LIKE RONALDO, BUT WITH PASSES AND SHOT-MAKING AND WITHOUT DIVES:

What I Do Is Play Soccer: Over the next 13 months - from Champions League final to the 2010 World Cup - Lionel Messi will have the chance to prove he does that better than anyone on Earth. (Chad Nielsen, ESPN the Magazine)

The diminutive Argentine may not look like the best player in the world, but that designation--subject to the hottest debate on the sports planet--is as elusive as Messi himself. His speed, ball control, vision and style draw him comparisons to legendary countryman Diego Maradona, even if their personalities are so different. Messi is as understated as Maradona is flamboyant. And yet, in turning 2009 into the Year of the Flea, he has transcended individual skill, elevating FC Barcelona and Argentina's national team with his clutch scoring and brilliant play. Thanks to Europe's most potent offense, Barça is poised to complete a rare triple crown: After winning the Copa del Rey on May 13, the Catalans look to wrap up La Liga, Spain's top circuit, for the first time since 2006, while eyeing a Champions League final against Manchester United on May 27. And with the World Cup coming next June, Messi can put his stamp on a football era.

Just don't ask him to talk about it.

Lionel Messi is not the next David Beckham, someone more valuable as a brand than as a player. He is not a paparazzi magnet like A.C. Milan's Ronaldinho or a silky pitchman like Parisian teammate Thierry Henry. The soccer universe, with its huge endorsement power, fawns over articulate pop stars like Man U's Cristiano Ronaldo, who once declared, "I am the first, second and third-best player in the world."

But Messi would rather practice than sit for photos. "What I do is play soccer," he says, "which is what I like."

He avoids eye contact and speaks quietly in Spanish, letting his Argentine lilt soften curt answers. He stops talking when he gets bored, sometimes in the middle of a thought. But with a ball at his feet, the 21-year-old Messi is a genius of self-expression, stringing together tricks and techniques like words in impromptu poetry: right cut, left cut, give-and-go, between-the-legs…all at top speed. "I never think about the play or visualize anything," he says. "I do what comes to me at that moment. Instinct. It has always been that way."

Instinct has already earned Messi a spot upstairs in the FC Barcelona Museum, where rows of championship trophies gleam next to memorabilia dating back a century. While Messi talks, a plasma screen cycles through some of the greatest plays in club history, including his 60-yard weave past five defenders against Getafe in the 2007 Copa del Rey, Spain's playoff-style championship, open to teams from all pro levels. "Leo simply goes one way with his body and another with the ball," says Barça center back Gerard Piqué. "You have to either guess right or foul him." Barcelona is scoring 2.9 goals a game this season, the fourth-highest output in the history of Europe's pro leagues. Messi is the catalyst. He attacks defenses, draws men out of position and sets up the setup passes, creating chances no statistic can track. "The way he runs past people, it's just effortless," Henry says. Messi had 37 goals in 50 games through May 16, including eight in the Champions League, Europe's annual showdown of top clubs. Persistent fouling has Barça execs calling on refs to protect him, but he refuses to drop and roll. "Messi never dives," Piqué says. "Not even in the area, where he could draw a penalty. In this sense, he is simple: 'I may be small, but you're not going to knock me down.'"

For all the hype around Christiano Ronaldo--which is just a function of a goal total fed by free and penalty kicks--he isn't even his team's best player, Iniesta: We fear Rooney (Pete Jenson, 5/26/09, Independent)

For all the talk of Cristiano Ronaldo's duel with Lionel Messi, Barcelona players have left nobody in doubt about the man they fear more than any other tomorrow night – Wayne Rooney.

The England striker's appetite for a battle, his insatiable energy and raw power make him, in the eyes of Barcelona's players, the perfect foil for Ronaldo's moody genius.

Central defender Gerard Pique said: "I've never seen a player as powerful as Rooney – the way he goes past people, the intensity of his play, the runs he makes from the first minute to the last and the shot he has. He is world class. Perhaps he does not get the credit he deserves because he should score more goals but he offers so much. When he is focused he is unstoppable."

If they had Rooney take those kicks no one would rank Ronaldo in the top 100.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 27, 2009 9:52 AM