Matchday 34 (2 May 2009) Real Madrid 2–6 Barcelona
Barcelona: Valdés; Alvés, Puyol, Piqué, Abidal; Touré (Busquets, 85th minute), Xavi, Iniesta (Bojan, 85th minute); Messi, Eto’o and Henry (Keita, 62nd minute). Subs not used: Jorquera; Cáceres, Silvinho, Gudjohnsen and Hleb.
Real Madrid: Casillas; Sergio Ramos (Van der Vaart, 71st minute), Cannavaro, Metzelder, Heinze; Gago, Lass; Robben (Javi García, 79th minute), Raúl, Marcelo (Huntelaar, 59th minute); and Higuaín. Subs not used: Dudek; Torres, Drenthe, Faubert and Saviola.
Goals: 1–0. 13th minute: Higuaín. 1–1. 17th minute: Henry. 1–2. 19th minute: Puyol. 1–3. 35th minute: Messi. 2–3. 56th minute: Ramos. 2–4. 58th minute: Henry. 2–5. 75th minute: Messi. 2–6. 82nd minute: Piqué.
El País: Messi scored his first goal at the Bernabéu. Guardiola moved him off the wing so that he could take on Madrid’s two centre-backs Cannavaro and Metzelder as much as possible. He massacred them. Not just them, but also the two central midfielders, given that Messi was dropping deep into midfield. Messi gathered the ball alongside Xavi, with brief exchanges with Henry. One of them, a chip, left Henry one on one with Casillas, resulting in the first azulgrana goal.
Piqué/Xavi/Iniesta/Messi – they were the core on a memorable night for Barcelonism.
Ramón Besa, El País. The key to the clásico is called Messi. The key was in moving Messi from his usual position on the right into the centre line as a false number 9 or fourth mid-fielder. ‘The Flea’ moved between the lines to link with Xavi and Iniesta, even to the point of creating three-on-two situations against Gago and Lass – man-markers of the two azulgrana midfielders – and tempting the two central defenders out, much further forward than usual, confused by the depth of Henry and Eto’o, who were always in line. The Barcelona coaches wanted to prevent their opponents from playing an ‘anti-Messi’ game and convinced the Argentinian that he should play as he had done for a short period in Seville and against Valencia at the Camp Nou. The azulgrana won the game through the middle with Xavi/Messi and Iniesta and on the wings with Henry and Eto’o, who was sacrificed out wide, seemingly isolated but still involved in moves like the sixth goal. Even Eto’o admitted: ‘The boss was very clever when he put me on the wing while putting Messi through the middle.’ Once egos had been put aside for the good of the team, the triumph became simpler for a historic Barça …
In the press conference, Pep said: ‘Messi, Xavi and Iniesta can make any idea a good one.’
‘The dressing room was like a madhouse,’ remembers Silvinho. ‘I celebrated as much as those who had played. It was enormously satisfying for the whole team. What we had worked for, studied, talked about, had all been achieved in ninety minutes of perfect football.’
The tactical change had come off. Leo went back to the wing and his position as a false number 9 would not reappear until the Champions League final against Manchester United.
Alex Ferguson prepared himself to face the usual Barcelona precisely at the moment when they had decided to stop being the usual Barcelona.
5. CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL AGAINST MANCHESTER UNITED AND THE 2009 FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP. SIX OUT OF SIX
In the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea, Barcelona employed an attack with Iniesta on the left, Eto’o down the middle and Leo starting wide right but moving with freedom, the focal point of the attacks. The 0–0 draw in the first leg at the Camp Nou made the match at Stamford Bridge even more difficult when Michael Essien scored after eight minutes and Éric Abidal was sent off after sixty-six. Guus Hiddink probably sent out the wrong message when he replaced Didier Drogba with defender Juliano Belletti twenty minutes from the end. The initiative was with Barcelona in any case, even though they were not creating chances. It was a very tense encounter. In the ninety-third minute, with time almost up, Messi passed to Iniesta who, with a stunning strike from outside the box that finally beat Chelsea’s formidable defence, added another page to the club’s history.
