This. Over the last 4-6 years, I've made it a habit to try and watch every Barcelona game possible when Messi is starting. He's the Maradona of our times and it would be a shame to have not watched him play when we still can. Also, quite easily the best player in the world for the last few months. Incredible yet again today.
Feels good to read something like this. I'm a die hard fan of Ronnie and once looked to Messi with respect but as a rival, but I told myself I oughta start watching more of Messi's games as it was obvious what an abnormal player he was as well.
I have my preferences and my beliefs but I'm glad I now tune in to 2/3rds of the games where he play. I can't commit time to all of his matches, but boy when I do it's almost always worth it. Barely has a bad, bad game whenever I tune in.
I specially fell in love watching him play with Argentina. I remember the World Cup 2018 Qualy where Argentine were out of the WC with 1/3 to go, and by the time I tuned in all I saw was him just playing one level above every other team-mate. Yes he played wonderfully, played average games, and played bad games until they finally qualified, but he was Argentina's best player in each of those games by a huuuge margin. The narrative was he struggled and the team did too, to qualify, and I'm not gonna debate that, but regardless of his overall quality, he was the heart and soul of that national team. Everything decent they did had Messi's footprint. That really game me a new found admiration for him. He's Barcelona's best player by far, a level above every other player there too.
Reminds me of the way Djokovic and Federer were classified in my head. Federer even annoyed me early on since he always went 3 straights sets on everyone, and I preferred Djokovic, but at one point I just had to give it in to the other man as well, and was fortunate enough to watch him spill magic on court a lot of times and fully enjoy it.