Messi, the true heir to Maradona's crown

author: Duncan White
source: The Telegraph
date: 14 May 2009
editing: fcbtransfers.blogspot.com





Lionel Messi's father was told that his son would not grow taller than 4ft 7ins. Lionel, then 11, had been diagnosed with a hormonal problem that would impede his growth and, if untreated, would end his hopes of becoming a professional footballer.

No club in Argentina would take on the £500 per month treatment so Messi Senior took his son to Spain and entered him for a trial at Barcelona. Ten years on and the cost of those injections must feel like the best investment Barcelona ever made.

Messi, an exhilarating player at the top of his game, is the best player in the world. So far this season he has scored an improbable 33 goals in 44 games. Clubs in Spain have tried doubling up, cutting off his supply or even just kicking him. None of it has worked. How do you stop this squat figure as it weaves in sinuously from the right?

What separates Messi from a player like Cristiano Ronaldo is that style and substance are always in harmony. Ronaldo can embellish his game with art for art's sake but Messi's tricks and dribbles are performed purely to enable the quickest route to goal. Hiddink described him primarily as a 'productive' player. "I like the way he plays very much," Hiddink said. "I think he doesn't like the stardom of playing but he is very effective, one of those players who make it look very simple but in fact, it is very difficult what they do – nature gives them a lot of gifts."

Ronaldinho, Messi's predecessor as Camp Nou fantasista, was also guilty of playing more for the crowd than for the game and it has taken impressive work from Josep Guardiola to rebuild the Frank Rijkaard team that had come to rely on the mercurial Brazilian. The Barcelona that beat Arsenal in the Champions League three years ago, was a side that, even in decline, ended up indulging Ronaldinho's compellingly individual approach to the game.

There is also a petulant side to Messi. Jose Mourinho and his Chelsea side had first brought Messi to the attention of the English public and it wasn't for his elusive dribbling that he came to prominence. Chelsea left-back Asier Del Horno was red-carded for a clumsy foul on Messi who looked up at the refree before rolling over which lead to Mourinho sarcastically applauding his acting skills.

His international debut against Hungary lasted all of 40 seconds as he was sent off for throwing an elbow at a defender who was tugging his shirt. Having won the World Youth Cup in 2005, Argentine football fans had been tremendously excited by Messi's impending debut – none were expecting to end with him trudging from the field in tears.

It is that blend of the cynical and the sublime that makes him the first credible heir to Diego Maradona. A long line of successors have been falsely anointed – Ortega, Riquelme, Aimar, Saviola, D'Alessandro – only to suffer under the weight of impossible expectation. Messi, though, has taken on the legacy of Maradona and at times has appeared to be consciously parodying it.

In June 2007 Barcelona, in the penultimate game of the La Liga season, were losing to city rivals Espanyol when Messi leapt and flicked the ball into the net with his hand, and celebrated without shame. The goal was given. Only a couple of months earlier he had scored a spectacular goal against Getafe, dribbling from within his own half, that was strikingly similar to Maradiona's famed goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. 'Messidona' read the headline the following morning.

Those two goals – cynical and sublime – were a revelation, their execution so uncannily imitative, that the second coming of El Diego seemed at hand. Maradona never won the European Cup in his time with Barcelona and Napoli, so in that regard Messi will be carving out his very own legacy if he leads the club to be their third European title.

With over a decade of football in front of him, it is vertiginous to think of what Messi could achieve in his career and astonishing to think that it was nearly over before it began.

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