Lionel Messi: Things That Make Him The Soccer GOAT
There is entertainment that the best online casino brings you, and then there is this Argentinian guy named Leo Messi. Messi is a prolific goal scorer and is a natural at every facet of the game.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg for the greatest player in history. Of course, we accept certain aspects of Messi’s game as part of his profile, but if we look back, we’ll see that he has single-handedly improved many individual aspects of the game.
Clinical Finishing
Recently, there has been considerable discussion concerning players that can consistently execute the same finish.
Thierry Henry’s cut over the defender and curl and teammate Dennis Bergkamp’s ability to transfer the ball a foot to his right and bend into the corner were both apparent options. But, like David Beckham and Juninho Pernambucano, free-kick takers practiced so much that their technique became robotic and near-perfect.
No one, however, has ever blended these two aspects quite like Messi. Messi can cut across from a center-right position, move past a defender, and curl into the goalkeeper’s top right or bottom right corner like Henry’s curler.
There aren’t ten, 15, or 20 of them. There are more than 100. He presently has over 750 career goals for club and country, collecting wide and completing this exquisite shot accounting for approximately 15% of the total.
Manchester United, Manchester City, and Arsenal, among many others, have all taken a bite of this sour cake in the Champions League.
If that was not enough, there are free kicks, where the popular opinion is just now recognizing that he’s the best there has ever been.
In October of 2019, he scored his 50th free-kick goal, with most of them coming from the same place and angle of trajectory. It’s an automatic, mechanical, and well-practiced move, and it’s a love letter to perfect technique and constant practice.
Artistic Nutmegs
Messi performs nutmegs as effortlessly as walking, which is the ultimate gesture of disdain and the Roman Emperor’s thumbs down for your attempt to stop him. However, many players, like Ronaldinho, adore nutmegs and are adept at threading the needle in tight places.
On the other hand, Messi does it when the players aren’t facing him and are just rotating or moving about. Even if there isn’t a gap to be discovered, he finds one without even thinking about it.
Going straight through a player and removing their impact from the equation is generally astounding. People could write books on the many instances in which Messi so casually slips past world-class players.
Others may nutmeg, but Messi does it with such Neo-Esque mastery over the surroundings that it seems as though he is bending the space between his knees.
There are crossfield passes, and Messi to Jordi Alba passes. Messi’s swinging pass over the opponent’s right-back was often sent at the Spanish full-back. Still, other frequent recipients have exposed that offensive area of the play, with Kylian Mbappe being a recent recipient.
Messi is patient on the field. He trots sideways, waiting for the proper time for the defense to come forward and for his teammate to stay onside. He also waits for his teammates to loop his high pass with enough curve on the ball for the person who touches it to utilize natural rotation to direct their attempt towards the target.
Every detail is deliberate. Messi understands the precise strength and trajectory required to reach the target from that position, and he can consistently land the ball in the right spot.
Fortune In Career
Messi’s power in possession is an often overlooked part of his dribbling style. He was always constructed tiny, as his need for growth hormones in adolescence attests to that, yet he was very tough to keep the ball away from a young age.
It’s not in his makeup to whine, but he’s been tested by punishing defenses on many occasions. Messi’s clashes with noted tough defenders Pepe and Sergio Ramos of Real Madrid are well known. That has nothing to do with superhuman ability but an insatiable drive to own something.