Messi, from hero to inspiration: The works in cinema, literature and streaming that explain his greatness

He is barely 35 years old, but he has illuminated the genius of writers, journalists, musicians, film directors, screenwriters and many more. Lionel Messithe Argentine star, and the lavish work that has been accomplished around him.

Sports idolatry is usually a cultural bomb around which numerous artistic manifestations develop. From the intervened songs and hymns, where the picaresque joins the occurrence, to major art formats such as documentaries, films, series, biographies and essays. The king of artistic inspiration has always been Maradona, who would deserve an entire book to detail references. But Messi, even being an active footballer, has already generated a host of acts that are worth addressing to understand the dimension of his figure.

Literature. The best biography, the best written, is ‘Messi’ by Leonardo Faccio. Perhaps, as its author points out, part of the merit consists in the fact that he is not a football fan, which allows for nudity in the face of the biographer. The approach is honest and not tainted by the fan’s own biases, resulting in an achievement: a very human and quite convincing portrait of a figure who, off the field, is elusive and even enigmatic.

Two good complements to this are ‘Messi’, by Guillem Balagué, the first authorized profile of the Rosario idol, focusing on his formative spell at Barcelona; and ‘The complexity of Barca’, by Simon Kuper, where the English essayist analyzes the rise and fall of the Catalan club paying close attention to its role as a star factory, of which the world champion was an art and a part.

It would be very unfair not to mention the piece that does the most justice to the Argentine ’10′: “Messi is a dog” by Hernán Casciari. This gem written a decade ago is perhaps the most successful attempt to understand and communicate what Messi’s genius consists of, or in any case, his sporting singularity. It is free reading on the Internet.

Audiovisual. “Be eternal” (2022) is by far the required production to understand the leadership of an already mature Messi in the Argentine team, as well as to understand how a group capable of winning the Copa América and the World Cup was emotionally built. The privilege of appreciating the tension and relaxation of highly competitive professionals, as well as seeing and listening to them before the feat, is a luxury for fans who have traditionally been denied a glimpse of life in the locker room.

A more tender Lionel can be seen in “Messi” (2014), the film by Alex de la Iglesia. This recreates the origins of crack in his hometown in a sort of conversational biopic that includes voices like Menotti. To this is added a fantastic archive that allows us to see how he already had several of the attributes that are celebrated today as a child, such as dribbling, a process that is completed with the appreciation of those who were his teammates at the time (Piqué, Iniesta ).

Music. “Muchachos”, by La Mosca Tsé-Tsé, is the undisputed anthem of World Cup Argentina, an easy pop cumbia whose great virtue is having anticipated the third star. The same can be said of the adaptation of “Quédate”, a song by the Spaniard Quevedo and the producer Bizarrap, whose lyrics insist on how much the Argentine captain deserved the FIFA trophy. In more rocky, almost metalloid areas, the band El síndrome de Peter released “A pasos cortitos”, an open tribute to the white-and-white hero in Rata Blanca mode.

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