1st May, 2009
Time: approx 10:30 p.m.
A knock on the door and a young man of about 22 enters the room. The coach shows him something on TV and explains for a few minutes. The young man walks away with a little smile. Cut to the next day…. During the match, the coach gestures to his midfielder and the player passes the ball towards the 22-year-old young man. He was in the gap (False-9), between the two players of a rival team which he had seen on the TV in the coach’s room last night. The magician, who shows lightning-like agility as the ball approaches him, escapes the ball from one of the world's best goalkeepers and fires it in the goal-post. For a moment, the atmosphere is filled with pin-drop silence and then the atmosphere buzzes with limitless screaming.
The stadium means the Santiago Bernabéu in the Spanish capital Madrid, and we are talking about the most watched match in the world, 'El Clasico'. The 22-year-old young man and the most stylish hero of the match was Lionel Andres Massey. After that goal, Barcelona won the match with a score of 6-2 and became the most successful team in Club Football in that season. But today I will talk about the only player. Because? Because, for others, he may be just a football player, but for me, he is no less than God.
Anyone with a little knowledge of football is not required to say who Messi is because this magician has been in the hearts of many fans with names including 'magician', 'Messiah', 'Alien' for years. If you have seen him doing his magic on a 90-yard pitch, you won't feel exaggeration while using all these adjectives for him.
Since the age of four, he had gone crazy for football as if football was flowing in the veins instead of blood. When Messi was 11, he learned that he had a serious disease called growth hormone deficiency which stops the physical development of the body. Someone suggested them ‘Football Club Barcelona’ situated in Catalonia, Spain. The Messi family took him to Barcelona, where the club recognized Messi's talent and signed his first contract on a paper napkin in the restaurant. The club paid for all his treatment, but no one knew that the skinny player would be the best footballer in the world in the future.
Messi was called to the Senior Club because of his brilliant play in the junior teams at the club initially. On 16th October 2004, he made his first team debut but had little time to play in that season. He started getting regular game-time in the team from 2005 and scored his first goal on 1st May 2005. The 17-year-old had never hesitated to do his magic then onwards. He received offers from many huge clubs then, but he showed his loyalty and chose to stay with Barcelona.
‘Lionel Messi’ - there is only one name on the right corner, whether it is the solo goal against Hetafe, or a hat-trick in 2007 at the age of 19 against arch rival Real Madrid at their stadium; whether a header goal in the 2009 Champions League final or a goal, making fun of principles of science, against Athletic Bilbao in the 2015 World Cup. His records include more than 600 goals in 14 years, 91 goals in one year, maximum goals by any striker against top 6 English teams and free-kick goals more than some teams in the last few years. Breaking x and y parameters, each statistical graph has the same name on the top right corner- Lionel Messi. Yet, this is not the best thing about him. Figures almost like a robot, and even better on-field presentations.
Messiah, who has won almost every possible trophy like La Liga, Champions League, Ballon d'Or, Golden Boot, European Player of the Season, World Cup Golden Ball, has been facing humiliating defeats in one of the most prestigious Champions League of European football for the past few years. How can the loss of three finals in three consecutive years with our own national team Argentina be forgotten? Despite all these difficulties, Messi continues to fight. Perhaps nature is doing injustice to the best people equal to their size.
Many people believe that this magician, who plays with the dimensions of space and time, is born from a different dimension. Messi means someone about whom Matthew McCogney in the film ‘The Interstellar’ and Anne Hathaway talk about “They’. Philosophers are always discussing the mining of life - The Ultimate Purpose of Life; for Charles Bukowski, it was his poems; Van Gogh had found it in his paint brushes, for Da Vinci, it was present in almost everything. Just as people enjoy seeing Messi, just as people are willing to offer a samarkand-bukhara on him, the head of Catholicism, Pope Francis, has to publicly say, “Messi is not a Demi-God. It seems that there is probably only one purpose in life… to watch Lionel Messi playing football.”
