Lionel Messi – Best in the world now, but is he the best ever?

OK, I know I should be writing about Bayern Munich’s magnificent victory over Manchester United or the fact that no English teams have made it to the Champions League semi-finals but I’m English and I don’t want to!!

Instead I’m going to look at the best player in the world.

Some would argue for Cristiano Ronaldo, some for Fernando Torres, some for Kaka and no doubt some for Rooney, Xavi and Iniesta amongst others. They are all great players. However, I think that Tuesday night finally proved that Lionel Messi is the best around at the moment. After his four goal performance against Arsenal people were queuing up to say how brilliant he is.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger said,

“I believe we lost against a team that is better than us and that has the best player in the world. Once he’s on the run, Messi is unstoppable. He’s the only player who can change direction at such a pace.”

Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia said,

“We were beaten by a brilliant player and a brilliant team in general. You have to try to anticipate what he’s going to do, but it’s so difficult because he can do what he wants. It’s difficult to stop these kind of players. He couldn’t score in the first leg, but he was great tonight.”

World Cup winner in 1978 and fellow countryman Ossie Ardiles said,

“Messi is out of this planet, I would say he is so far ahead of the rest of the players playing right now and I would say historically as well. There are not words to describe him. In South America, we play football a little bit differently, it is very difficult for top, top players with a lot of ability like Messi or Maradona to really put on the same form as they show in Europe. They are much more protected in Europe. Argentina had a torrid time qualifying and the team was playing really badly. Because of that, Messi couldn’t play his normal game, but his real test is going to be in the World Cup. For him, it’s so, so important as he has said he would give up all the medals he has to win the World Cup. It is how he will be judged in the future, so I think we’ll see the real Messi. I have to say Argentina has such a wonderful squad of players, I’m not saying they are going to be favourites, but they are going to be very hard to beat.”

Former Liverpool great Ian Rush continued the Maradona comparison,

“Messi is starting to come to Maradona’s level and with his size people are going to compare them. They’ve every right to, he is without doubt the best player in the world at the moment.”

If most of us can agree that Messi has more ability than anyone else in the world at this time then the obvious question is whether we think he is yet at the level of a Maradona or Pele.

Glowing

Ardiles is probably right to say that he cannot be judged in such glowing terms until he has produced the goods at a World Cup, but is he as good as they were?

I remember Maradona at his best but I only saw Pele towards the end of his career. For people of my generation I don’t think we thought we would ever see another player with the skill and talent that Diego Maradona produced regularly at the very highest level.

Pace

I have to say that with the pace of the game getting faster all the time and the tactical and defensive ability of teams constantly improving, the sort of performances being produced by Messi for Barcelona are probably as good as anything that we have seen before.

If Ardiles is right and Argentina go on to have a good World Cup, then the stage will be set for Messi to put down a marker as being the best the world has ever seen. The really frightening fact is that he is still only twenty-two years old and may have another three World Cups to play in if he stays fit.

Whether he is better than Maradona or not, he has the best chance of anyone in recent years to go on to become known as the best ever player.