As the ball falls back to the ground, Messi winds up to take a powerful kick, then blasts the ball past the goalkeeper.
As the ball falls back to the ground, Messi winds up to take a powerful kick, then blasts the ball past the goalkeeper.
Big-time soccer fans already knew about the player known as “the flea.”
Lionel Messi, or the flea, had been a teenage prodigy and member of Argentina’s World Cup team. But after this night, after the April 18, 2007 game between Barcelona and Getafe in the Spanish Premier League (known as La Liga), most sports fans around the world would learn the name Lionel Messi.
Messi was already known as a great goal-scorer and for an attacking style that reminded others of the all-time great players that came before. But what he did that night on the pitch would become the stuff of legend.
It was a clear, chilly night. Spring had not quite arrived in Barcelona, and the thousands of fans who packed the stadium wore jackets and sweatshirts to keep warm. This was an important game between rivals. It was a semifinal match in the annual Copa del Rey soccer tournament. Copa del Rey is Spanish for “the King’s Cup.” The tournament determines the Spanish La Liga champion for that particular year.
Messi, a striker for FC Barcelona, took a pass from a midfielder on the Barcelona half of the field near the far sideline. The nineteen-year-old, with shoulder-length black hair, then swept his right foot over the ball, grazing it just enough to put the ball on his left foot and avoid the first Getafe defender who went flying past him.
Another defender came charging from midfield, and again, Messi tapped the ball from right to left and evaded the Getafe player.
The score was already 1–0 in favor of Barcelona midway through the first half. Messi looked up and saw that he had room to run. With a burst of speed, Messi pumped his arms and legs, and roared forward while being chased by the two players he already avoided. He accelerated, gaining speed with every step.
But it looked as if he was running directly toward another Getafe defender. Just before reaching him, Messi again shifted the ball and his body to the left, sideswiping the defender and avoiding a slide tackle from one of the players chasing him. As he moved left, another yellow jersey was in his way.
Somehow, Messi was able to get the ball back to his right foot and change direction in an instant while still running full speed. That left another Getafe player shaking his head.
Looking up now, Messi could see only one player in between the ball and the goal. But this player was wearing white. It was Getafe’s goalkeeper. He had come way out from the net and slid toward the ball hoping to kick it away, or at least force Messi to change directions once more.
It worked. Sort of. Messi had to shift again and tap the ball to his right, just out of reach of the keeper’s outstretched leg. Now no one was guarding the goal, but Messi had tapped the ball a little too strongly. Now the ball seemed to be getting away from him as it was rolling hopelessly toward the edge of the field where it might go out of bounds.
He had already been regarded as one of the best players in the world, but after Messi made this goal, he started receiving comparisons to some of all-time best.
But once again, Messi showed his quickness and speed, catching up to the ball a few yards from the end of the field. Then in one movement, he struck hard with his right foot at the rolling ball and sent a shot just high enough to clear one last sliding Getafe defender. The ball sailed into the back of the net on the far side of the goal.
Messi became the best by learning from the best. His coach, Diego Maradona, is considered the all-time greatest Argentinean player.
It was an almost impossible angle, yet Messi, the scoring machine, had done it again. He ran to the corner of the field to celebrate and was instantly mobbed by his teammates. Fans rose to their feet and started waving white handkerchiefs and small Barcelona flags.
Messi looked almost overwhelmed while fans and teammates continued to celebrate for several minutes. It was one of the most amazing goals in soccer history. Messi had run more than half the length of the field, dodged and juked his way past five defenders who were attacking him from all different types of angles. He then skirted past the goalkeeper before launching an improbable shot.
Replays of the Messi “solo” goal would be aired on every sports television channel for days to come. Now everyone knew who Lionel Messi was.
Immediately, people started making comparisons to another famous “solo” goal by a soccer legend by the name of Diego Maradona. Maradona was known for having the “Goal of the Century” when he dashed past several players and scored against England during the 1986 World Cup.
Maradona’s stage was bigger, but Messi’s goal was just as impressive. It was fitting that Messi was compared with Maradona, who he admired as a kid growing up in Argentina. Those childhood days were filled playing soccer and dreaming of scoring a goal like he one day would.