An unrivaled genius: Lionel Messi reminds the world why he's the best there is

Football is just a game. A form of amusement meant to be enjoyed, to be played with a smile. But it’s easy to forget that sometimes.

A blown call from the referee, or a missed scoring opportunity at the crucial moment. A scything tackle on one of your heroes by an opposing player - who has now morphed into a mortal enemy, and whom you beg various deities to exact revenge upon.

For 90 minutes at a time, football is life and death. How could this possibly be just a game?

Because Lionel Messi exists and he forces us all to remember.

Wednesday evening inside the Camp Nou, on a stage occupied by a veritable pantheon of football’s biggest stars and brightest minds, the Argentine genius was responsible for the most blatant reminder of that simple fact.

Football is a game. It’s supposed to be fun. Messi makes it so.

Barcelona's attacking mastermind, whose brilliance supersedes adjectives and yet is so undeniable that we can't stop conjuring them up, had his share of fun yesterday. Did he ever.

By now you know Messi nabbed a brace, beating half-goalkeeper, half-octopus Manuel Neuer twice within three spellbinding minutes in the second half - before adding a late assist - to inspire the Blaugrana to a 3-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal.

What for so many other players is a chore, particularly against Pep Guardiola's German juggernaut, is just another opportunity for the four-time Ballon d'Or winner to buzz around the pitch, to dink and shimmy, to drop a shoulder and manoeuvre his way past other, inferior bodies at will.

You know, they way you do when you're kicking a ball around with friends. When you're having fun.

That joy was equaled only by the anguish of the poor, helpless soul that is, or more accurately, was, Jerome Boateng. He will be remembered fondly.

(Courtesy: Sportsnet)

It was impossible to ignore the humour of it all. 

Not the jokes about the live, on-field dismembering and burial of a once proud defender - though they were plentiful. Rather, the dichotomy on display. The dichotomy between Messi the human, and Messi the footballer.

Tiny. Quiet. Understated. The 27-year-old should be, by all possible measures, easy to miss. And yet, as he did last night, and as he has made a habit of doing over a mind-bending, record-shattering career that shows no signs of slowing down - and may actually be accelerating - his brilliance is impossible to miss because he's intent on smacking each of us right across the face with it every week.

In a career that continues to dazzle, littered with feats that have never been seen before and may never be seen again, one of the smallest players on the pitch showed the world for the umpteenth time that he is a footballing giant. A colossus who stands taller than a collection of men that have, at various points this year, been described as the best team on the planet. 

Bayern is a great team. Especially so under Guardiola, who aptly said before the match that stopping Messi was a foolish, impossible endeavour.

"You can’t stop him. If he is what he is, if he plays as he can, you can’t stop him. You can’t defend against talent of that magnitude. Teams have tried a thousand ways of stopping him, and it makes no difference," the bench boss said upon his return to Catalonia.

His warning proved prophetic.

Bayern is still a great team. They too, at their peak, remind us all that football can be wonderful. That it can bring unfiltered joy. That it's just a game.

Wednesday evening, Barcelona's magisterial magician showed us all, once again, that nobody consuming oxygen plays it better than him.