When Messi played alongside Maradona

In 2005, after a good year from Messi, starting to break into the team and scoring 3 goals and giving 4 assists in 21 games, winning the Golden Boy award, it seemed to be over, but there was one game left to play, and it was a friendly for an all-star game between international Argentine stars and local Argentine stars. That is the subject of today's topic, so without further ado, let's analyze the game.

It was December 23rd, 2005, on the Estadio Único de La Plata. Messi, with the Nº 11 shirt, was part of the international Argentine stars team, and both teams were ready to play. He was alongside players like Riquelme and Verón as well. In the beginning, Messi made some good passes and made a shot too, but the real attraction came 17 minutes in, as the game was stopped to introduce Maradona into the pitch, who entered for the same team as Messi.

From then on, the real game started. Although there weren't many goals in the first half (1-0 for the local stars team), and Messi missed some chances, the second half was much better. In the second half, the Argentine international all-star team made a comeback and made it 2-1, then the local all-star team made it 2-2, and after the 3-2, Maradona got off the pitch. Messi was also subbed off for López. The game ended 5-4 in favour of the international all-star team, which was quite a spectacle for the viewers.

It was quite an experience for Messi, and although a game with the two on the same pitch never happened again, it's still interesting to see how much quality there was in that game. I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi vs the referees part 2

As I said in the first part of this series, it's going to be long since there's been so many poor refereeing decisions against Messi. And thus, the second part is here.

The first decision I'll show is his recent wrongfully annuled goal against Alavés. The game was only 1-0 for Barça at the time, but they decided to cancel it due to a non-existent offside from Griezmann.

Next up is his canceled goal against Napoli in the 2019/20 UCL R16 second leg. Messi ended Napoli's hopes with a 3-0 goal, but it was somehow annulled because of a supposed handball (not the case at all, it was a chest touch). Even wth VAR it was canceled, but thankfully he won a penalty not long after and the game ended 3-1 for Barça, going through to the QF.

Next up is his canceled goal against Paraguay in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. Despite being perfectly legitimate, VAR annulled the goal because of a foul 27 seconds and 8 passes earlier. Totally ridiculous.

Now we'll go to 2012. Despite scoring 91 goals in a single calendar year, there was one goal which was wrongfully disallowed, which happened against Sevilla in the 2011/12 La Liga season. In the video you can see a Sevilla player at the back which putting Messi in an onside position, but it was canceled anyways.

And finally, there's his game against Sevilla in 2011. A good free-kick slotted in by Messi is wrongfully disallowed due to a non-existent foul from Busquets.

That is all for the 2nd part of this series. I hoped you liked it and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Ramos, Messi's favourite victim

In his 44 El Clásico appearances, he has faced Ramos a lot of times. It has been a common occurrence for Messi to play around with Ramos, a story that goes back to Messi's first El Clásico appearance.

Despite Ramos being nominated 6 times for the Ballon d'Or, being 8 times in the UEFA Team of the Year, receiving 5 times the La Liga Best Defender award, being 11 times in the FIFA/FIFPro World XI, and numerous other awards, Messi has had no trouble humiliating him numerous times ever since 2005 all the way to today.

There's a perfect video that shows every time Messi has faced and beaten Sergio Ramos, which doesn't even count the last 3 El Clásicos.

Hopefully in the upcoming El Clásico we see more of the same. But until then, I'll see you in the next blog.

Debunking a myth: Messi is a system player

Some people demerit Messi's accomplishments with the excuse that he's a "system player", since he's played for Barcelona for his entire career. As I will prove in this entry, this is completely false, so without further ado, let's get into the subject.

All the way back in La Masía, he wasn't a system player, since he could play either on the left wing or as a number 10, this proves that he wasn't a system player all the way back in his early La Masía days, since he wasn't even given a set role. When he made his debut, it was made even clearer, as Rijkaard completely changed his role from a number 10/left winger to a right winger. He adapted to it very well, and later became a starter around the 2006/07 season and the 2007/08 season.

He once again changed roles when Guardiola came, when near the end of the 2008/09 season he put Messi as a false 9, a completely new role than what he used to play (a right winger). He played in the center instead of the right wing and broke havoc with the tactical problems he caused to other teams due to his new position. It stayed relatively the same with Vilanova and Martino in the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons respectively.

It all changed again when Luis Enrique came in the 2014/15 season, and with the introduction of Suárez, forming the MSN trio, he moved to the right wing to let Suárez take the central role, but he did play somewhat as a false 9 too, using Suárez as a reference point. There, in the centre, he could dictate Barça's play, and judging from his heatmaps, Messi started being way more central (compared to his right flank) at late 2016 and early 2017.

