Everyone Please Calm Down About Messi

As my fellow soccer writer Alan Dymock pointed out, Lionel Messi can now, without fatuous overreach, be compared in many ways to Michael Jordan. Both helped transform their respective sports. Both built huge followings of fervently devoted fans. Both shattered record after record.

Barcelona’s coach, Pep Guardiola, claimed as much, saying, “You have few players who dominate like this, but he does it. You can compare him perfectly to Jordan.”

Well you know what? I used to root against the Jordan branding machine (John Starks’ dunk over Jordan and Pippen still looms large in my memory of my childhood) and I’m wary of the Messi/Barcelona branding machine for the same reasons. These cults of personality skew sports towards sensationalized, money-driven demigods. Jordan is not Jordan without Nike (or Gatorade, or Hanes, et alia), and vice versa.

Perhaps ironically, Messi would most likely agree with me (he himself has said over and over that Xavi and Iniesta are the real magicians of FC Barcelona). His humility is easily his greatest off-the-field quality, and he seems to understand the team of which he is a part. I can envision him downplaying his own propaganda, as Marx, who coined the term “cult of personality,” by the way, once (allegedly) said to an overzealous “fan” on the street, “if you are a Marxist then I am not.”

Look, I’m not saying Messi isn’t a great player. He very empthatically is a great player—one of the great players of our generation. I’m just saying we should all calm down and keep things in perspective. For one, pitches are much nicer than they used to be, which gives an advantage to any offensive unit, especially one that thrives on intricate passing and ever-tightening triangular attacks. Yes, this argument may be redolent of tired, cane-waving shouting at “whipper-snappers” and the like, but it must be pointed out that trying to pass in mud is quite different than trying to pass on a perfectly leveled quasi-artificial plane.

Second, Barcelona is the closest thing to a player-owned team in La Liga (or anywhere). To lose sight of what makes Barça so great—its very real struggle against Spanish fascism, pre- and post-Franco, its commitment to cultural and linguistic heritage, and its team system—while making one player a sacred golden calf is almost disgraceful if not downright silly.

So can we all just calm down and go back to enjoying a team sport again, please?