Magical Messi: the world’s greatest footballer is still improving.

HAVE WE STILL NOT SEEN THE BEST OF HIM?

‘The big Three-Oh’ is a term often used in the context of fear for most young adults slowly stumbling through their late twenties. When you turn thirty, it is usually the time where it hits home that you’re now “grown up” and you should probably start thinking about where your life is headed. It’s of even greater importance when it comes to footballers, because while regular people get to look forward to another thirty to forty years of work, a footballer knows that his time is limited and that thirty is usually where the downslide begins.

Most graphics will show you that a football player usually peaks around the age of 26 to 28. There are some who explode onto the scene a lot earlier (Wayne Rooney comes to mind) and then there are others who can take a little while to hit their stride (e.g. Jamie Vardy). Lionel Messi seems to be in a class of his own. Not just with regard to his footballing skills, but much like a fine wine, Messi also looks to get better with age. Around this time last year, several news outlets praised Messi’s start to the 2016-17 campaign as his best yet, after the player scored 14 times in the first 11 appearances of that year. Fast forward a year and Messi has outdone himself by scoring 11 times in his first six appearances of the season. The Argentinian, who vowed to give his best for Barcelona and Valverde back in August seems to be delivering on his promise, which allows fans across the world to sit back and absolutely look on in amazement as “La Pulga” puts in performances like Tuesday’s thrashing of Sociedad Deportiva Eibar:

 

Messi’s start to the current season is even more impressive when you consider that Barcelona not only installed a new coach over the summer, but also lost Neymar Jr, a vital part of the feared “MSN“ trio, to Paris Saint-Germain, only to lose his replacement (Dembélé) to injury after not even playing a full 90 minutes for his new team. Add to this the fact that against Eibar, Messi played without Luis Suárez and yet still managed to score four and assist on one of Barcelona’s six goals, and Messi’s start to this season becomes even more impressive.

Lionel Messi should most probably be slowing down, but instead he’s only picking up speed.

After reaching 500 goals for Barcelona during last year’s El Clasico (of course), many people believed that his reign of terrorising rival defences and breaking records in the process was coming to an end. Due to Barcelona’s shortcomings in last year’s Champions League and La Liga campaigns, people picked up the opinion that the ‘Golden Age’ of Barcelona was over and Messi & Co. had lost their hunger for trophies and victories. If their ferocious start to this year means anything at all is that they are out to prove all of the doubters wrong.

Now granted: other than Juventus and perhaps Betis, Barcelona have not yet had to face the strongest opposition available to them in Europe or Spain, but it is the ruthlessness with which they have continually dismantled their opponents that should strike fear into the hearts of many naysayers who believed Barcelona would roll over and die.

Barcelona is experiencing the beginning of their very own renaissance and with their reawakened leading man also leading this reawakening, I would not be surprised to see Barcelona back in a Champions League final at the end of this year.

As for Messi, his early season rampage seems to signal that he still has a lot to give. He does not seem to be heading downhill anytime soon. After a couple of difficult seasons (both injury wise and with an unusual lack of individual, team or national titles), “La Pulga” seems to have found some new motivation and joy, making it seem like the best of Messi is indeed still to come.

 

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Photo credit – bdk.bmcdn.dk

A Neymar Jr. transfer saga: the epitome of what is wrong with the beautiful game.

WHERE IS THIS ALL GOING?

It’s been said that money makes the world go round, that it is the fuel to everyday life and that it solves all our problems. Yet when it comes to mankind’s most beloved sport, money is causing more problems than it is actually solving. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer has always been the case in football, but never before have we had so much money flowing into the market from so many different sources. Investors from all over the globe are getting their hands on football clubs, sponsors are willing to pay outrageous sums to get their logo onto one of the world’s biggest stages (e.g. Barcelona’s record kit deal with Nike that’ll see them earn 155 million EUR a season over the next ten years) and television deals have created a system where clubs that finish last in the Premier League for example, still go home with roughly 100 million EUR (93,471,118 GBP). As a result, transfer prices have ascended to new and unthinkable heights! Players have become brands of their own, which is why an investment into a 23-year-old Paul Pogba cost Manchester United a record-breaking 105 million EUR plus bonuses of 5 million EUR. An absolute ludicrous price tag that only about 15 years ago would’ve secured you the signatures of both one-time FIFA World Player of the Year winner Zinedine Zidane and three-time FIFA World Player of the Year winner “O Fenômeno”, the Brazilian Ronaldo. And yet, a year after the Pogba transfer shattered the previous transfer record set by Gareth Bale and Real Madrid in 2013, the football world seems to be on the verge of making history once more.

