Part 1: Player Profile - Lionel Messi
On April 6th, 2010 the “amazing” Lionel Messi was to be described by the institution of sports-writing but on that particular day, they simply ran out of superlatives to describe him.
The Argentina man became familiar to words like “great” and “phenomenal” since the day he joined his club, Barcelona. He joined the team as a teenager but simply groomed himself to become one of the best players in the world. It was Messi who totally destroyed Arsenal in the Champions League and no one can put that performance in words, as many were left stranded as the magician worked his magic at the Nou Camp.
The night when Messi found the goal four times, he showed the world what his left foot was capable of. Throughout the match it looked as if the ball was somehow glued to his left foot as he left the English side helpless. Throughout the match he kept on beating the defense lines of Arsenal time and time again, in fact it was Arsenal’s luck that he “only” scored four times. The display was such as if a grown man was playing a game with children, as the little Argentinean was busy toying with the English club’s defenders.
Everything reached new heights when the fans sitting at the Nou Camp saw three goals, all from Lionel Messi, in only 20 minutes. In the first half, it was all Lionel Messi for Barcelona as he scored 3 goals in only 20 minutes. His pace and composure was so phenomenal that it looked as if he takes his time and thinks for an hour before deciding what he should do with the ball.
During the match, Lionel Messi was one-on-one with the Arsenal goalkeeper Almunia and with a strut of his left foot, he chipped the ball over the head of the Arsenal goalkeeper and 90,000 fans in Camp Nou lifted from their seats as they saw the ball “looping” towards the goal line and then finally crossed it. Lionel Messi’s last season was total dominance as he created lots of moments that will be remembered by the fans for sure.
In the previous round of the Champions League, he scored twice against the German team VfB Stuttgart. Anyone would feel pity for them because of their draws. At first they were drawn out with Barcelona, one of the best teams in Europe and then they had to face the lethal “in-form” Lionel Messi.
The “brace” that he scored in that match was simply fabulous as it was well-steered and tidily finished. Stuttgart, on the other hand, didn’t have a remedy to close the little man down. They were just below Messi that day while he was busy scoring goals for his club, Barcelona. Lionel Messi was able to score eight goals in the Champions League before but then he, along with his team, had to face a disappointing elimination in the semi final of the competition. It was against Inter Milan, who eventually went on to the final match and won the competition as they defeated Bayern Munich 2-0.
When Lionel Messi was not performing in the Champions League, he was busy scoring goals elsewhere, including the Spanish domestic league, La Liga. He managed to bag himself 39 goals during the season of 2009-2010, which takes his tally to a grand total of 47 goals. During La Liga, he managed to score 34 goals in only 35 appearances. This record in the La Liga is astonishing as he even managed to score two consecutive hat-tricks against the Spanish teams Valencia and Real Zaragoza, in early 2010.
He was also a target at Santiago Bernabeu during the el Classico while he managed to score a goal to simply silent the crowd sitting in Madrid as they could see their hopes of winning the La Liga title sinking at their home stadium, while Barcelona were simply packing the title up for themselves.
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