After Luis Enrique left, Valverde changed Messi's system once more. Now, the team over-relied on him a lot, just like they did in the 2012/13 season. His role went back to the basics, instead of a wide forward that went to the center, he made him play mainly in the center. He also started tracking back more, dropping more deep as well.

There hasn't been much time to evolve since Setién and Koeman came, but he's kept his central role in the field, with some interventions in the middle right and dropping deep as well to collect the ball.

Messi has thrived in all of these systems, which proves he's not a system player in the slightest. In fact, you could argue that Messi IS the system, as some managers want to focus mainly on him for their tactics to work (Messidependencia).

Another argument that invalidates Messi being a system player are his achievements with the Argentine national team, which I detailed on this entry.

Overall, it's clear that Messi is not a system player as I said earlier. I hoped you liked this entry, and I'll see you in the next entry.

Messi the supersub

Since the 2006/07 season, it's not often that we see Messi coming off the bench, having established himself as a key piece of Barcelona's XI since then, but when he does, he has no problem performing as he always does, even with the limited amount of time that being a substitute means.

In terms of numbers, he has scored 48 goals and made 7 assists in 98 games played as a substitute, scoring a hat-trick and 10 braces as well. From this, we can assume that he's impactful most of the time that he's subbed on (as a supersub would).

Some memorable games where he came off the bench were his hat-trick against Panama in the 2016 Copa América (his team was only leading 1-0 beforehand), Real Betis (H) this season, where they were tied 1-1 until Messi was subbed in and then won the game 5-2 with a brace from him, Real Betis (H) in the 2012/13 season, where they were tied 2-2 until Messi came in and scored a brace to end the game 4-2, and many other games.

Even with limited playtime, Messi always does his job when coming off the bench, with the team always showing an increase in quality when he's on the pitch.

MSN: An unstoppable trio

Messi's partnership with Neymar and Suárez was certainly the most powerful in the world. Their numbers were incredible, of course, and in their short 3-season span between the 2014/15 and 2016/17 season, managed to win a lot of titles. So without further ado, let's look at what the MSN did in that time.

Prior to Suárez's arrival in 2014, Messi and Neymar had a good linkup between each other in the attack, but it wasn't so good with Alexis Sánchez. When Suárez was signed, the dynamic changed significantly, since Messi's role as a false 9 was now covered by Suárez, a striker, so Messi now played on the right wing once again. Not only that, but all three of them became friends not long after, which impacted their games a lot when they were together.

In terms of titles, they won 1 Champions League, 2 La Liga, 3 Copa del Rey, 1 Spanish Super Cup, 1 European Super Cup, and 1 Club World Cup. It also includes the treble won in the 2014/15 season, the quintuple won in 2015, and the domestic treble in 2016.

In terms of statistics, they played 113 games together, all 3 of them scored in 22 games, all 3 of them got involved in a goal in 38 games, which are insane numbers.

MSN ended when Neymar left Barcelona for PSG on August 2017 for a record €222M, but its legacy has not been forgotten at all, and still remains the deadliest trio in history.

Who has Messi voted for in the Ballon d'Or and The Best?

Since September 2011, Messi has worn Argentina's captain armband consistently and therefore has voted for his top 3 best players of the year since then both in the Ballon d'Or and The Best. Who has he voted for in the past years? That will be the topic of today's entry.

In 2011, the first time he made a vote in the Ballon d'Or, he voted Xavi 1st, Iniesta 2nd, and Agüero 3rd. In 2012, the same 3 people appeared, but it was now Iniesta 1st, Xavi 2nd, and Agüero 3rd. The following year, 2013, he voted for Iniesta and Xavi once again, 1st and 2nd place respectively, but he put his new team-mate Neymar in 3rd place. In 2014, he put Di María 1st, Iniesta 2nd, and Mascherano 3rd, showing he appreciated his team-mates' efforts in the 2014 World Cup. The last year he voted on the Ballon d'Or was in 2015, voting for Suárez 1st, Neymar 2nd, and Iniesta 3rd. The pattern seen here is that he always voted for his team-mates, showing his appreciation for their efforts.

Going now to The Best, in the 2016 edition he voted Suárez 1st, Neymar 2nd, and Iniesta 3rd, following his trend from previous years to vote his team-mates. In 2017, he voted Suárez 1st, Iniesta 2nd, and Neymar 3rd, and in 2018 he changed things up and voted Modric 1st, Mbappé 2nd, and Ronaldo 3rd, neither of them being a team-mate of Messi, although realistically there was no team-mate of his that made a top-3 performance. In 2019, he voted Mané 1st, Ronaldo 2nd, and De Jong 3rd, once again voting for his bitter rival. Finally, in 2020, he voted Neymar 1st, Mbappé 2nd, and Lewandowski 3rd.