Barcelona had to play the Copa del Rey final against Athletic de Bilbao before the Champions League final. They were on route for glory, three steps away from the extraordinary feat of winning everything that season. ‘On Wednesday 13 May,’ explains Luis Martín in El País, ‘when the team was leaving the ground to catch a plane to Valencia, where the Copa del Rey final would be played that night, Iniesta, who had remained in Barcelona recovering from an injury, went up to Messi and said: “Bring me the cup and I will get you the Ballon d’Or in Rome.”’
It was the first final with Leo in the line-up since breaking into the first team. Barcelona won by an emphatic 4–1, but Athletic opened the scoring. Leo was involved in three of the four goals, scoring one himself to make it 2–1 in a piece of play that would be repeated many times thereafter. On the ball in the area, he dummied and kept possession until finding the gap between dozens of legs to get it past the opposition’s defence.
Three days later, Barcelona were crowned league champions without even touching a ball against Mallorca. Real Madrid had lost at Villarreal and were eight points behind the leaders with two games left to play: the eternal rivals had surrendered following that blaugrana masterclass at the Bernabéu. Barça won the fifth double of their history.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United awaited them in the Champions League final in Rome.
Two main things were said about that match. Manchester United were clear favourites (according to the English press) and the two best players in the world were going to go head-to-head. ‘Without doubt the best two at the moment, they’ve had fantastic seasons,’ said Sir Alex Ferguson. ‘Alex prefers Ronaldo, we prefer Leo,’ added Pep. ‘How interesting to have both in a final,’ concluded the Scot.
The public and especially the media have since decided that the only possible relationship between Leo and Cristiano is one of hatred. In a Twitter-obsessed, 140-character long, black and white world, there is hardly room for anyone else. Whenever they crossed paths that night in Rome, however, they showed that mixture of feelings that exist between nemeses, those rivals you have to overcome but who make you improve. There is no affection, but neither is there contempt. Arrogant and barbed comments about one another are all part of the performance, but their private relationship is one of mutual respect.
In El País Luis Martín recalls an anecdote that took place twenty-four hours before the game. ‘Messi couldn’t believe what he saw when he arrived at the hotel on Tuesday. He phoned Estiarte. “Can you come to my room? I have a problem.” Guardiola’s guardian angel has spread his wings to protect all his friend’s pupils in any way possible. So he rushed there at once, anxious, fearing that something had happened that he would be unable to deal with, because Messi never complains. “Look, Manel, there’s no bed,” Leo told him. Estiarte breathed a sigh of relief: the problem had a solution. Player liaison man Carlos Naval took care of the matter.’
Otherwise, Leo was walking up and down the corridors of the team’s hotel with his ticket for the final booked as if nothing unusual was occurring. ‘In reality everything was normal as usual, up until the match, a day like any other. We were very calm and confident in our own ability,’ Messi said days after. He knew that people were saying he had not yet been able to score against an English team. He accepted the challenge.
‘We tried out the false number nine option in training the days before the final,’ remembers Pedro. ‘Pep told us it was the best way to beat them because they had two very tall centre-backs who didn’t come out to press very much. In that central space, Leo could pick up the ball and create danger.’
Leo, noticing his family and best friends sitting next to the rest of the relatives of the squad, commented that the final was like being at the Camp Nou. He was enjoying the electrifying atmosphere in the Italian stadium.
27 May 2009. Champions League final. Barcelona 2–0 Manchester United. Olympic Stadium, Rome
Barcelona: Víctor Valdés; Puyol, Touré, Piqué, Silvinho; Xavić, Busquets, I
niesta (Pedro, 90th minute); Messi, Eto’o and Henry (Keita, 70th minute). Subs not used: Pinto; Cáceres, Gudjohnsen, Bojan and Muniesa.
Manchester United: Van der Sar; O’Shea, Ferdinand, VidieEvra; Park (Berbatov, 65th minute), Anderson (Tévez, 46th minute), Carrick, Rooney; Giggs (Scholes, 74th minute); and Ronaldo. Subs not used: Kuszczak; Rafael, Evans and Nani.
Goals: 1–0. 9th minute: Iniesta passes to Eto’o, who dribbles past Vidić and beats Van der Sar with a toe-poke. 2–0. 70th minute: Messi heads a Xavi cross into the far corner.
