Champions League Analysis: Messi - The Greatest Player You Ever Saw

Lionel Messi is the finest player ever to have played the game.

Lionel Messi Barcelona against Arsenal UEFA Champions League quarter final second leg (Getty Images)

Lionel Messi

With the aid of sepia-tinted lenses, nostalgia and memory gaps, it is all too easy for seasoned observers of the game to submit the names of Pele, Cruyff and Maradona as the greatest players of all time. In this day and age, we have to work very hard in order to snatch a full 90 minutes worth of performance from that Holy Trinity. Youtube exists and is a precious commodity for revisiting the old stuff but it is the same tool which prompted Newcastle to buy Nacho Gonzalez. In other words, it can make a player seem as good as it wants to. Without the benefit of objective, critical analysis on a day to day, week to week basis, we can neither dismiss the legacy of the greats, nor can we take it at absolute face value.

In the last decade and a half, with an over-abundance of televisual exposure and the advent of online streaming, we can generally see what we want when we want and plenty of it too. Zinedine Zidane, at Bordeaux, Juventus and Real Madrid led football into the information age and Ronaldinho took up the reins in the middle part of the last decade. Cristiano Ronaldo is still dazzling but rarely has the world been in the presence of such consistent greatness as Lionel Messi. On Tuesday night, we were treated to a display of absolute, undiluted genius.

This was not simply 'another' good showing from the Argentine. We have seen plenty of those already; three hat-tricks in 2010 alone before Leo put Arsenal to the sword with ferocious ruthlessness. Every Barcelona game in La Liga and the Champions League is broadcast to an audience of millions and, even at the tender age of 22, Messi's reputation as one of the best players in the world precedes him. Still, he found the audacity to astound.

Messi Business| Leo Grabs His Second

Barcelona were missing Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Andres Iniesta and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, all dripping international class, at the kick-off but it mattered not a jot. If Manchester United's recent tactics can be described as 'give the ball to Rooney', then Barcelona's cannot be much different in regard to their own number 10.

Never has a player looked so likely to score when he is in front of goal. Never has a player looked so dangerous when carrying the ball at pace. Never has one player looked like such a threat all on his own. The manner of Messi's goals against Arsenal showed the measure of the man, the mark of greatness.

A one-two off the ambling hoof of Mikael Silvestre and then unerringly, the ball struck the top corner while that wand of a left-foot had scarcely room to swing. A through-ball to Seydou Keita and the alertness to gather Pedro's lay-off before stroking a right-footer inside Manuel Almunia's near post. Breaking a woeful defensive line and converting a Keita header on the half-way line into a penetrative through ball before delectably chipping a stranded goalkeeper and making it all look so desperately easy. And that all occurred in 20 minutes.

Out On His Own| Time Stops As Leo Chips In A Hat-Trick

The Arsenal players need not have given the great man a helping hand but one suspects that he might not have needed one. Indeed, as the game died out, he seized his own initiative, not requiring ramshackle defending to yield another scoring chance. Chasing the ball into the box, turning the Gunners' back-four inside out and planting his own rebound through the legs of the goalkeeper, Messi looked like a man playing in a child's game - which, at 5'7 is some achievement.

There is still quite a way to go in this season's Champions League but expect Barcelona to be there until the final argument is settled in the Bernabeu. With Xavi attempting, and very nearly completing, over 100 passes on the night, Pep Guardiola's side possess one of the world's foremost midfield metronomes and should be able to dictate the tempo of most matches, home or away with the Spain international in their ranks.

But in Lionel Messi, regardless of the talent elsewhere in the team, the Blaugrana have the man who is writing the story of football for the 21st century. Watch him whenever you can.