Anyone who has seen Midnight Express – a film that did for drug smuggling what recent events have done to the rollercoaster-phobic – will recall a pivotal scene where the protagonist walks in the opposite direction around the huge wheel to his fellow inmates who have been beaten and broken into insanity.
Like programmed zombies the hordes traipse lifeless and unquestioning, murmuring their exaltations to an idol they wouldn’t recognise if he booed them in the face. When our hero sees there is another path – another angle – it is proof to the viewers that he’s going to be okay.
With this year’s Champion’s League final looming large, shiny and heavily sponsored on our doorstep I’ve been reminded of this creepy vignette on several occasions and it’s only going to get worse as kick-off approaches. In newspapers, on websites, and from actual living people all I see and hear is the repeated refrain that Lionel Messi is God.
And you know what, they are probably right.
The little magician is undoubtedly a phenomenon, arguably the greatest player to ever lace up a pair of boots, and consistently makes us query our base knowledge of nature and physics.
Against Juventus this Saturday he will probably unpick their catenaccio with a wonder goal of such sublimity it will immediately render Pele impotent once again while his subsequent hat-trick will prompt his legion of fanboys to bombard us with yet more astonishing stats on Twitter. Clive Tyldesley meanwhile will explode. Literally and physically explode. There will be grey matter on the microphone and a note will later be found that simply reads “Tell Wayne I’m sorry”.
But, amidst all this suffocating worship and devotion where is even a sliver of objectivity to be found? Where is the balance of light and shade that is afforded to every other famous figure from the great right down to the reality tv flotsam? I mean, even the Beatles had their detractors. Lots of them in fact.
Am I alone in growing increasingly weary of the happy-clappy cult of Messi? Am I alone in harbouring a perverse urge to go the other way?
If not then the backlash starts here, with five reason why the Argentinean hogger ain’t all that…
A cold, wet Wednesday in Stoke
It’s all very well dancing through inferior beings on a lush green turf in the sun-kissed climes of Eibar. But can Lionel hack it on the proverbial cold, wet Wednesday night in Stoke? Yes, yes he almost certainly can.
It has not been proven however and that’s my point. Whereas Manchester City’s Samir Nasri overcame the Bovril-breathed hatred of the hostile locals, the bitter cold, and the sharpened studs of Phil Bardsley to score his team’s fourth back in February capping off a fine individual performance.
Does that make Nasri a better player than Messi? That’s for you to decide.
He’s deathly dull
“Ah but his personality shines through in his football,” say his acolytes, defending a legitimate charge that lovely Lionel is so deathly dull he could put a cup of expresso to sleep.
Their claim simply doesn’t cut it in an era where 90 minutes twice a week is only an integral but small part in the 24 hour circus that is the modern game.
Garrincha was an alcoholic by the age of 14 and lost his virginity to a goat. Edmundo liked nothing more than to load up a chimpanzee on giggle juice. Messi is probably tucked up in bed by sunset in his Barcelona pyjamas replying to fan mail.
We expect more from our south American greats. Guns, coke and prostitutes ideally but in Lionel’s case we’d settle for an ill-considered comment or slightly garish shirt.
Pens
What the little maestro can’t do with a football hasn’t been invented but stick him 12 yards from goal with only a keeper to beat and his magical powers fade to the ordinary. Maybe it’s just too easy for him?
Since 2009 Messi has converted 37 pens but missed 6. As the saying goes my grandmother could do better and she’s dead.
Matthew Le Tissier’s record incidentally was 47/48. We make that Le God 1 God 0.
Heading
Any player nicknamed the Flea is never going to dominate a six foot centre-back at set pieces but considering he is knee-high to Warwick Davis the diminutive genius is actually pretty decent with his noggin.
Pretty decent though is woefully insufficient compared to the exceptional standards the rest of his game meets. Everyone has an Achilles heel, even the legends. In Messi’s case it’s on his shoulders.
A follicle fail
It shouldn’t matter but it really does. Having a barnet that looks like your mum’s rushed it with kitchen scissors taints all the majesty his feet serves up. It’s a crayon scrawl on the Mona Lisa. Blu-Tack on Michaelangelo’s David. That episode in any box-set that links one plotline to another and is consequently a bit rubbish. It undermines the greatness.
His splattered mop of yesteryear was bad enough. Now we have this poor effort.
We may be blessed to be living in the age of football’s greatest ever player but while he has the hairstyle of an accountant with a younger girlfriend he’ll never be all that.
[ad_pod id=’ricco’ align=’center’]
