Every day, thousands and thousands of words are written and spoken about Lionel Messi. In newspapers, on the Internet, on the radio, and on TV.
We would listen to and read them all if we could. Maybe no other footballer has ever done so much to deserve so much praise; hit such stratospheric heights; or done so many strange, unexplainable things with pelota and pie.
But among all the praise and useless attempts to pay tribute to his genius with ink and hot air, which will never be enough, there is one thing about the little Argentine that isn’t talked about as much as it should be: Messi is as tough as nails, despite all his skill, technique, intelligence, and dexterity.
Not in the rough-and-tumble way that English football used to be played in the past. He’s not Razor Ruddock, Julian Dicks, or Vinnie Jones, right?
But Messi is strong, tough, rugged, and durable. Hard as an old pair of boots.
He has been called for a foul hundreds of thousands of times. But no matter how many times he gets knocked down, he always gets back up, like one of those wooden toys with a round bottom. His face stays the same, his brow doesn’t furrow, and his magic boots still dance to their own cosmic beat.
One of his opponents told The Guardian, “Messi is so fast and so strong. You can’t knock him over. No matter how hard you hit him, he keeps going. He is rough on the outside.”
Silent, beautiful, but brutal.
And if we want to talk about Messi’s toughness, bravery, and grit, there is one game and one goal that show all of that best: El Clasico, April 2017, the 90th minute plus a little more.
El Clasico is always tense and full of difficulties, but this one was more so than most.
Barcelona was in a bad situation. Not as bad as the ones they have seen since, but a crisis by the standards of the previous ten years.
After winning at Sevilla in early April, they were in charge of the title race and looking forward to playing Juventus in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
Two weeks later, they had lost 3-0 in Turin, tied 0-0 with Juventus in the second game, and lost 2-0 at Malaga in La Liga, giving Real Madrid control of the race once again.
It was Luis Enrique’s last season in charge, and it didn’t look like a good way to end a great time in charge. Things could get worse when Real Madrid comes to play at the Bernabeu. If Madrid won, they would be six points ahead of Barcelona and the Catalans would have no chance of winning the title.
Messi looked just as bad as the rest of his team before the game. After a hard challenge from Dani Alves in the second leg of the Juventus match, he had a black eye around his left eye, a physical memory of the Italian team’s knockout blow.
But the words were tough. “What we have to do there is what we’ve done before,” Andres Iniesta said. Most likely, what Messi had already done is more true. This was to be the 34th Clasico for La Pulga. He had scored 20 goals and set up 13 more in the 33 games before.
But Madrid had a plan to stop him, and they showed it right away. In the first 20 minutes, Casemiro gave Messi a wild scissor tackle from behind, and Marcelo gave him an elbow that looked accidental at first, but on second look was almost certainly meant to hurt him.
So, in addition to his black eye, he now had a bloody mouth. He started to look more like a boxer in the 12th round of a tough fight than the bouncy-toed player we are used to seeing.
After seven minutes, Casemiro gave Real Madrid the lead with a sloppy goal from close range after a corner.
But remember how we said Messi was like one of those wooden toys that jumps up and down? It wouldn’t take much time.
He had a piece of tissue between his teeth that was soaking up blood. In a way, the piece was there.
He moved deep and to the left, picked up the ball, and passed it to Sergio Busquets, who then gave it to Ivan Rakitic. Rakitic gave it back to Messi, who ran past Luka Modric and Dani Carvajal before slipping the ball past Keylor Navas, who couldn’t do anything. One for all.
The game got crazy from start to finish. Both keepers had to make a lot of stops. Messi and Ronaldo both missed chances that should have been easy goals for them.
Then, finally, Barca got their first goal. At the 72-minute mark, Rakitic switched the ball to his left foot and shot it into the top corner. Seventy-six minutes into the game, Sergio Ramos charged at Messi with both feet and full speed. He was given a red card.
Messi was knocked down again, but the game was already over. With only 15 minutes left, the team was up by a goal and a man.
One might think. But this is El Clásico. Real Madrid found a way to come back. Marcelo sent a cross in, and James Rodriguez, who is kind of the opposite of Messi and is as fragile as a cookie, met it at the near post, bringing Los Blancos even.
“A terrible blow,” Luis Enrique said later. It almost got even worse, too. Madrid tried hard to get the winner, thinking that an unlikely win would almost guarantee them the title.
Then, with 33 seconds left on the clock, Barcelona won a throw-in in their own half. It looked like nothing bad. But Madrid had lost its shape and stability in all the chaos.
After a quick pass-back-and-forth, Sergi Roberto was free to run forward, and he didn’t stop. Over the half-way queue, past Modric and Marcelo. The ball then went to Andre Gomes, who passed it back to Jordi Alba, who played it out of the field of play. That room. You know it, and what’s more, you know who lives there.
Messi had gone by without being seen or followed. With an amazing kick of his left foot, he put the ball in the back of the net.
Messi ripped off his shirt, ran to the angry crowd of white-shirted fans behind the goal, and held it up with his name and number facing the stands. This is the most famous of the many ways he has celebrated his goals.
The action said, “You can cut me, bruise me, and try to break my legs, but you can’t stop me.” It was a picture that said more about Messi than all the words ever written about him. A picture that will last.
Silent, beautiful, but brutal.
As it turns out, the goal didn’t mean much in the big picture. Even though Barcelona was briefly in first place, Madrid still had a game to play and won it. This was the first of six straight league wins that led to Zinedine Zidane’s first La Liga title as a manager.
Still, it is a good goal to remember and think about. Not just because it is dramatic or beautiful, but also because it shows Messi’s most underrated trait.
Obsessed with Messi’s 2017 El Clasico winner – a goal that truly defines the spirit of a hardworking athlete! 💪🏼 #Messi #ElClasico #HardWorkPaysOff
