, when the World Cup finally returns to its spiritual home of Brazil in three years’ time. More immediately, Wembley provides one of football’s other great settings tonight. And all around the globe there will be millions watching and hoping that Alex Ferguson doesn’t find a solution to the problem of Messi and that, on this night of nights, the boy from Rosario can turn the famous stadium into a theatre fit for all our dreams.
