Super-sub Messi wins Barça the game!

What happened yesterday was nothing short of impressive. Messi was benched, probably to keep him for the next game against Sevilla in the Copa del Rey semi-finals, so Barça weren't able to do much with the ball. Iglesias, in one of Betis' few chances in the first half, gave them the lead and put the Catalan side in trouble. They had no shots on target for the first time since at least the 2003/04 season, showing how crucial Messi was to the team. In the second half, Messi was subbed on and he immediately made the difference as he scored the equalizer. Later, Ruiz scored an own goal with Messi having a part as he assisted Grizemann who's miss rebounded on him. Despite Ruiz scoring the equalizer, Trincão finished the job with a pass from Messi being blocked and then being picked up by him and scoring. Messi's stats were: 1 goal, 1 SOT (2 in total), 3 dribbles, 2 key passes, 5 ground duels won, 2 fouls won, 1 long ball, 1 cross, 3 pressures, 18 passes, an 32 touches, earning himself yet another MoTM performance.

Here's a video of his awesome performance:

Once more, it appears that Messi is always the key factor in Barcelona, and with some key players injured, that has become even more true recently. He's also proved yet again why he's the best player in the league, as we can see in the following pictures:

As we can see, complete and utter domination from him regardless of the source.

This time, Barcelona missed 3 big chances, and it could have been costly, but they ultimately won and kept their second-place spot in La Liga, though we need Real Madrid and Sevilla to drop some points as well if we want to keep it that way.

Now, we have to focus on the Copa del Rey semi-final against Sevilla, and hopefully we can hold them away. Anyways, that was it for today, see you in the next blog!

What if scenario: Messi chooses Spain

As we all know, Messi plays for the Argentinean national team, but things could have been different considering that Messi is also a Spanish citizen and could've chosen Spain instead of Argentina. Today, I'll try to take a look at how Messi would have performed if he had chosen to play for Spain instead of Argentina, so without further ado, let's look at this what-if scenario.

We'll start by June 2004, with the POD that Messi accepts Spain's invitation to join their national team for the upcoming 2004 UEFA European Under-19 Championship. He would have most likely won the tournament (as per OTL) and would have also been the top scorer and the best player. In the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship itself, Spain would've probably won the tournament (they were the favourites to win it before Messi's Argentina kicked them out) and Messi would have won the Golden Boot and be awarded the MVP as he did with Argentina. After those performances, he would have probably made his debut against Uruguay in a friendly.

In the 2006 World Cup, he would get few minutes due to his injury, probably making his debut against Saudi Arabia as they were already leading, but that would be it. But from 2007 onwards is where the fun really begins. He makes Spain's life easier in the Euro qualifiers which lands them in first place. The following year, 2008, Spain wins the Euro with Messi as their main man. This may or may not be enough to win him the Ballon d'Or.

In the following years, Messi gives Spain the Confederations Cup, which they lost in OTL, and probably wins the Golden Ball. In 2010, just like in OTL, Spain wins the 2010 World Cup now with Messi as their main man, perhaps winning the Golden Ball once again and maybe even the Golden Boot. 2012 comes around and Messi probably becomes the MVP in the 2012 Euro. Messi's Spain would have most likely been an unstoppable force at their peak. The 2013 Confederations Cup would have most likely fallen to Spanish hands as well and could have maybe pushed Messi to another Ballon d'Or. And what I haven't mentioned is that more successes in the national team mean higher morale and therefore better performances from him consistently, which could in fact have given him the Ballon d'Or this year and maybe following years as well.

In 2014 things become tricky, since Costa was the main problem and it could have been solved by Messi since he had good chemistry with the team + The massive quality, but it's hard to say. In the 2016 Euro, once again it's hard to say, but Spain would have most likely gotten first instead of second in the group, and if they beat Portugal in the Round of 16, they would have probably won the tournament, which would have resulted in another Golden Ball for Messi. Finally, in the 2018 World Cup a 1st/2nd place finish doesn't seem too far off since after kicking Russia they would have faced Croatia and England, which would mean another Golden Ball for Messi as well.

Overall, Messi's international career would have been incredible, and considering how similar it once was to Barcelona in terms of tactics, having great chemistry with a good amount of his Barcelona team-mates and having the ability to play against weaker teams more often, he would have probably scored over 100 goals, breaking Ali Daei's record most likely.

Messi against Italian teams

Although the Italian league has some reputation for being the most defensive league (it's actually La Liga, this is why), Messi doesn't have problems playing against them either. This is today's entry topic, so without further ado, let's look at his performances against Italian teams.

Overall, he has 14 goals and 5 assists in 27 games against Italian teams, an average of 0.7 G/A per game. Not bad at all, and he has some good G/A-less performances against those teams as well.

His favorite victim from Italy is AC Milan, who he has scored 8 goals and made 2 assists against in 8 games. He only has 1 loss against them and he has kicked them out in both the 2011/12 UCL QF and the 2012/13 UCL R16. Juve isn't far behind either, having scored 3 goals and made 1 assist in 7 games. He's had memorable moments against them, like his MVP performance in the 2005 Joan Gamper or 10 years later when he was MoTM against them in the UCL final.

Then comes Roma, with 2 goals and an assist in 4 games. He was the best player on the pitch in 3/4 games and one of the best in his last game where they got kicked out of the UCL. Against Napoli, he scored a brace and assisted a goal in Barcelona's 5-0 win over them in the 2011 Joan Gamper, and more importantly, kicked them out of the 2019/20 UCL with a MoTM performance in the second leg, winning a pen, scoring a goal and getting another one wrongfully disallowed.

