Granada at Barcelona, 3.20.12: Messi, There is No Second

I’ve been watching sports for a long time now. When I say that the first Redskins game I attended at RFK featured a Manning at starting quarterback for the opposing team, I don’t mean Eli or Peyton, but their father Archie. Nearly thirty years later, I saw Peyton play live in an AFC championship game, when his Colts were beaten by Tom Brady’s Patriots. I’ve been to three Super Bowls that included such Hall of Famers as Marcus Allen, John Elway, and Art Monk.

As for other sports, I saw Carl Yastrzemski in Fenway Park hit a double on his fortieth birthday, Jim Palmer pitch in Memorial Stadium, and Barry Bonds play in Candlestick Park. On TV, I reveled in watching Larry Bird’s Celtics play Magic Johnson’s Lakers and, later, Michael Jordan’s Bulls play virtually any team. I watched Arthur Ashe beat Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon in 1975, then devoured the Borg-McEnroe years. I watched live as Nadia Comaneci scored her perfect ten at the 1976 Olympics, and in 1999 watched as Michael Johnson destroyed the 400 meter record.

The point is, I’m no soccer snob. I love almost all sports and have logged many hours watching them. And yet, I can’t think of any athlete that has so consistently amazed me with his brilliance as Lionel Messi. There is no second. I just watched a replay of today’s Barcelona-Granada game, whose rather bizarre 5-3 score line doesn’t begin to indicate Barcelona’s dominance.

Messi had another awesome performance, starting with an assist and ending with three goals. Each goal was unique, technically demanding, and aesthetically pleasing. The first was a one-time low shot off a deflected Isaac Cuenca cross. Messi timed the strike perfectly, hitting the ball cleanly with the side of his foot. The ball skipped off the turf like a stone off water before slamming into the far post and in. The second goal came off a Dani Alves chip behind the defense. (Alves and Messi worked beautifully together all night, including three sequences in which they exchanged multiple short passes amidst befuddled Granada defenders). Messi took down Alves’s pass with a quick and deft touch that transformed seamlessly into a quick and deft arcing shot over the sprawled keeper. Just about everything Messi does is quick and deft, almost amazingly so.

Messi’s third goal might have been his most impressive, but I simply don’t know. He made a run into the box and received another excellent pass from Alves. Messi proceeded to make a number of composed, inhumanly quick and sure touches on the ball, dribbling around the Grenada keeper and ultimately firing a high shot into side netting of the far post.

I could go on and on, just about this game. Messi’s passing and vision were as usual stunningly good, better even than his teammate Andres Iniesta’s. Messi’s long, accurate pass to Thiago in the 37^th minute, for example, almost certainly should have led to Messi’s second assist of the night. The same could be said of Messi’s sublime through ball to Cristian Tello in the 76^th minute. Messi’s equally sublime exchange with Iniesta, which ended in a savage Messi shot from about a yard off the end line, did lead directly to a rebound and a goal by Tello. Technically it wasn’t an assist for Messi, but really it was.

As virtually everyone who follows soccer already knows, Messi’s hat trick tonight moved him into first place on Barcelona’s all-time list of goal scorers, breaking a 57-year-old record. Messi himself is only 24. Given how many great athletes around the globe play soccer for a living—no other sport even comes close—the fact that Messi has so distanced himself from every other player in the world is not just remarkable, it’s scarcely believable. If you have a kid that likes sports, sit him or her down and watch Barcelona now, while Messi is in his prime. Years from now, that person will thank you.