Lionel Messi

Hold your horses and put away the torches, I’m not here to tell you that Neymar is better than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

Although the top two players in the world might still outclass the young Brazilian on the pitch, they are not nearly as valuable as Barcelona’s number 11 according to a study from the CIES Football Observatory. 

Luis Enrique opted to leave Neymar, Andres Iniesta, Ivan Rakitic and Gerard Pique out of the starting XI for Barcelona’s match against Las Palmas at the Camp Nou on Saturday, even though the side from the Canary Islands is eighth in La Liga.

But this is Barcelona, and they thrashed their opposition behind the primary strength of Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. Suarez scored a brace and Messi added one of his own, bringing them both to 14 La Liga goals on the season as joint top-scorers.

With Barcelona desperate to sign Lionel Messi to a longterm deal (his current contract expires in the summer of 2018), the club have reacted quickly to negative statements concerning Messi by their head of sporting relations, Pere Gratacos, by removing him from his post.

On Friday, Gratacos said, “Messi would not be as good without Iniesta, Neymar and co. He’s the best, this is true.”

Goals from Luis Suarez, Neymar and Lionel Messi helped Barcelona overturn a 2-1 deficit and advance to the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey at the expense of Athletic Bilbao, 4-3 on aggregate.

Lionel Messi had given Barcelona hope after striking a gorgeous free kick in the opening leg at the San Mames, but Barcelona still had it all to do against a Bilbao side that showed absolutely no fear against the Spanish giants. 

In a moving and heartfelt article for The Players’ Tribune entitled “Letter to My Younger Self”, Ronaldinho has recounted the remarkable stages of his globetrotting career; from the death of his father as an eight-year-old to the highs of representing the Brazilian national team and winning the Ballon d’Or with Barcelona. 

There's no easy way to say this: someone sawed a statue of Messi in half.

Seriously, a statue of Messi in Buenos Aires was found with the top part missing because someone, or a group of someones, sawed it off.

What does one do with the top half of a Messi statue? I hope they didn't just throw it away. That would be such a waste. I assume they had it mounted on something, but if they haven't done that yet I will be so bold as to suggest they find a horse statue, remove the head and replace it with the top of Messi's statue. CENTAUR MESSI.

The FIFA FIFPro World XI, which doesn't matter but people pretend to care about anyway, was announced at the FIFA Awards Gala, which doesn't matter but people pretend to care about anyway, today.

It was, as it is every year, basically Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manuel Neuer.

Well, and Dani Alves, who played the first part of this year with Barcelona and the second part with Juventus. Here's the full squad:

Goalkeeper

Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich/Germany)

Defenders

Dani Alves (Juventus/Brazil)

Barcelona dropped points to Villarreal on Sunday after a 1-1 draw, but they have Lionel Messi to thank for keeping their fading La Liga title hopes alive. With Villarreal leading 1-0 in the 90th minute, Messi stepped forward to deliver another fantastic free kick.

Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Messi has scored on 12 direct free kicks for club and country, moving him into the upper echelon of dead ball specialists.