Sunday’s European action featured a number of interesting results, including Manchester United’s 0-3 home defeat to Liverpool, a game which might cost struggling manager David Moyes his job, and Tottenham’s 0-1 defeat to arch-rivals Arsenal, putting the spurs under further fire from their supporters after a horribly disappointing season.
The most prominent headline in world soccer, however, undeniably came from a a fixture in the Spanish Primera which I was lucky enough to attend.
(pictures taken by me at the game – if you can distinguish colors, Barcelona is dark, and Osasuna is light.)
Barcelona hosted minnows Osasuna in a pushover match which resulted in a 7-0 defeat at the hands of the Cataluynan’s – a massive scoreline, yes, but hardly a surprise given the respective stature of each club. The headline was not the scoreline, though, but rather the record breaking hat-trick by Argentinian star Lionel Messi, who netted his 371st goal for the club in 9 years and about 400 since is first appearance for the club. This shocking number surpassed a 90 year standing record by Barca legend Paulino Alcantara, who netted 369 for the club in 1924.
It goes without saying how ridiculous of a number that is. But in case this is all blurs together in the context of world soccer, the top scorer ever in the Premier league was Alan Shearer with 260 total over 434 appearances. And the top scorer ever in the Italian Serie A was Silvio Piola over 23 years in the game. So yes, blah blah blah, Messi is the best player in the world.
But to score so many goals in such style is a level beyond incredible. Dipping, ducking, darting his way around hapless defenders, Messi netted a hat trick on the big anticipated day. Regardless of Osasuna’s pushover status, the players that Messi ghosted were still professionals by any definition, trained for years and years together to keep attackers from finding the net. Remember that time over the summer when you were 10 years old running around the beach tossing a baseball with your friends? The Osasuna defenders were probably on the training pitch passing soccer balls around and preparing themselves for the opportunity to play in a professional match, like Sunday’s, to face others who had been training for just as long, like Messi.
Messi’s first goal was surreal yet casual, flicking a well driven cross from Alexi Sanchez up and over the goal keeper to the bottom left corner. This goal was pretty typical from a team that specializes in pin-point accurate passing, a trait characteristic of the next goal as well. For is second helping, the Argentine made a fantastic move with three defenders surrounding him to two-touch the ball inside the six-yard box to the feet of Barca star midfielder Andres Iniesta who returned the ball for Messi to blast it into the top right. Starting from the beginning of the attacking third of the pitch, Messi and Iniesta had alone worked the ball into such a dangerous position with about 4 deadly accurate passes. Finally, the hat-trick came from another driven cross from the wing, only this time landing in close control of the Barca no. 10 who, upon shifting his weight ever so slightly to the left, sent three Osasuna players, including the goalkeeper, flying in the same direction, only to switch calmly to the right and slot the ball into the bottom right corner with ease.