He destroys Spurs in UCL :
LONDON. — Splashed across the front page of the Spanish daily newspaper Sport yesterday morning is the headline that sums him up.
“The King” it says. Simply and succinctly.
They are spot on. The guy should play with an S on his chest.
These days the tiresome debate is whether you are a Messi or a Ronaldo man. Lionel Messi reminded us on Wednesday night that there is no debate.
Messi at his mesmeric, bewitching best is the greatest player since Pele. You can understand why, for some, he stands alone as the greatest ever.
It truly is a privilege to cover him on nights like Wednesday night.
Wednesday night at Wembley was a chastening reminder that we commit a footballing heresy when we even suggest the likes of Eden Hazard and Mo Salah are up alongside him as the best in the world because they’ve had half-decent seasons.
Messi has been doing it consistently in the Spanish La Liga and — more significantly — in the Champions League for years. With five in two games already this time around, he is already on course to beat his six in 10 games last season.
His two goals against Spurs mean he has now scored 22 in 29 games against English teams — more than he has against clubs from any other country. His numbers for Barca are ridiculous. The record for the most official goals scored in La Liga (388), a La Liga season (50), a club football season in Europe (73), a calendar year (91), El Clásico (26), the most assists in La Liga (151) and the Copa América (11). He has scored over 600 senior career goals for club and country.
His goals have been key contributions to his nine titles, four Champions Leagues and six Copa Del Reys. Messi’s pretenders should come back when they get anywhere near that.
Barcelona should retire his shirt when he finally decides he has had enough. Who would even want to think about following that?
Spurs fans — especially those that were at Wembley — should put their fears about their Group B prospects to one side and be grateful to be able to say they were there.
Grateful to have witnessed one of the great Champions League performances. Grateful to have been in the stadium to witness one of football’s truly magnificent phenomena, the like of which we may never see again.
As you are reading this right now they are probably already gushing to their work and schoolmates about just how bewitching and breathtaking it was to see the Barcelona superstar justify — for the umpteenth time — the awe in which he is held.
A whole new generation of school kids will be Messi at playtime and lunchtime today, seduced by that masterclass into joining the millions already in love with the beautiful game.
Funnily enough it was the goals that Messi didn’t score — hitting the post twice after trademark dribbles past the entire Spurs back line — that excited more than the ones he did.
Try as they might, Pochettino’s players just couldn’t catch him. Too quick, too canny, too utterly devastating. Park the bus, he smashes the windows. Try to get tight? He leaves you eating grass.
We’ve grown up here in Europe over the last fifteen years or so hearing tales of his genius and, mostly, watching them from afar on TV or the internet.
Now he was here in London. Now he was doing it in front of our very eyes about 10 minutes away from the North Circular.
Making goals, scoring goals, running the game, leaving the remains of the Spurs team that thought they’d actually made a game of it in a smouldering heap.
Other players, after a performance like that, would bask in the glory and soak up the adulation in front of the battery of flashlights and microphones clamouring to speak to them afterwards. Not Messi. His work done, he ambled quietly, head bowed, down the side the mixed zone at Wembley alongside Philippe Coutinho and Luis Suarez.
There must be some sort of footballing Justice League super-hero thing they can make about what is surely the most awesome strike force on the planet at the moment. — The Mirror.