Lionel Messi: Boy Genius (II)

“Lio only wants to play,” said Thierry Henry, a French star and a former teammate of Messi’s at Barcelona who now plays for the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.

On occasion, Messi does break his reticence. On Thursday, he said he played with the same eagerness that he did in Argentina when he improvised soccer balls from stones and women’s tights and cans of cola. “I have fun like a child in the street,” he said. “When the day comes when I’m not enjoying it, I will leave football.”

Still, he is most often silent, leaving others to provide the soundtrack of his career. Watchers of the bilingual soccer channel GolTV are treated weekly to the cockeyed enthusiasm of the British commentator Ray Hudson. A blog, Hudsonia, was inspired by his ability to “coin phrases that defy both logic and belief” and by his unending quest to “invent a new language in English.”

In Hudson’s words, Messi has “chameleon eyes” and is as “slippery as an eel covered in Vaseline” and plays with the predatory appetite of a “zombie hunter looking for a Twinkie.” Somehow, out of incomprehension comes clarity. Even poetry.

Robert Lalasz, the editor of the Web site Must Read Soccer, has assembled Hudson’s verbal improvisations into verse, the way others previously did for the Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto. One of the poems, “He Doesn’t Live There,” opened this article.

Here is another:

“Neither With Net nor Trident”

The genius, the genius of

Football

In our modern-day life

Utterly

Unpredictable

He doesn’t know

What he’s going to do

So how the hell

Do the defenders

You cannot contain him

With a net

Or a trident

He’s got pace

He’s got power

He’s got vision

Technique!

And he’s got

Finishing power

His cup

Runneth over …

Magnificent Messi

Wild man

He doth bestride the Earth

Like a Colossus

A second goal by Messi followed in the 87th minute, this one with a slalom skier’s pivoting and carving and shoulders squared to the fall line. The play began innocently enough, with a bland pass rolled out of the center circle from midfielder Sergio Busquets to Messi. Four Madrid midfielders and four defenders spread across the field ahead of Casillas in goal, an apparently safe but illusory deterrent.

What happened next is why players from the Costa Rican national team had lined up a month earlier for Messi’s autograph in an exhibition against Argentina, reduced to mere fans.

Tall and lean, Busquets jogged languidly from the circle into the space between Madrid’s central midfield and defense. Messi’s return pass was sharp and direct. Busquets received the ball, pivoted and tapped it lightly. What seemed unthreatening a few seconds earlier now became a menacing give-and-go.

“I saw some options,” Messi said. “I always try to create danger.”

During the careers of the greats to whom Messi is most often compared РPel̩ of Brazil and Diego Maradona, a fellow Argentine Рthe pace of the game was slower, with more space to operate and more chance for flamboyant playfulness in the flowing dribbles known as gambeta.

Today, soccer increasingly relies on size and muscle and speed. The best players must be able to operate in claustrophobic spaces. That is the mesmerizing skill of Messi, slithering through these airless openings in top gear, changing direction, providing as well as scoring, his left foot tapping the ball on each stride with blurred and evasive touches. At such moments, the ball becomes an extension of his foot.

“You think of Gretzky playing hockey,” said Bob Bradley, the coach of the United States national team, who sat in the stadium in Madrid, watching the play unfold. “It sticks with you. Everybody who watches Messi knows he is pushing the highest level of the sport ever.”

Earlier in his career, Messi preferred to slash inside from the right wing, taking the ball on his dominant left foot. Now he is considered a center forward in Barcelona’s 4-3-3 formation, but the position as he plays it is sometimes described as a “ghost center forward” or a “false No. 9,” a reference to the traditional jersey number worn by a striker. Instead, Messi wears No. 10, the classic playmaker’s number. He is free to drift and roam and handle the ball, to combine with Xavi and Iniesta, to seek out openings that he can exploit with his passing or his dribbling, with his chameleon eyes.

This puts enormous stress on central defenders. Do they stay put? Do they go with Messi and leave yawning holes on the back line? On this day, with Madrid short a man, every decision was precarious.

“Alarm bells didn’t go off fast enough,” Bradley said. “Everybody took for granted that they could get there.”

Messi took the ball from Busquets about 45 yards from the goal. Four Madrid players surrounded Messi, but he deftly escaped. First, midfielder Lass Diarra was screened by Busquets. He caught up to Messi’s right shoulder and reached for the ball, but Messi sensed Diarra’s presence and touched it left. To keep from fouling, Diarra retreated with a dainty hop. Alonso quit after a few strides, also hopping in surrender.

Messi gathered speed and intent. Sergio Ramos charged at him, but Messi shielded the ball with the inside of his left foot, pushing it safely to the right. Taking the ball from him had become a blundering game, reaching for a dollar bill attached to a string.

“With someone like that, you want to move them one way, make them predictable, so if they do have a bad touch, you can win the ball,” said Landon Donovan, the American star who has twice played against Messi and Argentina’s national team. “The problem is, the ball is attached to him. Every stride, he’s touching the ball. It’s almost like a magnet is pulling it back in. You’re waiting for the ball to get away, but it doesn’t. If you foul him, his balance is so good, he keeps going. And he keeps going at speed, so you can’t catch him. Sometimes, you run at him like, ‘I’ve got him now,’ and he’ll make a one-time pass. You turn around and the ball comes back, and then he runs by you. There’s a constant mind game that he’s good at.”

Raul Albiol now had his chance in the Madrid defense, but he is 6-2 with a high center of gravity. He backpedaled and crouched, but his balance was all wrong and Messi was coming too fast.

•Culled from The New York Times