Messi. The Greatest Ever?

I remember writing this article last year after the 2010/11 season ended, the season where we won the Champions League and La Liga. My English teacher had told my class to write an discursive essay on a topic of our choice so, I wrote an article arguing that Lionel Messi was the best ever. Here it is.

Magic Messi – Great or ‘The Greatest’?

May 28^th 2011, one-hundred-thousand excited and anxious faces are cheering for their team. They sit in the famous Wembley Stadium, watching this little man in a blue and red shirt dance gracefully past a series of men in white shirts as though they were non-existent. He finds space; takes a shot at goal. The ball slams to the back of the net; 2-1 FC Barcelona. Cheers erupt from the stands, bitter men in white and red shirts look defeated and confused by this phenomenon: the man with five letters on the back of his shirt spelling ‘Messi’. A hugely controversial question immediately lands on every football blog, newspaper and football’s fan mind: ‘Is Lionel Messi the best player to have ever set foot on a football pitch?’

Lionel Messi plays for the La Liga and Champions League winners, FC Barcelona and national team, Argentina. He is undoubtedly the best player of his generation: he skips past defenders gracefully, he manages to gain instant control of the ball, he finds space in the smallest places, he has incredible pace; he can accelerate at dangerous speeds, he dribbles the ball as though it was stuck to his foot… He is a player with breathtaking skill, scoring an astonishing 53 goals this season in 55 appearances. He is now rumoured to be worth up to €250M. At the young age of 23, is already the rightful owner of two consecutive FIFA Player of the Year and FIFA Ballon d’Or titles. He has won an enormous 15 club honours during his career for Barcelona, starting from 2004 to present day. He has gained support of both the public - a massive 66.16% of votes for FIFA Ballon d’or 2010 were cast in support of him - and the appreciation of football’s biggest names. Arsène Wenger, the respected Arsenal manager, once spoke of him as ‘unstoppable’ and ‘the best player in the world by some distance’. Hristo Stoichkov, the honourable Bulgarian footballer, said ‘you need a machine gun to stop him [Messi]’. These statistics, facts and quotes clearly speak for themselves.

Pele and Maradona are considered by many to be the greatest footballer to have embraced planet Earth. To even start to consider Leo as the ‘best of all time’, we have to draw comparisons between him, Pele and Maradona.  

Maradona was a gifted dribbler on the pitch and he won two Serie A titles for Napoli, the only two Serie A titles Napoli has won. He won Argentina’s 1986 World Cup title almost single-handedly (no pun intended) scoring ‘The Goal of the Century’ in Argentina’s quarter final 2-1 victory against England. During that memorable match, Maradona also scored the ‘Hand of God’ goal that he is often scrutinised for. He refused to admit to scoring the goal with his hand despite replays clearly showing that he had done so leading to bad press on his behalf. His golden years were short as his football went rapidly downhill due to a cocaine addiction. In 1991, at the age of 31, he was tested positive for drug abuse and was given a 15 month suspension from football.

‘King Pele’ was a Brazilian legend. To date, he is the only player to win a massive 3 World Cups (all won with style) for his country. He is considered by many as the ‘Player of the 20^th Century’. His best skill, out of many, was his ability to strike the ball into the back of the net accurately, hence his gigantic one thousand two hundred and eighty-one goals during his career. Despite offers from Manchester United and many other European clubs, he never played outside of South America. How would he cope with the competitiveness and tiredness that comes with playing for the big European clubs? That, we will never know.

Critics say Messi will never be ‘the greatest’ if he does not win a World Cup like Maradona and Pele. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Messi failed to live up to his expectations, failing to score a single goal, disappointing millions of Argentines and fans of the glorious game of football. Despite this, Messi is only 23 years of age; he has plenty more opportunities to win the World Cup and also bless the game of football with his skill and ability.

However, some people argue that it is impossible to compare Messi to the other great footballers of the past because of how the game has progressed through the years; It is different generation and nowadays, the style of football played is very different to 30 years ago. Football is a much less dangerous game now, compared to the more aggressive style of football played back then. There are new rules and the football strips and boots are more advanced and air resistant making players faster and more agile. 

Considering all the sides of this argument, I have come to a conclusion. Lionel Messi is the best of his generation and considered to be on the same level as the other football greats. At the age of 23, injury forbid, the Argentine has plenty more years to improve his already exceptional game even more and claim his deserved title above all the others and rewrite history. By the end of Lionel Messi’s career, he will be considered as ‘The Greatest Ever’. Unquestionably.  

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One year on, the argument still remains but now, the argument for Messi has only got stronger. This season, he has rewritten goalscoring records, scoring 73 goals in one season surpassing Muller's 68. This season, Messi has been even better than the seasons before. This season, I am even more certain that by the end of his career, or maybe already, Messi is/ will be the best footballer to have ever set foot on a football pitch.