From this, we can take that he tends to vote for his team-mates, maybe as a sign of gratitude to their work (he is humble after all). To end the entry, here is a picture that shows who Messi has voted for in the last years (including Ronaldo as well).

Messi (2014), a documentary film

With Messi's massive popularity over the world, it comes as no surprise that a movie has been made about him, specifically a documentary film that details his life from his youth at Newell's all the way to 2014.

It was directed by Álex de la Iglesia and written by Jorge Valdano, ex-Argentinian footballer. The production company was Mediapro and it was distributed by Warner Bros. The runtime of the film was 1 hour and 33 minutes. The film got originally released on August 27th, 2014, at the Venice Film Festival.

In terms of reviews, it currently has 7.3/10 stars on IMDb. The movie even managed to get nominated for the Venice Days Award. To understand how big that is, we have to remember that the Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world, and is part of the "Big Three" alongside the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. And in the box office, according to Box Office Mojo, it received $33,607

The cast included people like Johan Cruyff, Maradona, Iniesta, Mascherano, Menotti, Sabella, Piqué, Jorge Valdano and Pere Gratacó (Messi's coach in Barcelona B). The music was done by Joan Valent, known for his previous work in "La Caja" and specially "Las brujas de Zugarramurdi", the cinematography was done by the prestigious Kiko de la Rica, nominated for numerous awards beforehand, and the production design was done by important people as Antxón Gómez and Marcelo Vergés.

In the end, although it didn't reach levels of popularity that match some of the best in football cinema, it did deliver on showing Messi's life story, getting opinions from his team-mates and ex-coaches as well, which gives us a good insight on who he was and who he is (though it's from 2014).

All of Messi's Ballon d'Or presentations

With 6 Ballon d'Ors to his name, he has obviously had a presentation for all 6 of them, which will be today's subject. While many players could dream of presenting even 1 Ballon d'Or in front of their club's crowd, Messi has had the privilege of doing so multiple times.

The first one was in 2009, in Barcelona's Camp Nou game against Espanyol. He walked up the stairs to the pitch, got handed the Ballon d'Or by his mother, and proudly showcased it to the crowds while they and his team-mates clapped for him. He didn't play the game though to give him rest.

The second one was in 2010, although he made the presentation in early January of 2011. Against Real Betis at home, it was Puyol this time who handed him the award, as the claps were heard across the entire stadium and Messi posed with the award. He later scored a hat-trick in the game to confirm his superiority over the rest.

The third time was in January of 2012, once again against Real Betis. With the Ballon d'Or sitting in a table, Messi lifted it and showed it to the crowds, same as always. Barça also showcased their Club World Cup in the same presentation. This time, he scored a brace in the game to top it off.

January 2013 rolled around and Messi won the Ballon d'Or for the 4th time in a row. His presentation was against Málaga. All 4 Ballon d'Ors were shown between two tables, and Messi grabbed his 4th to show to the public. He later scored a goal and gave 2 assists in Barcelona's 3-1 win.

After some wait, the 5th Ballon d'Or came in 2015, and Messi presented it to the Camp Nou against Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. He got handed the award, showed it off to the crowds, and then the team posed with the Ballon d'Or. He scored a penalty early on but unfortunately got subbed off at half-time for some thigh problems.

Finally, in 2019, Messi won his 6th (and last at the moment) Ballon d'Or. This time, it was truly special, since his son, Thiago Messi, was the one that gave him the award. He went on to score a hat-trick in the game, his last since then.

All of Messi's Ballon d'Or celebrations were special in their own way, and also amplify his greatness as the only player to have won 6 Ballon d'Ors. I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you in the next blog.

Barça get a huge win against Real Sociedad at Anoeta

Yesterday, Barcelona won 6-1 against Real Sociedad away in Messi's 768th game as a Barcelona player, breaking Xavi's record of 767. The first goal came from Griezmann, which was pre-assisted by Messi, then a goal from Dest (his first in La Liga) which was assisted by Messi with a great through-ball, then yet another goal from Dest, then a goal from Messi, then a goal from Dembélé assisted by Messi which was annulled for offside, then an actual goal from Dembélé not long after, a discount goal from Barrenetxea and finally a goal from Messi to finish the game. Messi's stats in the game were: 2 goals, 1 assist, 1 pre-assist, 1 big chance created, 3 SOT (5 in total), 7 dribbles, 2 key passes, 5 ground duels won, 1 foul won, 1 tackle, 8 pressures (2 successful), 63 passes and 101 touches, completing yet another 10/10 performance.