El País: ‘Messi is the best.’ ‘The Flea’ scores with a header and demonstrates to Cristiano Ronaldo, who was not himself, who the real king is.
Luis Martín, El País: Messi, who didn’t even get a glimpse of Evra because he never attacked down the left wing, did not have his finest day, but, as Guardiola usually says, he never plays badly. It was his night, he had to turn up and he did. He almost always made the United centre-backs come out and found a path through a forest of white shirts a couple of times, without causing Van der Sar any problems until creeping in between defenders to head home a Xavi cross for the second goal. Guardiola had warned about it in a press conference when he was asked if Leo needed to score headers to be the best in the world. ‘I recommend you don’t test him because one day he will score a header and shut you all up,’ prophesied the man from Santpedor … And at the Olympic Stadium 20,000 culés were heard chanting Messi’s name, ‘the Flea’. With 12 Champions League goals and every title in the bag, there can no longer be any doubt. Iniesta kept his word [about the Ballon d’Or] and there is effectively no doubt: Messi is the best.
Martí Perarnau, Sport: As yet nobody has found the words to do Messi justice, an unforgettable man with the ball stuck to his foot, the pilot of a glider, always finding the net at the right time. In slow motion, like a colossus, defining the age, bringing eternal delight to the blaugrana faithful, the master of his own destiny. Messi exemplifies all the values that bring this team together: humility and commitment, sacrifice and solidarity, effort and happiness, freshness and talent, youth and ambition.
GB: The Champions League final arrives. And the pattern of the game changes after ten minutes.
PG: We had tried it against Madrid. We played differently against Chelsea; we didn’t go back to the false number 9 until the final. We said: in the first ten minutes we will start as I imagine they think we will play, and after ten minutes …
GB: So it was planned.
PG: Yes, after ten minutes Samuel goes on the wing, and Leo down the middle. But Leo doesn’t track Evra in the first minute and a moment of danger is created, which is what I was telling you about the European games. And then there is the free-kick which Cristiano takes and Víctor saves, a clear chance. Samuel deserves a lot of credit as he adapted to what we asked of him … I remember very well that when we had so many problems against Lyon he also adapted. I put him on the wing for 35 or 40 minutes and Leo down the middle so that the eleven was more balanced and we could tighten up defensively. Samuel could also help us going forward because he has the perfect qualities to play excellent diagonal runs from the wing. Without Samuel we wouldn’t have been able to do all of that in my first season, nor in that match. He is another big player for the big games. He very rarely disappoints in the big moments.
GB: The tactical change was a surprise to Manchester United, the English hadn’t studied the Real Madrid match.
PG: Even if they had studied it, it is difficult to stop. Because you force the centre-back to move out of his normal position, they don’t like that. Centre-backs in England, and almost the rest of the world, are used to taking on tall, strong centre-forwards, and that is when they feel comfortable. And if they have to defend against players of different profiles, small, dynamic, if they feel forced to come out of position, even if it’s ten metres, they find it a bit tougher.
Leo had not only carried out his defensive duties, following Pep’s instructions and his own intuition, but he had scored, too. And after jumping to intercept the perfectly placed ball from Xavi, he sent a looping header over the keeper to score – a goal that Van der Sar has since consistently refused to discuss, either in public or in private. In the process, his boot came off. It was as if Leo had needed to stretch so much to reach the right height that his foot was suddenly too small for him. It was an Adidas boot. The best publicity they could have hoped for.
‘Pep liked being on top of his players, knowing their mood, when they are fine, when they are not,’ says Pedro. ‘It is very important for us to have someone who sees you and understands you with all the days we spend training and all the matches we play. No two days are the same; one day you might be in high spirits in training or in a match, but down in the next. You need to have someone who makes demands on you but is also around when you need him, someone who knows what you’re feeling almost without speaking. Pep demanded plenty from Leo, but he knew that the boss was there in the good times and the bad, that he was by his side, and Messi responded to that.
‘So when Guardiola made changes, it was so that Leo could shine and Messi knew that,’ continues Pedro. ‘And when things went well, in this case the final in Rome, you could see there was a special connection between the two of them, like saying “just as we planned it”.’
