70 2GM Friday August 28 2020 | the times
SportFootball
He may be somewhat past his best and
may cope less well in an English team
than in a Barcelona set-up that was
constructed around his talents but I
desperately hope that Lionel Messi
comes to the Premier League. Those
who haven’t seen him live deserve a
chance to watch this little magician in
the raw, to note his grace, his compre-
hension of time and space, his appetite
to win and to shrug off challenges from
lesser beings — which is everyone else
who plays this great game.
To see him will be like listening to
Caruso, the great Italian operatic tenor,
in the days before the gramophone or
watching Muhammad Ali in Manila or
Zaire, or the Beatles in the Cavern. For
the truth is that watching the greatest
performers in the flesh is a different
experience — materially and spirit-
ually — from watching on television or
tape. As a writer, you only have to read
Norman Mailer on Ali to feel a sense of
regret that you were not around to
cover that singular athlete. “If Ali never
opened his mouth to quiver the jellies of
public opinion, he would inspire love
and hate,” Mailer wrote. “For he is the
Prince of Heaven — so says the silence
around his body when he is luminous.”
I still remember the first time I
watched Roger Federer live. The
former sports editor of this parish felt
that I had spent too much time
commenting on sport, and not enough
reporting on it, and suggested that I
travel each day to Centre Court at
Wimbledon to cover the singles events.
I was entranced almost instantly — not
by the tumult of competition, but the
intricate aesthetic. Federer floated an
inch above the ground, an illusion that
was beautiful and inescapable.
Even his detractors — and there are
a surprisingly large number of them —
must acknowledge that Messi is a
genius. I am not sure that I have
witnessed a more perfect example of
collective intelligence than when the
Argentine maestro was playing along-
side Xavi Hernández and Andrés
Iniesta, the Holy Trinity that operated
as the fulcrum of the Barcelona team in
that unforgettable era when they won
the European Cup three times.
Messi was the active ingredient in
that recipe, the catalyst for so much of
what Barcelona achieved. Sir Alex
Ferguson once talked about the
bravery required to dribble. “Some
Join Pep in
city centre or
lie low in
leafy suburbs
where would he live?
It can take something rather unusual
to spark the kind of excitement that
has grown men reaching for their
camera phones here in Manchester.
There was a night in the Cheshire
village of Hale when David Gestwalked into the Railway pub, even
prompting that bloke who plays Kevin
Webster in Coronation Street to stick
his head around the door and ask: “Is
that who I think it is?”
The late Mr Gest, once married to
Liza Minnelli, actually joined a few of
the locals for a pint in the same
traditional boozer that Manchester
City’s players chose to celebrate their
2018 Premier League title win.
But the prospect of Lionel Messi
settling in this city might also set a
few pulses racing even if the people
who reside here have long grown
used to living among some extremely
famous individuals, from Best and
Charlton to Beckham and Ronaldo.
David Beckham would probably
rank Manchester as the one place he
can come to — and it is said he
returns here fairly frequently —
where he does not get any hassle.Certainly in the more exclusive
pockets of leafy Cheshire people do
tend to mind their own business.
One may spot Morrissey in a pub
garden, or Liam Gallagher puffing on
a fag outside a restaurant. In the local
supermarket City and United players
will be pushing trolleys up and down
the aisles. Dine at the ubercool
Altrincham Market and a footballerEtihad
StadiumManchester
AirportStockportOld
TraffordManchesterBowden HaleAltrinchamOne mileMatt Lawton‘Seventh Ballon d’Or possible’
to Manchester City.” Mikel Arteta, the
Arsenal head coach, said: “I’ve been a
Barcelona fan since I was young and it’s
always sad to see Lionel Messi, who in
my opinion has been the best player in
football history, leave that football club.
Let’s see what happens, if he comes to
England we’re all going to enjoy it.”
6 Ferran Torres will inherit David
Silva’s squad number of 21 at City next
season. Silva, 34, left City to join Real
Sociedad on a free transfer this month,
vacating the number that he wore
throughout his decade at the club.
Torres, the 20-year-old winger who
signed for £21 million, came through
Valencia’s academy and used to watch
Silva from the stands at the Mestalla
when he was young.Manchester United that can sign him –
he could become player of the year.
“I don’t think he can do it for the next
two or three years, but certainly for
next season, if he surrounds himself
with Kevin De Bruyne, with Bruno
Fernandes, with these types of players,
he can go and win his seventh Ballon
d’Or, which is incredible.”
United are understood to have
distanced themselves from any attempt
to sign Messi. Rooney, meanwhile,
believes if Liverpool land the Bayern
Munich midfielder Thiago Alcântara
that would be an even bigger coup, say-
ing: “If Liverpool get Thiago I think
that’s a better signing than Messi going
continued from back
Seeing genius in the flesh
believe the greatest courage in football
is the courage to win the ball,” the
former Manchester United manager
said. “The other kind of courage — and
it’s a moral courage — is the courage to
keep the ball. All the great players had
it. Best had it, Charlton had it, Cantona.
‘I’ll take the kick. I’ll take the injury. But
I will keep the ball. I’ll beat the bully.’ ”
No disrespect to George Best, Bobby
Charlton or Eric Cantona — all won-
derful players — but Messi embodies
this type of courage to a greater degree
than any other footballer. A diminutive
figure — he had growth hormone
deficiency as a child and had to take
injections to help him to grow — he
stands at 5ft 7in. He has come up
against big defenders and snarling
midfielders, who have kicked at his
ankles, and shrugged him off the ball,
and intimidated him verbally, but
always he rebounds, the light in his eye
undimmed.
There are so many tributes to his
talents on YouTube that it is difficult to
select his finest goal. Perhaps one
should resist the temptation to do so,
for no one cameo is sufficient to capture
his versatility — in all (and this almost
defies credulity), he has scored 634
goals in 731 appearances for Barcelona,
together with 285 assists. He has also
won La Liga ten times, the Copa del Rey
six times, the European Cup four times
and the Ballon d’Or six times.
One can legitimately ask whether he
offers value for money at the age of 33.
The sums that are being mentioned are
staggering, even in a game that rebukes
the usual logic of commercial markets,
and one also wonders what it might
mean in the long term for a club that
decided to rebuild around a player in
the twilight of his career. That said, I
find it difficult, as a fan and neutral, to
engage too much with these Jesuitical
ruminations — I just want this genius
to come to these shores, so that we can
tell our grandchildren that, yes, we saw
him in action.
There was a moment in a game a few
years ago when Messi was confronted
by a forest of defenders, the ball at his
feet, the crowd expectant. It was as if
the world stood still, everyone wonder-
ing what he would conjure, his boots
like magic wands. He seemed to take it
all in, noted the fear in his opponents,
and — without a glance — dabbed the
ball into the path of Pedro, who crossed
into the box for David Villa to score.
I mention this because Messi is so
much more than a goalscorer, more
even than a footballer. He is — to use a
term that has lost some of its currency
through overuse — an icon. “What is
genius but balance on the edge of the
impossible,” Mailer said of Ali. The
words could be said of Messi too.Matthew Syedyed