□ □□□ □□□□□ has been involved in 18 goals in Ligue 1 this season (8 goals, 10 assists). A case in point was the first PSG goal, when he drifted out to the right and essentially stood there for near enough a minute, while most of the play was happening on the left: eventually the ball was switched to him, and a few passes later the livewire young striker Hugo Ekitike had swept it home. He tends to occupy spaces of which the potential isn’t immediately obvious, until about 10 seconds later when he gets the ball and you suddenly realise he’s in the absolute perfect spot. This was a familiar performance of the latter Messi era, featuring an awful lot of walking, the odd flash of brilliance and a huge amount of roaming wherever he fancied. It was as if the crowd had come to see Messi do something extraordinary, and everything else was a letdown. Towards the end of the game Messi and Neymar stood over a free kick about 25 yards out Messi ran over the ball, leaving the Brazilian to take it, but there was an audible sigh of disappointment from the whole crowd in the second or so between Messi’s dummy and Neymar striking the ball. While there wasn’t a huge fanfare or massive celebration of his achievements from the fans, it was still impossible to miss the heightened anticipation whenever he got the ball, the sound of 47,000 people sitting up just a little straighter in their seats. Messi and Neymar wear tribute t-shirts for Pele (Photo: Aurelien Meunier – PSG/PSG via Getty Images)īut if you weren’t aware of what had happened a few weeks ago, you probably wouldn’t have marked out the shuffling, unassuming little chap wearing No 30 as anything special. There was a fairly big roar that greeted his name when the teams were announced, and a few fans chanted “Messi! Messi! Messi!” while doing the ‘we’re not worthy’ bowing gesture. There were a few close-ups of him on the big screen, which didn’t elicit much of a response from the fans gathered in the stadium. Instead, Messi trotted out for the pre-game warm-up as just one of the guys, taking part in shuttle runs like everyone else, joining the rondo like everyone else, wearing a t-shirt paying tribute to Pele like everyone else. Canal Plus sold this one as “his first game at the Parc des Princes as a world champion*, but there was little evidence of his status inside the stadium. Some of Argentina’s other champions have paraded the World Cup trophy when they returned to their clubs, but it was decided that this might be imprudent, perceived as rubbing it into the faces of the vanquished French. In front of a packed crowd - only the away section showed noticeably empty seats - there was no celebration of Messi’s achievement before the game. Who knows, really? What we do know is that Messi is carrying on, and his post-world champion era started with a chilly Wednesday evening fixture in Ligue 1 against Angers in Paris. Or will these be his freebie years, a time he can enjoy and just play - football for football’s sake? So much of the narrative around football at the very top level is geared around achievement, but what about just playing the game, with only a vague sense of striving for something, just for fun, for the pleasure of it, because you can? Is everything going to be a letdown now? Is motivation going to be a problem? What is there left to achieve? Will he be left with a constant, nagging sense that he should have just retired on the spot in the Lusail Stadium, the trophy still in his hands, the bisht only just shrugged from his shoulders, the greatest footballing mic drop of all time? You wonder what it must feel like to play normal football again after that night in Doha.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |