“He wants to play every single game. Cup game, first round, second round. In training he wants to beat everybody. The typical one when you are in training, he gets fouled, they don’t call the foul on him, next thing you know, he will go to the goalkeeper and ask him to give him the ball and run past everyone and score. Then you will get the ball to try and play again, he will take it from you, wherever you are, and score again until you end up losing the game. I’ve never seen that before” – Thierry Henry on Lionel Messi, 2014.
A genius. A once-in-a-lifetime prodigy. A player for whom superlatives know no limit and do no justice. When talking about Lionel Messi’s status as the greatest footballing talent on the planet, it’s easy to get caught up simply listing off a highlight reel of the scarcely believable records he’s broken in his career to date, but what makes the man tick? What are the hidden costs and sacrifices behind his greatness?
Speaking exclusively to Squawka, Messi explained what drives him: “I don’t look at records, that’s not why I’m playing the game. Goals, of course. Every player in my position wants to score goals. But most of all, trophies.
“My target is always to win trophies for Barcelona, and that will always be my motivation, to win things. Nothing feels better than doing that as a team.”
As motivations go, ranking the team ethos higher than individual accolades is a refreshing perspective to hear from one so celebrated in the game. What becomes immediately clear is that while the achievement of winning is important to Messi, doing so as part of a collective is what drives him on, whether that’s playing in front of 90,000 fans or simply at training in front of 90 people.
“Motivation is not something I struggle with. I love playing football, I love being in training, the day-to-day life is fantastic. When you have success, you just want to repeat it, again and again.
“Whether it is training, playing a game, winning trophies – it is the best life I can imagine. I want to achieve as much as it is possible to achieve with this team.”
It’s this hunger which separates world-class players from those which define an era and inspire the next generation. The desire to achieve in the face of adversity and disappointment. 2014 was an incredibly frustrating year on a personal level for Messi; missing out on the La Liga title to Atlético Madrid, exiting the Champions League at the quarter-final stage to Diego Simeone’s in-form outfit and losing in the World Cup final to Germany will rank at as the year of the near, but 2015 has been the year of Messi so far.
“Losing the World Cup final was a big, big blow. I wanted to win it for Argentines everywhere, for my country, and I was very upset afterwards. But being a professional means moving on from low moments quickly.
“If you’re on the pitch and you miss a chance, you can’t dwell on it – you need to think you are going to score the next one. So yes, losing the World Cup spurs you on to do better, and you want to use the anger and disappointment as motivation.”
To say he has bounced back in some style would be an understatement. The La Liga title has been wrapped up, the 7th of his career already, a Champions League final against Juventus beckons and Barcelona secured instalment No.2 in their treble chase with a comfortable 3-1 win over Athletic Bilbao in the Copa Del Rey final, with a stunning solo goal lighting up the occasion.
This could be only the second treble ever achieved by a Spanish side. Barcelona are responsible for both, the other coming under Pep Guardiola back in 2009, with Messi the star of both teams. That surely cannot be a coincidence.
It’s a recurring theme right through the 27-year-old’s career, though, bouncing back after disappointment with a superhuman effort that not only thrills fans across the globe, but defies statisticians and bewilders headline writers. His every act now inspires a frantic leafing through of whatever thesaurus is to hand to try and describe his unique and continued brilliance in new and fittingly escalated terms.
A major part of Barcelona and Messi’s success this season, and in 2015 in particular, has been the way the front three partnership with fellow attackers Neymar and Luis Suárez has gelled. ‘MSN’, as they have become affectionately known, have scored 119 goals between them across all competitions this season. A staggering achievement.
The trio have scored 81 league goals during the 2014/15 campaign, more than 94 of the 97 other teams in Europe’s top 5 leagues this season. To put that figure into further context, Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich scored 80 goals, Premier League champions Chelsea scored 73 and Serie A champions Juventus managed 70 goals.
The Messi-led MSN have left all others trailing in their wake this season across Europe’s top five leagues.
This is unheard of territory for club football. The sheer volume of the goals is hard to digest, leaving even Messi himself effusive in his praise of his partners in crime.
“I’m lucky. I’ve played with so many wonderful forwards over the years. I had a great connection with Ronaldinho. I played with Samuel Eto’o, with Thierry Henry, with Pedro, David Villa, Alexis [Sanchez].
“But I have to say that it is hard to top lining up alongside Neymar and Suarez. They are two players at the top of their games. We have only been together as a three for one season, so there is still work to do on the partnership, and we can all improve together – but we all see it as teamwork.
“I’ve said before that with Neymar’s quality, touch and fitness, he can become the best in the world – and Luis is the same. His touch, vision, his movement, his instinctive play, are incredible. We all offer something different, and make each other better.”
It’s this unrelenting pursuit of silverware and success which sets him apart from any player currently plying their trade in the world game. When looking at the pantheon of all-time greats, only Pelé and Diego Maradona deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as him.
However, it’s easy to forget that Messi is still only 27 years old and has been around right at the top of the game since 2003 when he made his Barcelona debut at the age of just 16. One aspect of the modern game that’s often overlooked when considering the brilliance on show is not only the unseen work behind the scenes on the training ground, but the rigmarole of travel that goes into being a much-valued professional for club and country.
The game has become much more physical, powerful and wearing on the body as a result. Space is at a premium and in an era where the vast majority of sides are set up precisely to stop creative players from expressing themselves, to record the sort of staggering goal figures year-on-year that Messi has done, despite being targeted, double-marked and pinpointed is not only exceptional, it’s downright unbelievable. A record 5th Ballon d’Or looks all but assured in 2015 already and his campaign to be lauded the greatest of all-time is now beyond question.
Messi already has four Ballon d’Or awards to his name: the most won by any individual in the history of the game.
For instance, Messi has featured in 6 major international tournaments for Argentina and in 311 games away from the comforts of home for club and country in the past 11 years. In terms of air miles alone, he has travelled 591626.4 miles across 4 different continents for 1061 hours.
That works out as 44 days’ worth of travel. Or, somewhat unbelievably, 23.9 laps of the Earth, with his biggest coming in the aforementioned treble-winning season in 2009. To achieve what he has done, considering the physical cost of the volume of games he has played and the amount of exertion his body has had to put up with, is beyond reproach and without peer. He is a phenomenon.
To merely list the number of games when Messi has scored or provided the decisive moment of inspiration would be to miss the point of his brilliance entirely; attempting to quantify such a record into something you can translate to the football landscape as we knew it before Messi is a thankless task, but that does not mean he is without idols of his own.
“Ronaldo of Brazil was my idol growing up. He was unbelievable for Barcelona and Brazil, I have never seen a more talented forward. He scored goals from nothing, and his shot was the best there has ever been in football. He was a great guy off the pitch too. And for role models, you have to look at Zidane. I loved to watch him, but he was such a hero in France, a great man away from football.”
Very few of us will ever be as lucky to be as good at anything in our lives as Messi is with the ball at his feet; reinventing himself remains an option, though. Does the future hold a positional change?
“It’s possible. A lot of players drop deeper when they move into the later stages of their career, and that’s certainly an option for me, to become an out-and-out midfielder. I have played in midfield a lot already, and I cover a lot of ground there. I am happy to play as a forward, as a deep forward, in the middle – I just hope that I can keep going.
“There are many players who have prolonged their careers by playing in a different place, where maybe you don’t rely on being so explosive all the time, on your speed.”
Few would bet against him being the greatest player in the world there either…
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