This was his performance on tape:

A very important victory against 5th place Real Sociedad puts us right where we were before, 2 points ahead of Real Madrid but 4 points behind Atlético Madrid, but now we have a difficult game off our back now. It is clear that Barça is serious about winning the title, and hopefully, considering some of Atlético's last games, they can drop points and Barcelona can finally get to 1st place again.

Meanwhile, Messi leads the Pichichi by 4 goals (23 to Suárez's 19) and is now the joint-top assist provider in La Liga alongside Kroos, Aspas, and Llorente, all with 8 assists, after having very low numbers at the beginning of the season.

Now comes the international break, although Messi won't play it due to some conflicts between South American national teams and FIFA, so it will be mainly Europe WC qualifiers. Action will come back in April 5th against Real Valladolid. But until then, see you in the next blog.

When Messi got his first GOAT shout

March 21st, 2010. Messi had recently won a Ballon d'Or and was one of, if not the best player in the 2009/10 season so far. Barcelona was in a very tight race with Real Madrid, with 65 points each in 26 games played. Barcelona faced Real Zaragoza away and looked to continue the race and overtake Real Madrid.

Only 4 minutes in, he scored with a good header after a cross from Pedro, giving Barça the lead. Later in the second half, he won the ball from Ander Herrera, got past Jarošík, tricked Contini and got past him as well, and made a powerful shot to the opposite post that went in. This goal would later be nominated for the Puskás Award. He then made a great pass to Zlatan to open goal but he missed this. Fortunately, he scored shortly after with an out-the-box shot to the near post to seal his hat-trick. Near the end of the game, he flicked Ponzio and got inside the box, got past Contini, and after sidestepping Jarošík, he got fouled by Contini, winning a penalty. Instead of taking it and getting his hat-trick, he gave it to Zlatan, who slotted it in and consolidated Barça's 4-2 win.

His stats from the game were: 3 goals, 1 non-Opta assist (penalty won), 4 SoT (8 in total), 0.59 xG, 12 dribbles out of 14, 2 key passes, 0.79 xA, 1 aerial duel won out of 2, 2 tackles, 26 passes out of 30, and 69 touches, a perfect 10/10 performance.

The press went insane after that fantastic performance, with the titles "God of football", "Brutal Messi", "Messi from another world", "He invents football every day", "Supermessi scores 8 goals in a week", "Another masterpiece from Messi", "Messi is from another galaxy "," Maradonian exhibition from the Nº 10 of Barca, who signs another hat-trick " and" What a way to make plays with the ball tied to the feet ". And even more impressive, Joan Laporta, Barcelona's president, said "Messi is the best player in the world and in history", as per numerous sources. Despite being only 22 years old, Messi had already been named the best player in history by someone as important as Laporta.

Barcelona ended up winning the league by 3 points over Real Madrid, so those 3 points won in this game were crucial to winning the league title. And later, he won the Ballon d'Or for the second time, showing the world his greatness. I hoped you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

The 6 times Messi could have left Barcelona

Since Barça first contracted Messi back in 2000, their relationship has been practically inseparable. But believe it or not, there have been 6 occasions where he could have left the club, which I will detail on today's entry.

The first time was back in February 2001, when he received a serious injury, a fractured fibula. When he was at his hotel with his dad, Jorge Messi asked him "Lío, what do you want us to do? Do we come back?", referring to leaving Barcelona to go back home, but Leo strongly replied, "No, dad, I want to succeed at Barcelona.", something his dad still remembers to this day and brings tears to his eyes.

In 2003, Arsenal was in discussions with Barcelona to sign Messi after noting his clear talent. They were also in talks with Fàbregas, who was a team-mate of Messi in the 2001/02 and 2002/03 Cadete seasons. In the end, it amounted to nothing due to Messi's unwillingness to leave the club.

The third time was in 2005, after his amazing performance in the 2005 Joan Gamper. Inter Milan offered to pay Messi's high release clause of €150 million (which was over twice the standing record at the time of €77.5 million from Real Madrid for Zidane) and even triple his wages. But Laporta told Messi's father that Messi would be happy and get glory at Barça, while he would only get financial gain at Inter Milan. Barça refused to sell Messi and he stayed. Later in 2006, Inter looked to sign him for an extraordinary €250 million (which was the bar set by Barcelona earlier), but Laporta once again refused the offer.

