The Little Bad Side of Having Messi on your Team

Messi is the best player in history. He is currently the best player in the world. Most football stakeholders quite agree smoothly with this. Hence, having Messi your team gives you an automatic massive advantage. But this comes at a price. Being a Messi fan and having celebrated and suffered with him over these years, I have come to the conclusion that indeed there is no absolute advantage in football. For every advantage you have, there is a disadvantage lurking in there, waiting for your opponent to exploit. More so because football is a team sport. For instance, many people’s best keeper in the world, Manuel Neuer, plays a high line as a sweeper keeper. This means that many times, opponents try to catch him out with long rangers. That is the disadvantage that comes with having him on your team. And so it is with every piece of advantage you have on your team. I dare say the bigger the advantage, the more perilous the corresponding disadvantage. Therefore, when you have Messi, the best player in the world, on your team, best be the best team in the world too because the disadvantage of having Messi on your team, if well exploited, might outweigh the advantage and you find yourself suffering as Barcelona (in recent years) and Argentina (of the Messi era) have. In this piece, I look at the ‘little’ bad side of having Messi on your team. I say ‘little’ because obviously he is a massive advantage and it is difficult to spot the disadvantage that comes with having him. Walk with me.

First, the main disadvantage that comes with having Messi on your team is what I would like to term ‘the Goliath Effect’. With small teams, this is normally a ‘fear factor’ that usually leaves them helpless and defeated even before the game. But with big elite teams, it transforms to ‘the Goliath Effect’. What is this effect? It is simply the desire to overturn the odds. In other words, every elite team coming to face Messi comes with the hope and hunger to slay the giant. The diminutive giant, so to speak. Ergo, they come with all the hunger, all the energy and all the ferocity they can muster. When this happens, the opponents are usually unplayable, and they tend to mark Messi out as much as possible. Of course, on many occasions, he delivers. He rises to the challenge and does his thing. However, this disadvantage comes into full effect when he has an average supporting cast. This is the Barcelona of recent years and the Argentina of the Messi era. Unfortunately so.

In addition, Messi is not a natural 9. So, when he is not playing in the false 9 position, depending on the team’s set-up, you usually have a problem when chasing the ball. This is because, you usually have two players not working to recover the ball, instead of one as is traditionally the case. Messi and the 9. If you ask your 9 to track back and mark, that leaves you with only Messi waiting to pick up the ball and attack. Your 9 would tire out quickly and the ferocity of your attack would plummet terribly. Of course, it is not tactically wise to ask Messi to track back and mark. He does this on his own. What most of his coaches have done is, in fact, to ask him to stay up and wait for the ball. This is a complicated disadvantage. Nevertheless, as I noted above, if the team is top-notch, this is not much of a problem. Or, if the manager is shrewd enough. Talking about the manager, the best manager Messi has had, Pep Guardiola, was fully aware of this disadvantage. That is why he played him in the false 9 position most of the time.

Furthermore, even with Messi, there are off days. Whenever Messi has an off day, his team usually suffers. This is because, you simply cannot have Messi and not build your team around him. So, whenever he has an off-day, due to some niggling injury or fatigue or no reason at all, you are in for it. The morale of the team usually rises and falls with Messi’s. This is an advantage most of the time because he is usually highly motivated, but then, this becomes a very important disadvantage on his off day.

Let me conclude this piece by weighing on the Messi departure saga. Messi has given everything to Barcelona just as Barcelona has given everything to him. Given the complex nature of having Messi on your team, especially the ‘little’ bad side of it as discussed above, I think the best thing for both Messi and Barcelona at this point is for Messi to leave. That is a treasonable statement there, coming from a cule, is it not? Obviously, I say this at the risk of being called a plastic fan but the truth, they say, is bitter. Bartomeu’s destruction project is still on-going and when he is done by 2021 (or this year if he is booted out somehow), depending on who becomes the president, it would take at least 4 years to bring Barcelona back to the formidable force it used to be. Now, the truth is Messi does not have 4 years of waiting time left in his career. As the greatest player ever, I sincerely believe he deserves happy final playing years. Unfortunately, he cannot get that in Barcelona. The damage is already done. He deserves to finish his career in a much better team with a much better management. Also, at Barcelona, we have to come to terms with the fact that Messi will leave some day and we will try to stay a top team when he is gone. That time is not far off again. That is the bitter truth.