Lionel Messi: how did the world change 18 years after his debut with Barcelona, ​​when he weighed just 55 kilos?

There were 8 minutes left plus discount at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium. FC Barcelona beat Espanyol 1-0 in the Catalonian derby and the fourth referee, from the side, made a change: Deco leaves, number 30 enters, Leo Messi, a 17-year-old boy. It was October 16, 2004. That day, unknown to anyone, a genius made his debut in professional football. Time was erasing the date, then the legend of Leo made it an ephemeris. Eighteen years passed. How can we imagine that this small thing of 55 kilos and 1.69 would give us thousands of dribbles, tunnels, goal passes, sublime controls, feints and delicious hooks, sudden starts always in a straight line to the goal, going through narrow passageways, glimpsing door passes to door for grateful companions…? How to guess that we would be facing the king of one against one…? Goals from the angles, from the right, from the head, pricking the goalkeeper, eluding them, from the mouthpiece, from free kicks… Of course, so many abilities together made dozens of titles and goals possible, but that is the prosaic side of his work, the poetic is the another, the game. The soccer of him reasoned of him, still at full speed, full of wisdom. In his relationship with the ball it is the golden ace, he kills the card that comes.

Leo is not one player, there are four in that brief package: Alfredo Di Stéfano’s competitive seriousness, Pelé’s sense of goal, Maradona’s extreme skill and Bochini’s superior intelligence.

Eighteen years after that change for Deco, he is going through a fantastic moment, perhaps the best of his career in terms of peripheral vision, game construction, generation of goal situations, assists, creation of attacking maneuvers that unbalance the populated defenses. A few days ago, an Opta stat showed that he is the most dangerous player in the five major European leagues, measuring shots on goal and goal plays created. Never has a footballer maintained such a high level of excellence for eighteen years. “Time should make an exception with Messi,” tweeted Diego Latorre. The secret of his extraordinary validity…? He loves playing ball, training by doing the rondo and shooting shots on goal, spending hours in the locker room, concentrating with his teammates. And on the way home, texting with other soccer players, watching games on television, rehearsing free kicks and playing with his children in the little field in the background. He loves the foot-ball. And that makes the difference.

His last goal, against Benfica for the Champions League eleven days ago, could be the best of any footballer’s career, including the greats, in Messi it is one more, shiny, but one more pearl at the bottom of his sea of ​​inexhaustible treasures. And there are 781 goals. Seven hundred and eighty-one without being a net striker…! That’s where all discussions end. It may even add a few dozen more. This activity had never witnessed such a duality: that the pass-goal artist is also a goal machine.

“I am a Ronaldista and Messi is not my idol, he seems to me to be a cold player -analyzes Ricardo Montoya, a Peruvian journalist, as well as a psychologist and literature professor-, but he is undoubtedly the best in history, his level of technical perfection is incredible, he never I saw nothing like it. He has everything: goal, definition, pass, dribbling, he manages both profiles, he has set pieces. There has not been a player like that. If someone prefers Pelé or Maradona he is fine too, but this is the best”. On the other hand, Ricardo Vasconcellos, brilliant commentator, Sports editor of El Universo, is resolutely more emphatic: “Messi did not play only 7 games at an exceptional level (Mexico ’86), but 700. For me he is the best I have seen and, when he retires, football will go back to being ordinary”. True, he has given everything in copious amounts, triumphs, beauties, geniuses.

There is a poker game, Di Stéfano, Pelé, Maradona and Messi play. The others, at other tables. In that scenario, Leo sticks out a head. The coaches and players -in that order-, the people who know the most about what can or cannot be done on a playing field, by the vast majority, crown Leo as the one in history.

“But he was not world champion”, object his many atheists (less and less). No one is champion alone, football is a game of eleven. You need an excellent coach and great teammates. And that everyone is in shape during the World Cup month. If football were an individual sport, like tennis, Messi would play a thousand games and win a thousand. Brazil was champion by Pelé in 1970…? Or because of his constellation of monsters…? The forward formed with Jairzinho, Gerson, Tostão, Pelé and Rivelino. Well, if we remove Pelé and put Messi in that quintet, isn’t he the champion…? He doesn’t just come out, maybe he wins 10-0 every game. Leo’s feat is superior to that: having been runner-up with companions as earthly as Chiquito Romero, Zabaleta, Campagnaro, Garay, Rojo, Biglia, Enzo Pérez, Lavezzi, Higuaín, Palacio, Augusto Fernández, correct elements that caressed eternal glory for share with 10.

Nor is it that he remained a virgin with the blue and white: he was the youth world champion being the scorer and the star of the tournament; Olympic champion, from America, he scored 90 goals, more than any other South American soccer player.

Soccer is game, passion, entertainment and industry. It reigns over other sports due to the degree of difficulty: it is the only one that is played with the feet. And the football of this time far exceeds that of fifty or sixty years ago for the same reason: its level of obstacle. Today it is infinitely more complicated to achieve feats due to speed, pressure, intensity, because he defends with eleven, there are fewer spaces and he faces highly competitive athletes. Before the closest marker was five meters away, today twenty centimeters. At this time Messi wrote the legend of him. That explains his first place in almost all the rankings.

“It’s going well, but in France…”, detract the soldiers of the already decimated contra army. The French is an African league with French clubs. The prevailing physical power there is frightening. There are others with better teams (England, Spain, Germany, Italy), but it is not a farmers’ league. France has been the medium that has generated the most figures for thirty years: Zidane, Henry, Thuram, Desailly, Cantona, Blanc, Pires, Vieira, Ribery, Benzema, Mbappé, Kanté… No farmer.

Beyond the rectangle is the impeccable athlete, the meek idol, the shy and silent character who increases his legend. The one who drove the United States crazy a month ago. “You have never seen such euphoria with a soccer player in this country,” says Luis Sánchez, a Peruvian columnist for the Miami Herald. “He is a wizard, the Harry Potter of football. When I stop playing, I will throw the television away”, exaggerates Christian Vieri. And he’s already on his way to 36…

A long time ago we wrote: do not miss a minute of Messi, we are looking at the history of football. We have seen it. We were lucky to be his contemporaries. And eighteen years to enjoy it. Now, all that’s left is tip.