There has been quite a deal of talk about Lio Messi.   Between the fans and media from both sides of the Atlantic is just seems like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth.  They seem to want have their cake and eat, too.   Back in 2005 and 2006 Diego Maradona was singing Lio Messi’s praises.  This kid was going to be the future of football.  Fast forward three years later and Messi is still electric, but his style of play has never changed. So where was Maradona back then?

When things are going great, he is a maestro.  Messi is a genius with the ball between the boots.  When things weren’t going so well, that same attitude has made him a ball hog.   He then started to get the other players on his team involved. Brilliant passes to Xavi, Eto’o, Bojan, and the rest of characters at the Nou Camp had people asking why he wasn’t more selfish.   Messi was also the one that put that pinpoint pass to Ángel Di Maria in Beijing.   Maradona saying a player is selfish is like the pot calling the kettle black.  As a player, he was selfish both in and off of the pitch, yet no one reprimanded him for that.   It was only after his well documented off the field antics  that his selfishness began to be criticized.

He will always be under that microscope and the pendulum will swing from one extreme to the other for the rest of his career.    This is part of the job description for a young man that has been called  “The Next Big Thing”  since the before he hit puberty.   I mean, for goodness sakes, he is only 21 and he has so much maturing to do still.  He has done quite a bit of it in front of our eyes.