The new Messi(ah!)

Quite a week here in Spain, with three league games crammed into a space of seven days. Although it's still too early to make any sweeping statements, it's nevertheless interesting how such a short and intensive period of league action can make a difference to a team's morale, in both the positive and negative senses. Whether it makes a difference only in the short-term we will have to wait and see, but take poor Sevilla, for starters.

With the Champions League defeat at Arsenal sandwiched in-between, they've now lost their last four games, something that the present squad has not experienced for some time. Indeed, since taking over the reins, Jaunde Ramos has never lost four on the trot. Small wonder that he declared, with that quietly ironic touch he possesses, that last year he was 'The best in the world, and now I don't know what I'm doing'.

He's right, of course, to point out the absurdity of his being 'questioned' already, after so much achievement and so much wonderful play, and losing to Barcelona and Arsenal is hardly a disgrace. But the other two defeats, a surprise 2-3 reversal in midweek to Espanyol and a 2-0 defeat at Zaragoza this weekend do seem to have revealed a sudden fault-line running below the surface.

Espanyol took revenge of their defeat in summer in the UEFA Cup Final by exposing defensive deficiencies that were always there in theory but which rarely bubbled to the surface in practice, due to the sheer weight of pressure that the team's offensive tactics piled onto opponents. But it could be that other teams are simply getting their measure, or Ramos is losing his nerve.

Against Barcelona, Sevilla were too defensive, which at the moment against the Catalans is simply suicide, and although they tried to return to roots in midweek, Espanyol simply took their time and caught them on the break. Against Zaragoza they tried again to re-establish the 'total-football' approach that has seen them striding Europe like a colossus in recent times, only to founder on the rocks of missed chances. Next week's home game against Deportivo should see them pick up some points and stay within catch-up distance of the top four, but first they have to play Slavia Prague in the Champions League in midweek - a side who won 7-1 at the weekend.

Barcelona, on the other hand, have used the period most fruitfully, stuffing everybody left, right and centre. Crisis what crisis? - whose subtext reads 'Who needs Ronaldinho?' Well, Grimsby Town for example, but let's not go down that road. Ronaldinho has at times in his Barça career appeared to be the Anointed One, particularly with all that gooey stuff glinting in his locks, but he has been supplanted by the new Messiah, as several Barça bloggers are now calling the little Argentine. It is also interesting, in this context, to see - in any given generation of footballers - how long it takes the world press to actually come out and state 'X is the best in the world'.

Several writers were on the point of saying it last season, after Messi's famous goal against Getafe enabled those easier comparisons with Maradona, but something held them back - maybe the presence of a relatively (though not entirely) untroubled Ronaldinho on the scene, and also the fact that up to then, Messi had flitted in and out of competition, gloriously at times but with that butterfly fragility that suggested that he might just not hack it physically - certainly not enough to attain the consistency that finally earns you 'the best' label.

The other 'problem' with Messi is that despite several attempts of late to make him more media-friendly, he's not exactly Mr Charisma. Nice enough guy, of course, and quite amusing when given the chance to talk, but hardly a source of witty and controversial sound-bites. And try as you might, you just can't see him emerging from the disco steps at 2.30 in the morning, nor shielding his face from the paparazzi flash-bulbs as he is caught in flagrante with some society floozie. It's just not going to happen, mainly because you know he's at home sipping his late night hot chocolate before saying good night to his mum.

Ronaldinho, of course, is/was no oil painting, but his looks are a source of comment and are a gift to in-house newspaper caricaturists far and wide. Maradona himself was hardly possessed of film-star looks, and was of similar stature to the tiny Messi, but at least with him you could depend on a decent repertoire of histrionics, illegal substances and ludicrous one-liners. Unless Messi uses his recent salary hike to employ a personal trainer cum spin-doctor, the press may continue to only consider him the best in the world if he actually plays good football. What a thing indeed!

Then again, there were times this week, against poor Zaragoza and Levante, when you were keenly aware of the fact that when Messi receives the ball in certain positions, with a certain lay-out of players, angle, distance and pitch before him, he is simply unstoppable. The proof of greatness is surely that. You just think - 'He's going to score soon', and he does.

At Levante, a side bottom of the league but not without spirit, he simply ran them ragged. Henry scored a hat-trick, but funnily enough did not play particularly well. The goals will do him good, but his first was courtesy of a shot from Messi that bounced back into his path, and the second was thanks to an excellent pass from the tiny genius. You could see the Levante players panic and lose concentration every time Messi got the ball. It's the prefect recipe for the other players in the team (Barça) to improve too, because no-one is taking any notice of them. Italian journalists said something similar when Maradona won Serie A with Napoli. Brilliant though Maradona was, it was the turbulence created in his wake that enabled the other players to shine, so preoccupied were opponents with attempting to nullify the Argentine's threat.

But in terms of individual threat, Messi's goal against Levante was particularly interesting. With the game already killed off at 0-3, Messi receives a long crossfield ball, out on the right wing. As he advances, Bruno Cirillo, Levante's Italian defender, reluctantly chooses to put up some token resistance. Knowing that he cannot jump in, because Messi will simply skip past him on either side, Cirillo jogs to goal-side of Messi, hoping to hold him on the edge of the area, until reinforcements arrive. To the left of the camera shot, they are riding in on tired horses, exhausted by the battle so far. But no-one is actually marking either Iniesta (running up in support) or Henry, peeling off again to the far post in the hope of a fourth goal for the evening. Messi, who not only has great skill but perfect vision too - makes his decision. It's almost apologetic, but he moves inside Cirillo, as if to run across him, then suddenly swivels and changes direction, so fast that the Italian, already with the weight on his wrong foot, simply stumbles. On his face you see the expression 'Damn! I knew you were going to do that, but I still couldn't stop you' (however you say that in Italian), upon which our hero skips into the penalty area, pivots on his right foot and sends the ball swerving low across the Levante keeper with his left - plop into the net - exactly as you had suspected he would.

That's the beauty of greatness. You can see what the anointed ones are probably going to do, and lo and behold they do it - but as Cirillo would no doubt remark - there's no solution to the problem. Kick him? Well you can try, but for most of the fifty-one minutes Messi was on the pitch, he was simply too fast for anyone to even foul him.

And as final proof of the pudding of greatness, the Levante supporters rose to applaud him as was taken off by Rijkaard, presumably to save his legs for the Champions League this week. That doesn't often happen in La Liga. So by the way, Messi is the best in the world.

Meanwhile, Real Madrid continue to win as pragmatically as they did last season, this time with a 0-1 win at Getafe in a game where Schuster returned to the scene of his pre-Bernabéu apprenticeship. They may continue to do this for much of the season, but for now, if I were to put money on the league title, I would be looking in the direction of Catalonia.

Valencia are looking strong as usual, and have the quality to sustain a challenge, but they'll have to solve their internal problems before they can really aspire to the title. Villarreal are proving that last season's blip was but a temporary one, and in Rossi and Nihat they would seem to have forgotten the exploits of Forlan and the leadership of Riquelme, still tragically out in the cold.

Atlético Madrid too, are warming up nicely, with the other Argentine of the moment, Kun Agüero, at last beginning to justify his own personal 'the-next-Maradona' tag. Looking at the league in pure squad terms, Atlético have used the Torres money well (Reyes, Simao and Forlan), and if they can get some sort of run together they may turn out to be the main challengers to the Old Firm, assuming that Sevilla fail to recover in time. Whatever, things are warming up very nicely indeed.

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