Barcelona FC (Team Messi)

Today was a big sports day. The number one team in college basketball, Syracuse, went down to unranked Louisville, keeping Louisville's hopes alive for an at large tourney bid. On a personal note, sadly, this was the final game of the regular season for Arizona and it looks like, for the first time in 25 years, the first time in my lifetime, they will not be a part of the madness. That alone is enough to make me cry. But Arizona won their final regular season game this afternoon defeating USC in double overtime. Nic Wise, the only senior on the team, made a game winning lay up with 1.5 seconds left to give Arizona the victory.
But besides college basketball, the other biggest highlight of the day was the Lionel Messi show. On Wednesday Argentina beat Germany 1-0 in a pre Worl Cup friendly match. On wednesday, lots of different teams also had games. So today, these players had to travel back to Spain from various parts of the world to be able to play this afternoon against Almeria. Barcelona is in first place right now in La Liga. But they came out looking tired and slow. They were not contesting for the balls and very quickly, in the 12th minute, Domingo headed a ball off a corner kick into the back of the net. The rest of the first half, the play was back and forth. Each team had a few chances to score off counters and set pieces, but no ball found its way into a goal until Messi knocked one in off a free kick from just outside the box in the 42nd minute. It was one of the sweetest little kicks I have ever seen from that distance. No one got a foot, head, or hand on it. It flew up above the wall and fell right into the right side of the net.
In the 57th minute, Carles Puyol from Barcelona knocked in an own goal to put Alemania back up by one. But team Messi wasn't done. Although he didn't get much help from his team, in the 66th minute, Messi knocked in a little left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner. The game was tied at two and would end that way.
I do not get a lot of chances to watch Barcelona play. They are my favorite Champions League team and I love to watch them. But the biggest reason that I love them is because of Lionel Messi. For those of you who do not know anything about him, let me tell you just how special he is:
Messi is the best player in the world right now. He is a 22 year old midfielder who was born in Rosario, Argentina. He was essentially a child prodigy and has been playing for Barcelona minor league teams since he was a teenager. He has the fastest feet on the field and watching him run with the ball is like watching fire. He is the "spark" for Barcelona FC (he is currently leading La Liga with 19 goals this season), but also for the Argentina National team. He wears number 10, the number that was made famous by another Argentine, Diego Maradona. In Argentina, Mardona is considered a God, he is D10S. For the country of Argentina, Messi is their current savior. If they have any hope of winning the World Cup this summer, he will have to carry the team. Although they do have many other amazing players including Carlos Tevez, Hernan Crespo, and Martin Palermo, if Messi does not spark the fire on this team, they will not have a chance once they get out of group play. Ironically, the biggest reason they may not do well in the world cup is not because of one of their current players, but because of one of their former players, the greatest of all time, Diego Maradona, who is their current head coach.
If you have never seen Lionel Messi play, I cannot begin to tell you what you are missing out on. He is amazing. Watch any of these highlight videos and you can see it for yourself...


Video 1

Video 2

Video 3