Balon d'Or Nominees: Lionel Messi

There still remains some confusion over the timings and period of play of which the Balon d’Or is decided.

Officially, it is the calendar year of which the vote is cast. Perhaps unofficially, the balloters consider the football calendar season stretching back into the latter half of the year before.

Technicalities. With Lionel Messi, it really doesn’t matter.

Indeed, the little Argentine has been performing on or around the same unbelievable plain for over two full years now - yet shows no signs of slowing down.

Since the beginning of the 2008 season, Messi has played 124 club games for Barcelona, scoring 110 goals. In the process he has picked up two la Liga titles, two Spanish Supercopa’s, a Copa del Rey, a European cup, a European Super Cup, a World Club Cup, European Player of the Year, World player of the Year, two la Liga Player of the Year’s, a European Golden Shoe, a Champions League Player of the Year, two Champions League top scorer awards, Fifpro World Player of the Year and countless other peripheral honours.

Since the beginning of the 2009 season Messi has 72 goals in 73 games. In 2010 alone the ‘Atomic Flea’ has played 50 games and scored 55 goals, including five hat-tricks. According to official 2010/11 la Liga and Champions League statistics, as well as goals, in both competitions Messi has made eleven assists, meaning he’s either scored or set-up 32 goals in just seventeen games. That means he’s good for virtually two goals a game, and invariably he is.

The figures speak for themselves, but what makes Messi all the more extraordinary is the sheer volume of statistics stacked in his favour still doesn’t do justice to what he brings onto a football pitch.

The goals he scores and the damage and destruction he inflicts on the opposition is unparalleled. Everybody knows he’s going onto that left foot yet there a few individuals or collectives that stop him.

Take his last two club games for instance. The weekend past, Barca faced a tricky trip to Osasuna, made all the more difficult by the Spanish air traffic control strikes and thus a last-gasp train and coach dash which got them to the game late.

Midway through the first half, a typically delicate Barca passing movement is going nowhere fast until Messi picks up the ball centrally about 30 yards out. No clear or present danger until the number ten darts goalwards flanked by three defenders who retreat in fear. With a sixth sense of a team-mates run and geometric precision in the timing and weight of the slide-rule ball, Messi slides a pass through the back-line for Pedro to run onto and finish. A goal out of nothing. A goal simply out of Messi. Again.

Then, just after the hour with the game balanced at 1-0, he sprints the length of the Osasuna half on his own, outstripping a trailing pursuer to finish, before another solo run ends in a despairing defender felling the little wizard for a penalty which he gets up and converts. 3-0 Barca, three goals all largely down to Messi – so frequently common.

However, the other, less credited but more selfless side of this supremely gifted player was apparent six days before at the Camp Nou, and the visit of Real Madrid.

Barca produced one of the great footballing displays of modern time in dismantling their bitter foes, and whilst Messi eventually had a hand in two goals with another pair of brilliant through balls to David Villa, it was his all round input to a fine team performance which highlights just what a complete package this player actually is.

For 45 minutes Barcelona kept the ball impeccably, with a style and sophistication that had the watching world football public in awe. Xavi was the orchestrator as la Blaugrana teased and tormented Mourinho’s men with their own unique brand of total football.

Yet Messi was perfectly happy towing the party line to play keep ball. When the ball came his way he’d pass it on, touch it off, move it elsewhere to keep the Barca flow going. His touch, technique and awareness the hallmarks of a la Masia graduate.

Rarely did he take an extra touch, embark on an unnecessary run or ruin the rest of the side’s momentum with anything too ambitious. The best player in the world was intelligent and humble enough to merge into a support role which enabled the whole cast to deliver a regal show.

As last year’s winner of the Balon d’Or, Messi combined similar personal feats with the ultimate team honour of the Champions League. This year that was snaffled away by Jose Mourinho and co at Inter, with Argentina’s erratic showing in the World Cup denying Messi the chance to replicate what his team-mates Xavi and Andres Iniesta did with the more rounded and complete team unit of Spain.

As an individual, competing for an individual award, nobody has done as much as Lionel Messi across 2010. His goals ratio is phenomenal, his contribution is priceless, his presence alone is frightening. Messi is the best player on the planet, and this should be reflected in him retaining the Balon d’Or.