Lionel Messi didn’t hang around. He was sent on as a substitute
against Benfica and sent through, one on one with the goalkeeper. The
next thing anyone knew, he was on the floor; then he was on a stretcher,
lying still in the silence, 50,000 people not making a sound.
The
clock had been ticking into the 85th minute and Messi was looking for
his 85th goal of 2012, another record: no one had ever scored more goals
in a year. He clashed with the goalkeeper, his knee shifting with the
impact, but he chased the loose ball and, falling now, took on a shot.
Like the final, defiant gesture of a dying man. “I thought it was the
last time I would kick a ball in a very long time,” he said.
That
was on Wednesday night. On Thursday – just 23 minutes into Thursday, in
fact – it was revealed that it was just bruising. On Friday he was in
the gym, alone. On Saturday, he trained with his team-mates. On Sunday
morning he was on a plane to Seville.
“If he’s coming, it’s
because he can play,” said the Barcelona coach, Tito Vilanova. And on
Sunday night, the news was out: Messi starts. At nine o’clock, four days
after everyone feared that his chances had gone, from everything to
nothing in a second, the record cruelly taken away, he lined up with his
team-mates. It had almost escaped him; there was no way he was letting
that happen again.
Sixteen minutes later, he equalled the record; nine minutes after that he had broken it. In your own time, Leo.
The
previous record, 85, was held by Gerd ‘Torpedo’ Müller, the man who was
on the verge of signing for Barcelona in 1973, only for the deal to
fall through because the German government intervened.
Expressing doubts
Barcelona
signed Johan Cruyff instead. “Muller, torpedoed,” ran the headline in
Marca. In 1972, Müller scored 42 goals in 34 games in the league, seven
in six in the Cup, 12 in five in the League Cup, 10 in four in the
European Cup, one in four in the Cup Winners’ Cup and 13 in seven for
Germany.
Messi has now scored 86 in 2012: 56 in 36 league games,
three in seven in the Cup, two in two in the Super Copa, 13 in 12 in the
Champions League and 12 in nine for Argentina. He already has 23 league
goals this season, enough to have won the Pichichi award 26 times.
Of
course there are some expressing doubts, from the difficulty of the
feat to the importance of the goals, to the relevance of the record and
even its veracity: football is normally measured by seasons, not years;
in ’72 Müller won everything there was to win, including the European
Championship with Germany, Messi has claimed only the Copa del Rey in
2012; Müller took fewer games, averaging 1.41 goals a game to Messi’s
1.3; and Madrid and Barcelona’s dominance is such that records are
falling with startling regularity.
The seven highest points totals
ever all belong to the last four years; in 2010-11, Cristiano Ronaldo
broke the all-time record for league goals in a season with 41 only to
be broken again by Messi, who got 50 last season.
Own goal
Meanwhile,
one of Spain’s most important football statisticians insists that Messi
has 85 because a free-kick that the referee judged to have gone
straight in against Mallorca might, he says, have been touched by Alexis
on the way through, even though Alexis said it was not.
And Marca
also claims he is on 85, judging that his recent goal against Athletic
Bilbao should in fact be credited as an own goal by Fernando Amorebieta
(the referee officially ruled it was Messi’s goal) – no matter, they
add, because it turns out that one of Müller’s goals was also an own
goal, meaning that he has got the record this morning. On 85, not 86.
But
officially, it is 86. Or, to quote the cover of El Mundo Deportivo this
morning: ¡86! In its simplicity, the headline says much. About Messi’s
achievement and our impotence. What more can you say? There are few
words that can be employed to define Messi now. “Cristiano Ronaldo is
the best of the humans,” Gerard Piqué said not long ago, “but Messi is
an extraterrestrial.”
On Sunday night, Piqué tweeted just two
words in homage of his team-mates: “Leo” and “Messi”. There could be no
greater praise. At 25, Messi has already forced everyone to use up all
the superlatives. There’s little left to do except make words up or just
start swearing. Few reactions do Messi justice like a: ‘f***k me!’
“Don’t try to write about him, don’t try describe him,” said Pep
Guardiola. “Watch him.”
The trouble is, you have to write about
him. Not least because the records keep falling. Jorge Valdano once
claimed that they would have to dedicate a whole chapter of the Guinness
Book of Records to Raúl. With Messi, they really might.
It can
seem swifter to list the records he hasn’t got than the ones he has. The
records provide excuse and evidence but they also provide obligation.
They are a reason, a duty, to focus on him once; excellence alone is no
longer enough. But you’ll never really do him justice.
Top scorer
It’s
been like that for some time now: even if it took some people a while
to see it, he has been the best for years. Pretty much since he stopped
getting injured, in fact – another reason why the sight of him going off
on a stretcher on Wednesday had such an impact.
Barcelona’s
all-time top scorer at just 24, amongst his goals in 2012 are five
against Bayer Leverkusen. A one-off, perhaps but they set him on course
to finish as the European Cup’s top scorer. For the fourth year in a
row. You want him to do it in a hard league? How about the Champions
League?
And for all the caveats, for all the “yeah, buts” there’s
no getting away from the bottom line: 86 goals. Eighty-flipping-six. If
it’s eighty-five, it’s still eighty-flipping-five. An average of a goal
every 4.24 days for a year.
And, yes, that includes the months
when he didn’t play a match. He still has three games left to add to it:
against Second Division Córdoba in the Copa del Rey tomorrow night,
then Atlético Madrid and Valladolid in the league.
“I hope to add
more to it so that it is harder for the next person to come along and
break,” Messi said on Sunday night. Thing is, the next person is likely
to be him. Every year his stats increase. “I don’t think we’ll see
anyone like him again,” said his coach, Vilanova.
Consistency
He
could almost do a Sergey Bubka and push the bar up by a single
centimetre. At times the consistency can serve to make it seem mundane,
but it is exactly that consistency that makes it so extraordinary.
The
stats reinforce that fact, but the subjective is as important as the
objective. You watch him score an amazing goal and it seems normal; the
next week, there is another one as good.
On Sunday night, the
first was classic Messi: dashing across the area from right to left,
escaping three or four challenges, before hitting it into the far
corner. Another brilliant goal rendered normal by repetition. As for the
second: a superb strike, had it not been the record-breaker it would
have barely registered.
Müller was a predator – that year he did
not win the Balón d’Or, Cruyff did – Messi is not. And nor is it just
about goals, but the fact that he is so complete. Along with 86 goals,
he also provided 29 assists.
At the end of Sunday night’s game,
which Barcelona were fortunate to win against an impressive Betis side,
Messi swapped shirts with Antonio Amaya and was stopped by Canal Plus’s
touchline reporter. He talked as the rest headed inside. “What’s the
next challenge?” he was asked. “Córdoba,” Messi said.
And with
that he turned and headed to the dressingroom, where his team-mates were
waiting. As he walked through the door, they stood up and gave him a
round of applause.
Guardian Service
