Many have suggested that the six-time winner of Ballon d’Or has not been a person for many years. With his remarkable career seeing the bar of individual excellence raised to levels never seen before.
Messi – an Alien on earth
Leo Messi is “from another planet,” says Javier Mascherano. With superstar Barcelona and Argentina able to make football easy with his battered talent. Many have suggested that the six-time winner of Ballon d’Or has not been a person for many years, with his remarkable career seeing the bar of individual excellence raised to levels never seen before. Messi has been a one-club man; his incredible exploits for Barca saw how regularly broken records. Only Cristiano Ronaldo could come close to the standard set by a man with 627 club goals and countless major honors in his name. For Mascherano, who took in many appearances with Messi for the club and the country, the 32-year-old is the best player to ever play in the game.
Messi controls the game
Trying to explain what makes all the time significantly different from rival players, the former Barca star Mascherano told reporters: “Whenever I refer to Leo, I say the same thing.” In football, there is decision making and execution. Most players make the right decisions, but they do not perform them in the best way, or the other way around. And he usually does both. And the speed with which he plays, this is different. “Also, Leo can control, and that allows him, within the game, to have seven, eight, or ten important chances, at 100%.” He can dominate the game. Usually, the game dominates all of us. You need to; you perform different actions because the opponent or the game invites you to do so.
“In the case of Leo, the opposite is true: he decides what to do or not to do with the game. So he is from another planet.” Messi and Mascherano are currently taking a forced break from competitive football during the global coronavirus pandemic. The first is waiting for the resumption of La Liga activities at Barcelona, and the second returned to his homeland with Estudiantes. Mascherano shows no signs of a slowdown, but is approaching the 36th anniversary and admits that he may have left not so long ago before retiring. He said: “I do not know how easy or difficult it is to return three or four months without a game, but my mind continues to do so.”