How little entertainer takes his task deadly seriously

Lionel Messi has gone home to Argentina to fry in the Christmas sunshine with his partner Antonella, infant son Thiago and all the other Messis.

Reflecting on his record-breaking year before he left, he told El Mundo Deportivo: “I’m happy about the goals I’ve scored and the records I’ve broken, but this year could have been better in terms of silverware. I’ve always said that if the team isn’t winning things my goals are meaningless.”

Such sentiments are consistent with all of Messi’s boring public pronouncements. He always emphasises his awareness that the team is more important than the individual, and claims indifference to personal dramas as the goalscoring rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo, which he dismisses as a media confection.