As he stood there Sunday evening in Estadio do Maracana limply holding the most meaningless trophy he will ever win — the Golden Ball — Lionel Messi was transformed into the futbol version of football’s biggest loser, Peyton Manning.
The only difference between them was Messi wore the sad face of a man broken by two consecutive World Cup failures while Manning always sports a look of defiant disgust, as if the Lords of Football let him down rather than the other way around.
Manning is supposedly the greatest quarterback of his time and to some the greatest of all-time. Messi is supposedly the greatest futbol player of his time and to some the greatest of all-time. The only problem is when their moment has come on the biggest stages they forgot their lines.
Manning has at least won one Super Bowl but he was far from sharp that day, turning the ball over twice with an interception and a lost fumble. The Colts seemed to win despite him in a pouring rain. In his other two attempts he lost, played poorly and in each game threw as many touchdown passes to the opposition as to his teammates.
Add in his overall losing record in the playoffs (11-12) and those who argue he’s the greatest quarterback of all-time face a daunting dilemma. Is he Mr. October in a sport that values Mr. January?
Then there is the sad-faced Messi, standing alone in front of his teammates after Germany had beaten them, 1-0, Sunday to win the Copa do Mundo and waiting for what seemed like a week to be handed a silver medal he didn’t want and a trophy he accepted as if it was radioactive. He scored four times in the tournament but not once during the knockout rounds and Sunday he missed a perfect chance early in the second half when he beat German goalie Manuel Neuer but sent the shot skidding wide of the far post and then, in the game’s dying moment when stars who shine forever are born, he had a free kick from 25 yards out. Here was his chance to elevate himself to the level of his harshest critic, his great but mercurial countryman Diego Maradona.
All Messi had to do was curve that ball under the crossbar or just inside the post past the hands of Neuer to force a shootout and he would become all that so many insist he is. His kick went well over the crossbar. Messi’s shot didn’t come close so neither does he in any discussion of futbol’s greatest players. That’s just how it is.
For all Messi has done, and it is considerable including this World Cup, Pele, Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer, Zinedine Zidane, Alfredo Di Stefano (who passed away last week) and Johan Cruyff define the word greatest in futbol. For all his Manning-like talents, Messi does not and the reason was best explained by raspy-voiced Irish soccer commentator Tommy Smyth during his radio broadcast after Messi’s critical miss.
“That’s the difference between great and the greatest,” he said.
Nothing more need be said.
What Smyth meant was Messi, like Manning, is great but the greatest make the shot, they don’t just take the shot when the pressure is highest. They complete the pass, they don’t throw it to their opponent or into the ground.
There is an inherent unfairness in that. It is undeniably harsh to be judged by one moment, one instant, one play made or missed. Yet as Smyth so brilliantly put it, that’s the difference between great and the greatest. It is the price paid to be named on so short a list.
Joe Frazier was great. Ali was the greatest.
Charles Barkley was great. Michael Jordan was the greatest.
The greatest players do things others cannot at the critical moment. That is the definition of greatness. Messi did many great things at the World Cup but when it counted most he did nothing. In 2010, his Cup story was the same. He made plays but failed to score even though Maradona, Argentina’s coach at the time, put him in position to do so. When they needed Messi most against Germany in two Cups, he wasn’t there.
Perhaps that (plus more than a little jealousy) is why Maradona was so harshly critical after the Golden Ball for the tournament’s best player went to Messi.
“Messi? I would give him heaven if possible,” he told Latin American television channel Telesur. “It’s not right when someone wins something he shouldn’t have won just because of some marketing plan.”
Maradona was referencing the fact Adidas sponsors the award and Messi endorses its equipment. That seemed unfair, too, but when the debate is about greatest that’s the landscape.
What separates Messi and Manning from being the greatest is the thinnest of lines. It is what you do in one or two moments in a lifetime of games. It is unfairly harsh but it is the dividing line Smyth was talking about, the only one there is between the greatest and the rest.