Messi, Barcelona bring class to Man City match
LONDON — Welcome, Lionel Messi. Having Messi on these soaked English shores is an honour, even only briefly. He has even made the rain stop.
Barcelona’s ray of sunshine in a No. 10 shirt is a role model on and off the field.
The arrival of Messi — and resumption of the Champions League — brings a welcome reminder of uplifting values.
Welcome back, respect. We have missed you. Welcome back, the Champions League: a competition where most games are contested with genuine sporting rivalry, with respect between high-class practitioners like Messi, but without the buildup of bile that frequently stains the face of the English game.
Local enmity still gatecrashed European week. Manuel Pellegrini’s briefing to preview Manchester City’s tie with Messi and co-threatened to descend into a debate about Mancunian superiority.
Who is biggest? Who is best? Huddersfield Town fans pointed out they have won the league as many times as City. Tribalism rules English football.
Games are viewed through a parochial prism. History between clubs, past tensions between players and fans who neither forgive nor forget: such edge makes English football an unrelenting drama, contempt bred through over-familiarity. Little respect is found as players surround referees and verbally abuse each other while fans trade tirades. Messi and Europe’s elite spectacle provide a well-timed antidote to the often small-minded, overheated English circus.
Murmurs of respect can be heard in domestic disputes, of course, in the sympathetic applause as an injured protagonist is carried away or complimentary words between adversaries at the final whistle, but the sporting spirit of the late, great Sir Tom Finney is rarely in evidence. Finney was a player who inspired esteem in opposing fans privileged to watch him, even to the cost of their own defence. Like Messi.
Those who marvelled at Finney in his postwar pomp mentioned that there were echoes of his balance and adventure in the magical Messi, who elicits similar admiration from rival supports. So English audiences should revere Messi at the Etihad and also the Bayern Munich of Pep Guardiola at the Emirates tomorrow. Whatever the scores, we are in for a sporting treat.