The fourth time was June 2014. Numerous factors accumulated to a point where he wanted to leave Barça, like Tito Villanova's delicate situation, problems with the Hacienda due to alleged tax fraud, and few trophies with the team. In the end, he signed a new contract with the club and won the treble the next season.

In June 2016, he thought about leaving once again, though it was more the thought of leaving Spain altogether than Barça. This was because of him getting charged of tax fraud and getting a big fine. Once again, he decided to stay after the storm cleared.

The last and probably most known time was in August 2020 after their 8-2 loss to Bayern in the UCL which got them kicked out of the competition. He directly expressed his desire to leave via burofax on August 25th, which lead to massive attention all around the world. After a week and a half of uncertainty, Messi decided to stay since he would have to sue the club to leave, and he didn't want to do that out of his love for the club.

In the end, through the good and the bad, Messi has decided to stay at Barcelona, a clear sign of the love he has for the Catalan club.

Messi vs the referees part 1

Messi has been harmed numerous times due to referees' decisions, and thus, I have decided to make a series of decisions made against Messi. The first part will cover some annulled goals against Messi, so without further ado, let's dive into it.

We'll first look at one of the most obvious but also had a big impact, which was against Real Betis away in the 2016/17 La Liga season. Despite clearly entering the goal, Alejandro Hernández Hernández didn't give it. The game ended 1-1 and Real Madrid later won the league.

Another obvious one, though less impactful, was against Valencia away in the 2017/18 La Liga season. Messi made a shot straight at the keeper and since he couldn't catch it properly, it went through him and entered the net, but Ignacio Villanueva gave no goal. The game ended 1-1, but Barcelona later won the league anyways by 14 points.

Going back to 2006, specifically to the 2006 World Cup R16 game against Mexico, Messi scored a goal in the dying minutes of the game to give Argentina the lead 2-1, but linesman Matthias Arnet gave a non-existent offside from Pablo Aimar which invalidated the play.

Going now to the title-defining game of the 2013/14 La Liga season against Atlético Madrid at home, Messi was wrongfully disallowed of a goal because of an offside, even though the ball came from Juanfran which invalidates the offside. This would have won Barcelona the league, and perhaps the Supercopa de España at the beginning of the next season.

And to end this 1st part, there's his goal wrongfully disallowed against Arsenal in the first leg of the 2010/11 UCL R16, even though he was onside. They lost 2-1 that game, but thankfully Messi made a masterclass against them in the second leg and then went on to win the tournament.

That is all for the 1st part. As I said there's a lot to cover so I'll continue in the 2nd part. But until then, I'll see you in the next blog.

The best goal-less performance ever

6 years ago, Barcelona beat Manchester City 1-0 at the Camp Nou with an assist from Messi. This would go down for many as the best goal-less performance ever, a 10/10 without scoring, which was and still is unheard of. Today, I will detail Messi's excellent performance in this game.

He got his only assist in the game after sidestepping Milner, then giving a brilliant pass to Rakitic which left him 1v1, making a chip shot and scoring Barcelona's only goal that game. It was the winning goal of the game and it sealed Barcelona's ticket to the quarter-finals.

is stats in the game were the following: 1 assist, 3 shots on target (8 in total), 5 key passes, 4 big chances created, 10 dribbles, 4 fouls received, 1 tackle, 1 interception, 2 long balls, 2 through-balls, 82 passes, and 116 touches. A perfect 10/10 game. This was his performance on video:

Barcelona ended up winning the tournament, so this performance was crucial for Barça to win it, even if he didn't score, because Messi is much, much more than just goals. I hoped you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi against French clubs

The last league I'm yet to cover in the top 5 leagues is the French league, Ligue 1. He's only faced 2 different teams from France, but he has encountered them often.

The first club is PSG. Although they recently got kicked out by them in the UCL R16, he still has a very good record against them. Specifically, he has 6 goals and 1 assist in 10 games against them. 4 wins, 3 draws, and 3 losses. He has an average rating of 7.67 against them, and he makes 4.4 dribbles per 90, 1.8 key passes per 90, and 3.2 shots per 90 (1.1 on target per 90).

The second and last club is Lyon. He has faced them 6 times since the 2007/08 UCL season. He has scored 5 goals and made 2 assists in only 6 games against them, with 3 wins and 3 draws, an undefeated streak. He kicked them out of the 2008/09 UCL R16 and the 2018/19 UCL R16.

Overall, he has scored 11 goals and made 3 assists against French teams in only 16 games, which is a 0.947 G/A per 90 ratio, which is impressive, and it shows that he performs as good as always against French teams as well.