Could this be as great as it gets for Lionel Messi? Football

Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent & ,}

It will be remembered as the night Lionel Messi went stratospheric. That was the verb they opted for at AS, the Spanish sports newspaper, and if it carries an import that he is not utterly in the same area as the supposed galácticos of Real Madrid, it is given the Barcelona forwards stellar opening opposite Arsenal defied all logic.

Messi is producing football that seems to go on an additional planet. We live in an age of hyperbole, but it is no deceit to indicate that the universe has not seen anything similar to this given Diego Maradonas heyday.

Stars have shone brightly Marco outpost Basten, Roberto Baggio, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Luís Figo, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo and, on top of all, Zindine Zidane but not similar to this, not utterly similar to the irresistible, mind-blowing form that Messi has demonstrated over the past 3 or 4 weeks.

And that, in a small ways, is the point. Messis opening turn for the past year or so has been unusual in that time he has come to obscure Cristiano Ronaldo as the worlds superb player but it is usually in the past month or so that he has left stratospheric.

Related LinksArsenal left drunken by the small maestroMessi will mount to one side Pele and MaradonaRivaldo, Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Cruyff: were you watching?

He has scored thirteen times in his past eight appearances for Barcelona overwhelming hat-tricks opposite Valencia and Real Zaragoza followed by an overwhelming four-goal explosion opposite Arsenal on Tuesday and such is the peculiarity of his goals, as well as the quantity, it is tantalizing to consternation usually how prolonged it can be sustained.

At a small point over the entrance weeks, Messi will have a stinker, maybe opposite Real on Saturday in el gran clásico or, as it has been dubbed by the ever-downbeat Spanish press, the compare of the millennium or opposite Inter Milan in possibly leg of the Champions League semi-final.

But fluctuations in form are to be expected, even for such a shining player. The bigger issue for Messi is either he can take the outrageous burst from mass to enduring fame a cove that has valid over each player given Maradona, even if Van Basten and Ronaldo, prior to injury, and Zidane have come close.

The long-accepted knowledge is that players rise in in in between the ages of twenty-six and 30, but this is at contingency with an worried being that has started to arise in new years. This mostly ignored materialisation can be seen in the list of winners of the Ballon dOr, which, given 1956, has been presented to the years superb player in European and, latterly, universe football.

Through the initial 4 decades of the history, the award, with a couple of exceptions, went to players in in in between the ages of twenty-seven and 33. But, of the past thirteen winners given 1997, eight together with 4 of the past five have been elderly twenty-six or underneath and usually two, Pavel Nedved in 2003 and Fabio Cannavaro 3 years later, have been over the age of 28.

Top-class football is apropos a immature mans game. Of those childish winners of new years, Ronaldo, Michael Owen and Ronaldinho would attest that the diversion came some-more of course in their youth, when they had the athleticism to frighten opponents.

Of those three, Ronaldinho appearance latest, in in in between the ages of twenty-three and 26, but he looks a prolonged approach over the mountain at 30. Ronaldo and Owen, who had both arguably appearance by the age of 22, can justifiably cite injuries, but that is precisely the point. Who would have illusory at that age that those players, marvellous in their teenagers and early 20s, would have seen their careers flutter afar as they have done?

Messi, 22, has a poignant value in that he is not reliant on gait and does not appear to be exposed to that bizarre Catalan sadness that seemed to corrupt the appetite and the unrestrained out of Rivaldo and Ronaldinho and even Maradona. He appears humble, personification with a grin in contrast, perhaps, to the Cristiano Ronaldo simper but he is not defence to injuries and the twists of predestine that have stopped most a world-class player fulfilling his strong destiny.

Messi might be stratospheric, but, prior to adventurous to place him on the same pedestal as Maradona, we should simply suffer what he is doing. It is an unnerving thought, but experience warns us that this could be as great as it gets.