If reports are to be believed, Brazilian superstar Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (more commonly known only as Neymar or Neymar Jr.) is on the brink of sealing a deal that’ll see him move from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for an eye-watering transfer fee of 222 million EUR. Neymar, who is certainly one of the biggest names in football today, is 25 years old, but so far has done little to justify such a price tag. Granted, he’s won everything he’s ever competed in at a club level over the last few years, but he did so for Barcelona, a team coming off its ‘Golden Age’ of football and while playing alongside goalscoring machine Luis Suárez and arguably the greatest player ever, Lionel Messi. Neymar Jr. has not won a meaningful title with Brazil (their win at the Olympics in 2016 only somewhat stopped the bleeding of a nation still haunted by nightmares of the German national team), he has never won the ‘Ballon d’Or’ (today’s version of the FIFA World Player of the Year award) and he’s coming off his worst season since making the decision to come over to Europe. Yes, Neymar might have only experienced a down year and he certainly proved his worth on numerous occasions (Barcelona’s historic Champions League comeback agains Paris Saint-Germain was fuelled by the talented Brazilian), but if this transfer comes to fruition it should be considered more than just a warning shot, for it shows how things in football are developing badly on multiple levels.

For one, the Neymar transfer saga proves once more that loyalty in football is officially dead. Less than a year ago today, on October 21, 2016 to be exact, Barcelona announced that their Brazilian superstar had “put pen-to-paper” on a deal that would see him stay at the club until 2021. It is now the summer of 2017 and people are expecting Neymar to leave Barça for PSG.

Number two, the money flowing into flooding the market is not helping, but much rather damaging the competitive spirit. While the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and poorer, essentially taking anyone out of contention who isn’t willing to join in on the ‘fun’. The fact that year in, year out Bayern Munich win the Bundesliga, Barcelona or Real Madrid win La Liga or that it is widely assumed one of those three teams will win the coveted UEFA Champions League speaks to a top-heavy system that will only get worse with prices exploding all throughout football. To avoid this from happening, UEFA’s Executive Committee unanimously approved a financial fair play concept “for the game’s well-being in September 2009”. Dubbed the ‘Financial Fair Play’ (FFP),  some of its main goals were:

• to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances
• to decrease pressure on salaries and transfer fees and limit inflationary effect
• to encourage clubs to compete with(in) their revenues
• to protect the long-term viability of European club football

It is safe to say that if this Neymar transfer happens, the FFP has failed. UEFA’s control mechanism, which has quite frankly always been looked at with a lot of doubt will have missed out on achieving its main objectives, making the Executive Committee a laughing stock. There seems to be no limit to this madness.

Finally, we must look at the fans. While football is more popular than ever before, the game is what it is because of its growing group of supporters. Empty out the stadiums, take away the fans and only the “toys” of some of the world’s wealthiest people will survive. Football is the sport of the people. It is a game created by the everyday worker, but it has the power to bring just about anyone together. This is the beautiful aspect of the game! Degrees, titles and accolades all go out the window and for 90 minutes we’re all just one big group of people supporting their country or favourite club. For this magic to continue, the game of football has to remain palpable to the everyday supporter. The higher the prices go, the more money flows into football, the lower the interest in football will become. More and more fans are complaining about the high ticket or merchandise prices already. As has been stated here, a Premier League club shirt sells at an average 49.45 GBP but costs less than 5 GBP to produce. To expect someone to pay that amount for a t-shirt that is only worth a small portion of that price is absolutely unreasonable. However, a large sum of these gigantic transfer fees is oftentimes retrieved through the sale of that player’s jersey and with prices continually on the rise, what do you think this will mean for the ever-rising shirt price?

It may be exciting to watch this all unfold now, as most things that are new and unheard of seem to have that feel about them, but if things continue down the current path, the supporters will lose their interest in a game played and controlled by millionaires and they will look to find their amusement elsewhere. 100 million in 2013, 110 million in 2016 and 222 million in 2017? This Neymar transfer can have two effects: it can serve as a catalyst or as a red flag. For the sake of the beautiful game, let’s hope it’ll be the latter.

 

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Photo credit – Performgroup