Why Lionel Messi matters for global football

On the world's most competitive football pitches, this little fellow seems to be doing nothing a lot of the time, simply ambling around the giants who dwarf him. At 5 ft 6½ in, Lionel Messi doesn't look like Superman on the pitch. As a child, he was tiny and had to be administered expensive growth hormone treatment, which his parents could not afford. Luckily, Spanish club FC Barcelona took him under its wing, made the treatment possible, and created a legend of the game. Nobody, possibly apart from Diego Maradona, defines the modern game as it is played now. Now this guy, called the Atomic Flea by his Spanish admirers, has breached another milestone — with miles to spare.

Messi's two goals in the Champions League game against Dutch champions Ajax level him with another Spanish superstar of yore — Raúl — at 71 goals each in this top-level tournament. But there is a difference: Raúl scored his goals over 142 games; Messi has equalised that score in only 90 matches. And he still has at least five more years at the top level to improve upon it. And remember, he's not your waiting-for-assists striker: Messi can play deep, but deadly. And with his low centre of gravity, he seems to vaporise giant defences in the blink of an eye. For football, he shows that small is, indeed, beautiful.