Messi gives up junk food to keep his career going
LONDON: AFTER recently averaging 40 goals for 10 consecutive calendar years, Lionel Messi showed no signs of letting up at the age of 31.
However, while he proved to be a special talent in the earlier stages of his career, there were questions on whether the Argentine prodigy could maintain his brilliance as the years went on.
Sportsmail looks at how diet, drastic reduction in international commitments, and doing it for his sons, are adding years to a career many once feared might be brilliant but woefully short.
When Lionel Messi got back into the away dressing room at Wembley last Wednesday, he was serenaded by his Barcelona teammates.
To a man they sang: “And now who is ‘The Best?’ over and over again in reference to the fact he had been overlooked for the Fifa ‘The Best’ award in London a week before his demolition of Spurs.
Messi remains most people’s pick as the current and all time best and at 31 years of age there is little sign of decline.
He ran 8.2km against Tottenham and with 96 touches, only Jordi Alba was on the ball more. At a time in his career when he might be expected to flit in and out of matches conserving energy, Messi ran the game.
His longevity at the top is a testament to his transformation from fast food and fizzy drink fan as a teenager. His early reluctance to shake off those adolescent habits had many believing that, for all his natural ability, his career might not be a long one.
Pep Guardiola’s battles with Messi to change his refuelling habits are well-known. One Camp Nou urban legend claims that Guardiola ordered for a drinks machine to be removed because it was too close to the dressing room.
And one-time New York Red Bulls coach Hans Backe once told Swedish television that before one match in the 2008-09 season Messi interrupted a Guardiola team-talk to request permission to fetch a can of cola.
When permission was denied, he defied the manager, brought back the fizzy drink, and then drank it in-front of stunned teammates.
Diego Maradona felt the need to come out and defend Messi recently declaring: “It’s not his fault we did not win the World Cup. I would tell him to retire (from the national team) because as far as some are concerned it’s always his fault. Messi even gets the blame when the Argentina Under-15s lose.”
How soon Messi’s semi-retirement becomes a full-blown farewell to the international stage may depend on next summer’s Copa American. If he can lift his first trophy for his country at senior level on July 7 in Brazil’s Maracana Stadium it may well persuade him to quit.
It certainly seems he will give up on the national side before he gives up on Barcelona. His bond with the city that adopted him when he was just 13 has grown stronger in recent years.
His children speak or are learning Catalan and for all that he occasionally mentions the mistyeyed return to Newell’s Old Boys to play out a swansong season back in Argentina, for now he seems to only see Barcelona on the horizon. It’s the place his three sons Thiago, Mateo and Ciro know as home.
“Since Thiago’s birth I try to take defeats in a different way,” he said. “But it’s difficult. I suffer a lot and I find it hard to pick myself up again. It takes me a few days. And Thiago understands it.
“He has started to really like football and he follows Argentina and Barcelona and after a big defeat he knows its best not to talk about it but sometimes he lets something drop and then he says: ‘Ah, I know we aren’t talking about that!’"
Messi has won four European Cups although he struggles to count the first in Paris against Arsenal in 2006 because he was in the stands deemed not fit by Frank Rijkaard. What he has never done is win the trophy as captain and with his sons old enough to enjoy the moment too.
His eldest, Thiago, will be sixyears-old next month and for him to see his dad lift the European Cup next June at the Metropolitano Stadium would make it the most satisfying Champions League of all.
Me s s i ’s go al c elebration at Wembley, repeated at Mestalla on Sunday, was a reminder of how he is now playing for his sons watching back at home. He has promised Thiago the goal dedication every time he scores.
But with national team retirement on the horizon, his capacity to control his weight and reduce injuries through diet maximized, and with the incentive of giving his children some memories of seeing him in the flesh as this best, the plan is to continue at least for his club for many years to come.