Inter Milan seems to be his boogyman as he hasn't been able to score against them in 4 games, though he does have 1 assist against them. And to be fair around 5 penalties weren't given in the 2009/10 UCL semi-final tie. Also, he was the MoTM in the second leg and in the home game against them in the 2019/20 UCL group phase as well. Finally, there is Udinese, who Messi only played against once in the 2005/06 UCL season but still left his mark as he won the foul for the first goal and won the ball for the second goal.

As we can see, Messi has no problem against Italian teams, so if he was to go to Serie A, as Ronaldo once hinted back in 2018, he probably would still dominate as he always does, perhaps even more easily considering it's less intense than La Liga (already mentioned).

Messi's performance in 2018

One of the biggest examples of Messi being underrated, or perhaps normalizing the impossible so much that it didn't become as impressive from him, is him finishing 5th in the 2018 Ballon d'Or, a disgrace as I will show shortly. Without further ado, let's look at what Messi did in 2018.

First comes the 2018 World Cup, which I already talked about earlier. In summary, he deserved to be in the ToTT (if Ronaldo deserved it so did Messi) and overall did a great performance.

In the 2017/18 UCL knockout stages, he generated all 4 goals against Chelsea in the Round of 16, and after being MoTM in the first leg against Roma, the team crumbled in the second leg and got eliminated. Despite that, Messi was still Barcelona's best player and overall probably the 5th best player in the game (better than half of Roma's team). He was also the best player in the tournament until Barcelona got kicked out.

In La Liga, he was both the champion and the best player by quite a distance. He also won the Golden Boot. Some minor achievements include being the MoTM in the Copa del Rey final (and paving Barcelona's way into that final) and being the MoTM in the Supercopa de España against Sevilla as well, assisting Dembélé's winning goal.

To get a better picture of just how dominant Messi was, let's take a look at this:

As we can see, Messi made a lot of achievements in 2018, but even then, he only got 5th in the Ballon d'Or and The Best, probably the biggest injustice in its history.

A masterclass from Messi achieves a comeback into the Copa del Rey semi-finals!

In what was perhaps a game for the ages, Barcelona managed to comeback in the last minutes a 2-0 defeat to a 2-2 tie and then a 5-3 victory in extra-time. Kenedy and Soldado would shatter Barcelona's dreams, but the Messi Effect would come in full swing 88 minutes in, near the end of the game, when he assisted a goal to Griezmann. He then was influential in the equalizer from Alba with almost no time left. In extra-time, Griezmann gave Barcelona the lead, though the joy didn't last long as Vico equalized via penalty. Fortunately, and with some influence from Messi, De Jong and Alba finished the game to get us qualified to the semi-finals. Messi's stats were: 1 assist, 1 yellow card, 7 SOT, 1 shot to the woodwork (11 shots in total), 9 dribbles, 10 key passes, 12 ground duels won, 3 fouls received, 3 long balls, 3 crosses, 91 passes, and 162 touches. A 10/10 monsterclass that earned him a MoTM according to SofaScore. Here was his performance put on a video:

Barcelona had the luxury to hit 3 woodworks and miss 3 big chances and still win, which we know can't happen often. We dominated almost the entire game, but as always, the one time we give them a chance is the one time they score, which is always frustrating.

Now being between the best 4 teams of the competition Koeman will probably give the Copa del Rey some importance now, but we'll see. So as always, see you in the next blog!

Messi in El Clásico

Despite being the biggest club in Span alongside Barcelona, Mesi has had a history of dominating against Real Madrid multiple times, which we will detail in this entry. Without further ado, let's get into the topic.

Even in his first Clásico, he made an amazing run followed by an assist to Eto'o, which would be Barça's first of three goals in that 3-0 win against Real Madrid all the way back in 2005. Since then, he has made 26 goals and 14 assists in 44 games against them, almost a 1 G/A per game ratio. He also has 19 wins, 11 draws and 14 losses, meaning that he also beats them on head-to-head.

He also has numerous iconic moments against them, like his solo goal at the Bernabeu in the 2010/11 UCL semi-finals, or his winner once again in the Bernabeu in the 2016/17 La Liga season where he celebrated his 500th goal with Barcelona by showing his jersey to the crowds. There's also his hat-trick and assist in the Bernabeu once again in the 2013/14 La Liga season, his memorable first hat-trick in a 3-3 draw, this time at Camp Nou, and his false 9 debut in the 2008/09 season, winning 6-2 with two goals and an assist from him.

Since the 2009/10 season (excluding some Supercopa de España and Copa del Rey games), he has an average rating of 7.87 (incredible considering that he gets almost an 8/10 per game against one of the strongest teams in Europe regularly), 12 MoTM out of 30, and 4 dribbles per game, showing more of his superiority.

So, as we can see, Messi doesn't hold back against Real Madrid and seems to have quite a paternity over them as well. I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you next time.

Messi never dives

Despite being a relatively small guy and therefore sort of weak player in theory, Messi most of the time when getting tackled by a player decides to hold on and continue the play rather than falling to the ground asking for a foul. Most of the time they were actual fouls but Messi always decides to hold on and try to get a goal, which is remarkable.

As this wonderful video shows, Messi always tries to either not fall down or quickly get up to continue his play, which can be hard if we take into account what I already said that he's a relatively small guy but still has the strongest spirit.

It also shows us that Messi has had this attitude since a long time ago, which is also quite difficult to achieve. Even after all of those tackles, Messi always decides to hold on and go forward at all costs, another reason for why he is the GOAT.