It is incredibly hard for an individual player to have an affect on a soccer match. The game is comprised of 22 players that at any one time could be making more of an impact than any one player. There could be a defensive battle on the left side of the field that renders the right winger a spectator. The left-back in a defense could be such a defensive liability that the opposing attack choses to go nowhere else but through him, leaving the corresponding right back to do little more than mark space in solitude. A goalkeeper could find himself in a sea of grass and frustration as the rest of his team absolutely dominates possession, but fails to score. Soccer will always be about what the team can do, not the individual.
That is why the most sought after attribute in any player is their ability to make the team better. For most players in any league this comes down to how their skills contribute: they might be especially good in possession, and thus be able to make the team better in terms of retaining the ball when it clearly needs help doing so. Those kinds of examples, specific skills that contribute, are almost too numerable to name. There is, however, one ability that trumps all. Though, calling it a single ability doesn’t do it justice because it involves be able to do anything that a team needs as well as an understanding of when the team needs it. That’s why this ability is nothing less than the trademark of the greatest players to ever play the game. It is the ability to make everyone around them better. It sounds simple but it is not.
In order to make everyone around them better a player must have such a deep understanding of their teammates’ abilities, such a thorough command of their own, that they always know what to do. A defender might not like receiving the ball in a tight situation, so this special player will only pass it to them when they are in space. A forward might like to finish with his feet but not his head, so this special player will cross the ball to them on the ground and never in the air. And, as is often the case, no one on their team will be able to score, so this special player will put themselves in a position to do so, accepting the responsibility and the pressure of being the team’s lone goal-threat. Because of all this, the special player is often the best player on the team by a wide margin.
When it comes to a team like FC Barcelona, to have a special player such as this truly means a great deal. With the amount of talent spread across its roster, Barcelona could be broken up and 5 of its players could go on to be the best player on almost any other team in the world: Neymar Jr, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta, Gerrard Pique, and of course Lionel Messi. One player, of course, already does that. His name is Lionel Messi, and according to Neymar, he is so great a player that even on FC Barcelona he stands alone as the most special.
"When the best plays, everyone ends up playing better. Messi gives something extra to Barça, we know he makes the difference.”
Neymar is saying that Messi is the player that makes everyone play better, that he makes the difference, and he said it after Barcelona’s 2-1 comeback victory over Atletico Madrid: a game in which it was his free kick, his individual brilliance that started the comeback.
After that game he had just as much a right as any player on the team to take ownership of his performance — he started the comeback — but he chose to single out Messi’s influence, Messi’s ability to make everyone play better. He did so because Messi is FC Barcelona’s special player, the one so much better than everyone else, yet at the same time so understanding of everyone else, that he makes everyone better.
A lot has been said about what Lionel Messi brings to a soccer match. People have gone into in-depth statistical analyses of his game and argued that he is impossibly good at everything. A journalist compared him to a dog in a way that made him seem not only adorable but admirable boarding on mythical. The internet regularly describes him as the greatest player on earth at the expense of anyone that dares cross his path. Much has been said, but rarely it is said by anyone who has actually played with Messi.
As it turns out, for them there is only one simple thing to say: Messi is the best in the world.
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