Messi (83 page)

‘They are different. The only thing they have in common is goals’; ‘they have different starting positions’; and ‘Cristiano prefers coming in from the wing to look for a goal and Messi moves around wherever he wants,’ explains Vicente del Bosque.

‘Messi is the most difficult to stop, unpredictable,’ says Valencia coach Miroslav Djukic. ‘Cristiano stands out for his shot, he does better with space in front of him. He is also good in the air. He is pure power. Messi is the best team player in all three categories, something not normal in a goalscorer. Very good at one on ones and in confined spaces.’

Gerard Piqué came up with an appropriate sentence with which to compare them: ‘Messi is an extra-terrestrial, and Cristiano the best human being.’

At the end of the day this is a pointless debate anyway. There is no precise way of measuring individuals in what is a team game. But one thing seems clear. A champion is not the same as a star. The champion has a very clear mindset: he is harmonious, creative. The star can cave in at any moment because he has a very large and fragile ego. The champion tries harder the more difficult the situation. You cannot put limits on the champion; you cannot hinder his progress, because he brings you goals and titles.

Despite all that, and regardless of the way it looks, both Ronaldo and Messi are unquestionably champions.

2. Tito Vilanova, the New Leader

(Leo Messi, interview with Martín Souto, TyC Sports, March 2013)

When Leo found out that Vilanova was to be Pep’s successor, he smiled broadly. That was just what he needed. Guardiola’s former assistant was not only the first coach to play him just behind the main striker in the
Infantiles
, but they had also been together for four years during the Pep era. Messi welcomed the continuity. ‘He is a normal, open person. He’s straight, tells you things to your face. I like that,’ Messi told
El País
. Tito was to be football coach, nothing more; the club had finally assumed some of the responsibilities that it had bestowed on an exhausted Guardiola.

The first summer of the post-Pep era saw very few changes to the squad. Tito Vilanova had been looking for a central defender and a centre midfielder, or preferably someone who could fill both roles: he thought about Javi Martínez, but Alex Song arrived from Arsenal. Jordi Alba, an extremely offensive full-back, was signed from Valencia. Seydou Keita left but, overall, the 2012−13 side was physically not as strong.

Barcelona had only won minor titles the previous season – the Copa del Rey, the World Club Championship and the Spanish Super Cup – but the feeling was that only a little fine-tuning was required – especially in the work without the ball. The team also needed to find new options in attack but Tito thought it could all be sorted with the players he had.

Leo had scored 211 goals in 219 games under Guardiola; or, put another way, 150 in his last 135 matches. His increased goal tally was in direct proportion to the growing influence he was having on games. The mental state of a side can be measured by the distribution of the goals. When it is always the same person scoring, that fragile state of equilibrium that is a football team begins to show cracks.

The challenge was twofold. The new coach had to ensure that no one shirked their responsibilities. At the same time Leo had to allow
for the growth of other players around him: the opposition would then have more to worry about.

But Vilanova decided something else altogether: his reign would begin with a pact with the players. The status quo was going to be maintained, the changes in tactics and hierarchy kept to a minimum. He even stopped the requirement that players should eat together, a subtle form of diet control imposed by Guardiola.

The beginning of the season was hopeful. The football was more direct; Leo saw less of the ball than he had done under Pep, but he continued to be crucial. They made the best ever start in the history of La Liga.

Being direct also meant losing control of the game. Leo and Cesc, in keeping with their style, enjoyed trying to finish the play as quickly as possible, and the moves were no longer created by a patient build-up from Xavi and Iniesta.

In Tito’s team talks, possession was still insisted upon but possession for possession’s sake was seen as serving no purpose. The key to the success of Guardiola’s Barcelona was an organisational structure that allowed for everyone to be in the right place to apply pressure high up the pitch when they lost possession, with Alexis, Villa and Pedro waiting in the wings, without the ball, while the rest of the team cooked up the game.

There was an order in what they did.

The three of them, Alexis, Pedro and Villa, knew what they had to do and were very aware of what the others were up to. But when that rigorousness and control disappear, teams start depending on individual play rather than team co-ordination – everybody starts applying their own solutions. That problem really started under Pep but was accentuated under the more lenient leadership of Tito.

And then, halfway through that programme, Vilanova’s illness returned. From that moment on, an assessment of his work was made on a sentimental rather than a professional basis.

In May 2012 his doctors announced he had made a complete recovery after undergoing an emergency operation for a tumour on the parotid gland. But on 19 December it was announced that Tito would leave the Barcelona bench for another operation, scheduled for the following day.

From then on, Tito came and went from the training ground as he
bravely tried to combine his recovery with preparing the team for upcoming matches. In the second week of January 2013 he travelled to New York for a few days to get a second opinion and returned to the United States the following week to undergo radiotherapy and chemotherapy sessions. He wasn’t present at the 3–2 defeat at the hands of Real Sociedad, though the team responded with a 5–1 demolition of Osasuna in the next game.

From New York, Tito communicated by telephone to select his side for the games, and during the matches he was in direct contact via Whatsapp with Jordi Roura, who replaced him in his absence. Two months later he rejoined the squad.

On his return, Tito explained to the team how he was getting on. Leo is not one for listening much, or at least that’s the impression he gives: during talks his gaze wanders. But in this meeting Leo looked straight into Tito’s eyes, hanging onto his every word. Leo, like all of them, was suffering the pain that fate had dealt them.

