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As to Lionel Messi, in 2005 when he first made the first team many an expert in the Barça camp thought that the quiet Argentine youngster was quick and an excellent dribbler but lacked a powerful shot and wasn`t in any way "strong in the air". That was then, and what is NOW ? In the course of the past eleven years, Messi has scored goals at a rate unequalled since the days of Puskas and Di Stefano. But aside from that, the little man acquired qualities he simply didn`t possess as an aspiring youngster: His air game hasn`t only "improved"; it was virtually non-existent in the 18 year old and continued being so at least until the day before Barça conquered the Champions League in 2009. Two years later, the World`s greatest football player had not only evolved into the excellent freekick taker that a playmaker/striker in the mould of Pelé, Zico and Maradona is supposed to be; despite being a rather shortish man, Messi had become one of the greatest headers of the ball in the modern game. At twenty-five or twenty-six Messi had finally acquired the qualities of a complete player that Pelé, in an astounding fit of absent-mindedness, seriously thought he could deny to Messi and get away with it. <br />Hey - the fact that Messi has often been compared to Maradona really doesn`t mean a thing, because Argentina`s post-Maradona football history is literally crawling with Maradona clones. Even the man who probably was the world`s finest HOLDING midfielder during much of the 1990s - Fernando Redondo - was once labelled the "new Maradona". Pelé`s ill-advised remarks about Messi`s alleged "incompleteness" in an intuitive notion on part of the former that even at his present age, the player Messi bears an uncanny resemblance to the YOUNG Pelé.
As to Lionel Messi, in 2005 when he first made the first team many an expert in the Barça camp thought that the quiet Argentine youngster was quick and an excellent dribbler but lacked a powerful shot and wasn`t in any way "strong in the air". That was then, and what is NOW ? In the course of the past eleven years, Messi has scored goals at a rate unequalled since the days of Puskas and Di Stefano. But aside from that, the little man acquired qualities he simply didn`t possess as an aspiring youngster: His air game hasn`t only "improved"; it was virtually non-existent in the 18 year old and continued being so at least until the day before Barça conquered the Champions League in 2009. Two years later, the World`s greatest football player had not only evolved into the excellent freekick taker that a playmaker/striker in the mould of Pelé, Zico and Maradona is supposed to be; despite being a rather shortish man, Messi had become one of the greatest headers of the ball in the modern game. At twenty-five or twenty-six Messi had finally acquired the qualities of a complete player that Pelé, in an astounding fit of absent-mindedness, seriously thought he could deny to Messi and get away with it. <br />Hey - the fact that Messi has often been compared to Maradona really doesn`t mean a thing, because Argentina`s post-Maradona football history is literally crawling with Maradona clones. Even the man who probably was the world`s finest HOLDING midfielder during much of the 1990s - Fernando Redondo - was once labelled the "new Maradona". Pelé`s ill-advised remarks about Messi`s alleged "incompleteness" in an intuitive notion on part of the former that even at his present age, the player Messi bears an uncanny resemblance to the YOUNG Pelé.
