Has Lionel Messi Got the Right Idea?

"I prefer to win titles with the team ahead of individual awards or scoring more goals than anyone else.  I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with?  When I retire, I hope I am remembered for being a decent guy. I like to score goals but I also like to have friends among the people I have played with."

--Lionel Messi, considered by many to be the best soccer player in the world.  

Messi has won three consecutive world Player of the Year awards and may win a fourth in 2012 after scoring a record 73 goals last season.

Excerpt from nytimes.com "Messi Wants More Than Just Accolades" (Reuters, 10/1/2012).

Lionel Messi Scores Five Goals in One Match

"We'll never see a player like him again,"  "He is one of a kind."

--FC Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola.

Messi helped defending champion FC Barcelona beat Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 to advance to the quarterfinals.

"Without Messi, Barca is the best team," Leverkusen coach Robin Dutt said. "And with him, they are in another galaxy."

The last time a player scored five goals in European soccer’s top club competition had been in 1979-80.

"Messi is a joke. For me the best ever," Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney wrote on Twitter.

He became the first player to score four goals twice in the Champions League — he accomplished the feat against Arsenal two years ago.  He has 48 goals for Barcelona this season, including 12 in the Champions League. 

"I can’t remember the last time I scored five goals, so I’m very happy," Messi said. "It’s nice to score five goals."

Messi has seven hat tricks this season.

"He’s the best. There is no other like him," Guardiola said. "The numbers speak for themselves. One day he’ll score six. We’re very fortunate to have Messi, so we have to take advantage of him."

"What was important was to win," Messi said. "That’s what we wanted to achieve, now we’re in the quarterfinals and we did it impressively."

Excerpts from ESPN.com, BostonHerald.com, and the Associated Press (March 7, 2012)

A Legacy of Greatness: FC Barcelona

“We would like, in 50, 60 years, people are reminded of this team as one of the best. If this happens for us, it’s marvelous.” 

--Barcelona Manager Pep Guardiola, who's team won the Champions League soccer title against Manchester United on Saturday.   

Lionel Messi and David Villa scored second-half goals as Barcelona overpowered Manchester United, 3-1, on Saturday to win the UEFA Champions League final at Wembley Stadium in London.  Messi’s goal in the 54th minute was his 53rd in 55 games for Barcelona this season.


Guardiola won the title as a Barcelona player in 1992 and as its coach two years ago.  


To add pressure, Barcelona received a huge blow before the match, as captain Carles Puyol was deemed unfit to start.

Nevertheless, the match ended the debate about which team was the best in Europe, and renewed the one about whether the current Barcelona squad is the best club team ever.  The title was Barcelona’s third in six years and its fourth over all in the competition.  In beating Manchester United, Barcelona stakes claim to the most prestigious club title in the world, and fueling a debate about whether it is one of the best teams in soccer history. 

An estimated one million fans lined the streets as FC Barcelona paraded the UEFA Champions League Trophy on an open-top bus journey from Madrid's airport. 

This great team also includes a soccer icon in Lionel Messi.  

“I think this genius is impossible to describe,” Pep Guardiola, Barcelona’s manager, said. “That’s why he is a genius. He has instinct. He loves to live with pressure. He is one of the best ever created.” 

“No one plays with as much joy as Messi does,” Eduardo Galeano, the celebrated Uruguayan novelist and author of “Soccer in Sun and Shadow,” said in an e-mail. “He plays like a child enjoying the pasture, playing for the pleasure of playing, not the duty of winning.”

Are you leaving a legacy of excellence?  


Excerpts from the Citizen Daily, Bleacher Report (May 29, 2011), and New York Times (May 21 & 29, 2011) .