Ugh. My beloved Manchester City just got dumped out of the Champions League after a 0-1 loss to Barcelona. The result would have been a lot worse were it not from a bravura performance from Man City goalkeeper Joe Hart who made 10 saves. But the genius on the park was without question Lionel Messi, who singlehandedly destroyed us.
BBC Sports’ Alistair Magowan called Messi’s performance “a masterclass…after a wonderful exhibition of cute passing and mesmerising dribbling from Messi, there was little either Pellegrini or his team could do to stop the 27-year-old. From the beginning, he was a menace, whether exchanging one-twos with Andres Iniesta or curling free-kicks with the type of spin a baseball pitcher would have been proud of.”
The Daily Mail revived ‘the greatest player ever’ debate, with Gary Lineker leading off with the statement that Messi is “indisputably the greatest player ever to don a pair of football boots.” Six of the 12 Daily Mail writers had Messi at #1, four had Cristiano Ronaldo at #1.
To quote Bob Taylor, a ‘father of the internet’ and recruiter of the genius people at Xerox Parc who ushered in the modern computer interface, “You can’t pile together enough good people to make a great one.”
Take a bow, Mr Messi.
