Some games outgrow their context, destined to be remembered long after the end-of-season prizes have been handed out, and the first instalment of Barcelona v Bayern Munich was among them. You can always tell because people enthuse about them without necessarily beginning with the result, though that may change by the time Barcelona have visited Bavaria on Tuesday.
To begin by what has been dominating most conversations, Pep Guardiola is considered by many judges to be just about the best manager around at the moment, yet at his homecoming he was upstaged by the player who is now making an emphatic claim to be the greatest the modern game has produced.
Never mind for now whether that makes Lionel Messi better than Pelé, Diego Maradona or Johan Cruyff, those questions can never be satisfactorily answered. What became clear as the first legs of the Champions League semi-finals played out is that Messi is on a more elevated plane than anyone else currently playing, including Cristiano Ronaldo, his great contemporary rival.
The Real Madrid player is the real deal, no question about that, even if his showmanship and occasional monstering of hapless team-mates can detract from the full range of talents he possesses, but Messi has just made the strongest case yet for the word genius to be applied without irony. Disbelievers will end up looking as foolish as defenders. While Messi has looked human in the recent past, he was back to being transcendent when it counted. Unstoppable, as Guardiola correctly surmised. A player not reliant on the prompts or imagination of others but one capable of seizing almost any opportunity to impose his will on a contest.
Guardiola’s own genius rating was put into perspective as Messi weighed in with contributions of unarguable majesty, climbing back above Ronaldo in the all-time Champions League scoring chart as he did so. That sideshow reflects the fact that the two best players in the world are both consummate goalscorers, though since Ronaldo joined a team prepared to showcase his talent by channelling most of their attacking efforts in his direction there has been a slight levelling off in the overall effect.
The goals have mounted up impressively – how could they not with such a support cast? – yet while Real Madrid may dazzle they rarely summon stealth and surprise. Opponents know that shackling Ronaldo, if that can be arranged, goes a long way to reducing the effectiveness of the team. It is quite a different matter with Messi.
Firstly because, as the unfortunate Jérôme Boateng can now testify as well as his manager, whether Messi can actually be stopped for a full 90 minutes remains an unproven hypothesis. Secondly because ganging up on Messi is simply to play into Barcelona’s hands: it leaves more space for individuals such as Luis Suárez and Neymar to operate and Messi himself is adept at taking on tight situations then slipping out a telling pass for an assist. And thirdly because the quite frightening possibility exists that Messi has not peaked after all but is still getting better. Better with age and experience – he is still only 27 and his game has never been based on raw speed – and better with this new-look Barcelona, with Ivan Rakitic’s urgency and Suárez and Neymar bringing more predatory instincts to the old tiki-taka virtues.
Guardiola appeared to underestimate the threat of the Barcelona front three with the man-marking system that he abandoned for something more conventional midway through the first half. It sounds silly to suppose there is anything about Barcelona that Guardiola did not already know, yet the fact remains he had to change his plans on the hoof and could consider himself a little lucky to reach half-time with the game still scoreless.
His comment that the final scoreline of 3-0 was “a little harsh” was over-generous too. Bayern may have enjoyed a fraction more of the possession than their opponents, but it is what you do with it that counts. Suárez could easily have had a hat-trick, most English observers would have put money on him beating Manuel Neuer when Messi gave him an early one-on-one with the Bayern goalkeeper, and had the Uruguayan shown anything like the finishing that so endeared him to Liverpool crowds, Guardiola might have been looking at a hiding.
As it is there are three goals to recover in the second leg, not so different from the situation in the last round when Bayern comfortably overturned a 3-1 deficit against Porto. But Barcelona are not Porto. Barcelona can defend and hold on to possession, both aspects of the game that seemed unfamiliar to Porto in the quarter-final second leg. And Barcelona have Messi.
Even had the Camp Nou meeting finished scoreless, which was a possibility until 13 minutes from the end, the temptation would still have been to fancy Barcelona to reach the final. Because Bayern would not have an away goal whereas Messi could probably oblige with one if required. Now he no longer has to, but you would still not back against it.
Luis Enrique was sensibly guarding against complacency when he suggested the tie is still balanced 50-50. That would apply more accurately to the other semi, where Real Madrid must come back against Juventus to permit the Ronaldo-Messi showdown in the final the world seems to crave.
Of course it is crass to reduce encounters featuring the best teams in Europe to mere personality clashes between individuals, childish even. And there is still the possibility of Juventus or Bayern tearing up the script. But genuine individual greatness is a rare commodity in football, no one could be blamed for wanting their fill. These are extraordinary times, exceptional artists, and the best may be still to come.
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