Leo and Pep hugged each other the first time they met up again in the privacy of the Rome dressing room. They did not say anything. There was no need to. It was their way of saying ‘we’ve done it’.
‘Yes, it was a beautiful thing, it is always incredible to score goals and even more so in that match, in that final, it was something inconceivable, like a dream, so it was amazing. It was all happiness after that, lots of partying, lots of joy,’ recalled Messi some years later. He explained to El País what was behind all the rejoicing, over and above the level of celebration that such a victory always brings. ‘There had been the 2006 Champions League final which I was unfortunately unable to play in, because of the injury against Chelsea in the last sixteen which I didn’t recover from. I had said I wanted to win the Champions League as a participant and that was really beautiful.’
‘It was a really happy, and, at the same time, complicated match for me,’ remembers Silvinho. The full-back knew his time at Barcelona was coming to an end; the club had still not offered him a contract extension and ultimately never would. He was 35 years old and had played in almost all the cup games and many league ones, too, due to injuries to Puyol and Abidal, which forced Pep to reshuffle the defence. He also started the Champions League final at left-back after Abidal’s suspension and Keita telling Guardiola not to select him out of position, as the coach had planned: Keita told him the team would suffer if he did so.
While Silvinho walked around the Olympic Stadium pitch after the victory, he thought back to journeys with Ronaldinho, conversations with Rijkaard, the day Deco invited Leo to sit at the Brazilian table, the Argentinian’s rant at the Chinese cleaner in the hotel. He asked Messi for a photo with him. ‘While celebrating on the pitch, I was aware that it wasn’t just a friendship coming to an end, but an important part of my life. It was an ending. And I knew that Leo would be one of those people with whom I would find it hard to stay in contact, and it would hurt me not to have him by my side, as a team-mate, as a friend. It was a very difficult night. He didn’t understand it at the time, but I gave him a big hug on the pitch and cried quite a bit … I gave him a big hug because I wasn’t going to have him by my side as much as I wanted. And in my head, I kept saying to myself: “it’s ending for me.”’
Leo was hugging him happily, but Silvinho was deeply sad. ‘I started the final: what a way to end a career. And while I was with him I was saying goodbye without saying anything to him. It was a night of mixed feelings.’ Silvinho recently sent him the photo of them hugging. ‘Bloody hell, Silvio, what an amazing photo,’ Leo replied to him. ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ Silvinho prompted him. ‘Yes, I do,’ said Messi. And then it finally hit Leo: he at l
ast discovered the reason for that emotional hug.
‘I remember that when we were having dinner with our families after the Rome final, the fans were going up to him and he received them with calmness and humility,’ recalls Pedro.
In fact, the evening turned into a nightmare for ‘the Flea’. Barcelona had organised a celebration in a castle near Rome, in theory a private do, but it became a parade of hangers-on. ‘Even the cats got in,’ one Barcelona player says. It was a struggle getting through the throng and, as a result, the players spent hardly any time with their families. The harassment was such that it became impossible to enjoy the evening. Not an appropriate celebration for such a historic night.
The mood changed in the morning, on the plane, as Juanjo Brau remembers: ‘On the flight home, he grabbed the microphone and did a few turns. He couldn’t stop laughing, making jokes about his team-mates with fine Argentinian irony.’
‘Leo demonstrated that he was the best player in the world,’ concludes Piqué. ‘We had already said it but nobody believed it. After that night, the order of things was pretty clear.’ Messi had become the top goalscorer in the competition with nine goals, two more than Steven Gerrard of Liverpool and Bayern Munich’s Miroslav Klose. Also, in the eyes of most commentators, the best player in the world.
At the Camp Nou while celebrating the treble after a bus ride through the streets of Barcelona, Leo, wearing a scarf and Catalan cap, grabbed the microphone and shouted, slightly the worse for wear from alcohol, his voice a little hoarse: ‘Next year we are going to carry on and win everything, and we are going to celebrate it all over again. ¡Visca el Barça i visca Catalunya!’ Jorge Messi watched this with a mixture of embarrassment and pride.
Goals in the 2008–09 season
Messi: League, 23; Copa del Rey, 6; 9 in six Champions League games: total = 38.
Messi Page 55