Lionel Messi has become much more than a football player – he is a global phenomenon, someone who is idealized by millions of young boys, who aspire every day to become someone like him. Messi can make possible any football trick that you thought was impossible. You can never predict what he will do – he can score chip shots and just anything that will score goals.
Though, it would be wrong to refer Barcelona as a one-man team, Messi is one of the most crucial players the team has.
Perhaps the biggest reason why Messi is so successful at Barcelona is because he is not selfish. This makes him greatly important for other players of his team, as they enter the box to attack.
He smartly crowds the entire defence around him and then finds out an empty side, passes the ball, GOAL!
What makes this man a footballing genius is how he finds out the empty space and how he decides the player who should be given the ball.
What made Barcelona suddenly such a big team was the introduction of tiki-taka. This is identified by short passing and movement with maintaining the position of the ball. Messi fitted very well into this technique of game, which was introduced by Pep Guardiola.
The ‘pass, pass, pass’ helped Messi in not only assisting but even securing goals with major contributions from Xavi and Iniesta in assisting him. This led to many people saying that Messi is nothing without Xavi and Iniesta. We all know the truth, so this needs no clarification.
What helped Messi develop himself much more at Barcelona, were his shots. He dribbles through the defense and then scores shots that don’t even have any names. From direct free-kicks to penalties, Messi can just score from anywhere. He is magnificent at taking set-pieces and long shots.
The cherry-on-top to Lionel Messi is his finishing. No matter how many different shots you can play, if your finishing is weak, your shots will only earn you a few fans, not goals. Messi’s finishing makes his shots much more accurate and that clearly explain why this man has scored 29 goals from just 18 appearances, this season. He also has 7 assists to his name.
From driving world’s number-1 defence crazy, to running riots in others’ boxes, to being a modest player, and to breaking every record he comes across, Lionel Messi is indeed one of the most successful players the world has ever witnessed!
-Rida Mehtab (@RidaaMehtaab on Twitter)
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