In November, Eric Abidal had returned to training, even though he did so away from the squad at first, and in December the doctors gave him a clean bill of health so that he could play again: he was involved in five games, including a full match. Players took hope from the Frenchman’s recovery every time they saw Tito calmly walking along the touchline wearing a scarf to hide the surgical scars on his neck.

It was a strangely anomalous situation. The directors of the club had gambled on Jordi Roura, who had analysed games and prepared dossiers on rivals for Guardiola. It effectively meant leaving the team to manage itself, affording the peace of mind that there was a committed dressing room capable of dealing with any situation in an intelligent way. The senior players ruled, Leo included.

On a day-to-day basis, however, the situation was complicated. Most of the training sessions lasted 40 minutes – 20 minutes of drills and 20 minutes of possession football. What was missing was the attention to detail. The dynamic initiated at the start of the season – pressuring high up the field – was being lost because of a question of attitude. If you do not make demands of a footballer, the first thing to go is his work off the ball.

In those days of self-management, Messi was at his most proactive, seeking to participate in both the creation and execution of play.

The year 2012 became one of extraordinary achievements, some of which seem almost impossible to better. Not only did he beat Gerd Müller’s 40-year-old record for goals in a calendar year with 91, and win his fourth consecutive Ballon d’Or, but his bag was also filled with other achievements that year: (courtesy of
@MessiStats
) European Cup top scorer four years in a row; the only player to score five goals in a Champions League match (against Bayer Leverkusen); the most La Liga hat-tricks in one season by any player; scorer in the greatest number of consecutive La Liga matches; most goals scored in a year by a player for Argentina (jointly held with Gabriel Batistuta); most goals scored in a single European Cup season; most La Liga hat-tricks by a Barcelona player; most goals scored by a Barcelona player in
clásicos
; most goals scored by a player in a La Liga season; most goals scored in European competition by a Barcelona player. In addition, he scored one goal for every 63 minutes played in 2012 for club and country; the most goals for a Barcelona player in La Liga; and the most goals by a Barcelona player in all competitions, beating César Rodríguez Alvarez’s 232 … And that is just a selection.

And he added another interesting statistic to his growing list of records: he was scoring about 15 per cent of his goals with his right foot, his ‘bad foot’: the effort to improve had brought with it some reward.

Without a relevant leader of the squad, the team increasingly turned towards Leo, something that had already started under Guardiola. And ‘the Flea’, as he had always done, wanted more: more of the ball, more goals, more influence.

‘Guardiola put everything towards the creation of the Messi system,’ writes Martí Perarnau in
Sport
newspaper. ‘At the beginning it involved everyone playing for Xavi so that he could activate Messi.’ Perarnau alluded to an interview with the Catalan central midfielder in
Süddeutsche Zeitung
which explained the situation graphically. ‘If I notice that Messi hasn’t touched the ball for about five minutes, I think: “This isn’t right. It can’t be. Where is he?” So I get hold of him and tell him: “Get closer, let’s start playing.” Messi is an attacker and attackers go quiet sometimes. As if he were switched off. But when he comes back into midfield, he starts to enjoy himself.’

But when Cesc started by-passing Xavi to get to Messi more quickly, the foundations of Messidependence were being laid.

With a team which now depended upon him more and more, Leo became even more demanding of himself, more concerned lest the team should start to decline, and tougher on anyone who wouldn’t respond. His childish personality traits became accentuated, while at the same time he acted very much like an adult who had been around the block, seen it all, done it all.

Such is the conundrum facing great stars, and the difficulty we have in understanding them: men 20 or 30 years older are seldom, if ever, faced with the level of responsibility that Leo took on at the age of 26.

Footballers dare to talk about tactics, as Leo did in February on Barça TV after a difficult comeback against Sevilla at the Camp Nou: ‘The team continues to keep the ball without creating the same dangerous situations. We need depth to break down defences.’

He suggested a solution. ‘Having a point of reference like
el Guaje
[David Villa] means the central defenders stay in their positions and don’t come out. It all helps to create more space for everyone else.’ With Villa, Messi played a freer game and
el Guaje
played in the position between the two opposing central defenders so that Leo could have more space, and he himself could be closer to goal – with the result that Villa scored in three games, making him the second highest goalscorer in the squad.

During this campaign the relationship between David Villa and Messi was often discussed, especially after a very public exchange of views that occurred between the two players in the first half of the fifth match of the season between Barcelona and Granada, after Villa had failed to pass the ball to Leo when he was in a scoring position. Canal + broadcast the following transcription:

Messi. ‘Play it in front of me, in front! Play it there!’

Villa: ‘But you can’t control it! Fucking hell, man. I had one and gave it to you.’

Messi: ‘Over there, for fuck’s sake!’ (pointing to the space where he should have received the ball).

El Guaje
had lost ground in the first team following his serious injury in the World Club Championship in December 2011. Tito
considered Alexis the better combination with Leo in attack and Villa, a world champion, is not one of those players who takes being replaced with good grace.

‘I have said that you should not look for problems where none exist, look somewhere else,’ Leo told
El País
at the time. ‘There is nothing here. It’s a dressing room that functions above and beyond sport, spectacularly well. We’ve been together for a long time and we get on very well together at a human level. No one knows how much fun we have. And after so many years that isn’t easy.’

In the match against Glasgow Celtic that ended in the club’s second defeat of the season, however, Villa opted to shoot for goal when he had the option of passing to Leo. You could have cut the air with a knife.