Best performance from Lionel Messi throughout the year!

Top 10 Best performances by Lionel Messi for Barcelona!

Lionel Messi, 6 times Ballon D'or winner, is undoubtedly the best Footballer on Earth. He has produced numerous fine performances over the year, thus choosing his top 10 performances is a kind of sin. Talking about a goal Messi himself said, "I’ve always measured my goals by the importance of them, not for the beauty. This was a very good goal but I have scored many others that have been more important to my teams."

10. Barcelona 7-1 Bayer Leverkusen (07/03/12).

  5 goals in a Champions League game, yes 5 goals, Lionel Messi became the first player to have scored 5 goals in a Champions League game. He kept chipping away with goals, well literally, he scored 2 goals with a dink/chip over the goalkeeper. Barcelona went on to win the game 7-1. A hat trick within the first 49 minutes of play at the Camp Nou. This marked the first time in Champions League history that a single player had accounted for so many scores in a single game.

9. Barcelona 3-0 Athletic - Copa del Rey Final (30/05/2015).

  This match ended 3-0, with Messi Scoring 2 goals. Barcelona's tactics for this game was fairly simple, Messi played at Right Wing as he normally does and then from there he mostly dropped into the midfield creating. This caused an imbalance in athletic midfield, he kept 2 or 3 Midfielders busy which left spaces vacant for others. When he stayed in the Right-Wing Position, he took on his markers, which lead to a brilliant 1st goal. The other was a well-drilled team goal finished off by Messi.

8. Barcelona 3-2 Real Madrid ( 23/04/2017) - El Classico.

        This game was an iconic El Classico game played at Santiago Bernabeu. Struggling to replicate Real Madrid's success in the Champions League Messi had a point to prove. With Barcelona being 1 down and blood pouring out of Messi's nose, he took on the ball at the 32nd minute near the midfield and then marched towards the goal, passing his way there before dribbling past the defenders to Score. Again at the 91st minute, the score was 2-2, Jordi Alba out wide played a cut back towards the edge of the penalty area, where Messi arrived to score the winner. Dramatic.

7. Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal FC ( 06/04/2010 ) - UEFA Champions League Round of 16.

   In this game, Messi played as a pure No. 10. He used his dribbling to tease and then torment the Arsenal's defense. Nutmegs, skips, and fast feet movement of Messi allowed him to score 4 goals. A game that still haunts Arsenal's defenders to this date.‘He has made the impossible possible,’ gushed Wenger before comparing him to a computer-generated figure on PlayStation.

6. Barcelona 2-0 Real Madrid ( 27/04/2011) - UEFA Champions League semi-final.

Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid was ready for Messi and their arch-rivals Barcelona but Messi had other plans. Messi was deployed as a midfielder to occupy the half-spaces. The first goal was scored by Barcelona due to the brilliant combinational play of Messi and David Villa.

The second however was pure magic by Messi. Commentators during the goal couldn't stop cherishing about him - "Away from 1, 2, 3, 4, oh wonderful wonderful wonderful, how good is he? How good is he?". It was truly a supernatural goal scored by Messi.

5. Barcelona 4-0 Bayern Munich ( 08/04/2009) - UEFA Champions League Quater-Final 1st Leg.

In this game, Messi started at Right Wing along with Henry and Samuel Eto'o as the front three. This match ended with a scoreline of 4-0 to Barcelona with Messi scoring 2 and assisting 1 goal. The second leg was a draw 1-1 and Barcelona ultimately progressed through.

4. Barcelona 2-0 Manchester United ( 27/05/09) - UEFA Champions League Final.

This match isn't about how many Messi scored but how well he played. Messi scored just the one goal but its gratitude was enormous. He ran Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, two of the best defenders of their time, in circles. At the 70th minute mark, Messi found space in between the defenders, he leaped up and scored a fine headed goal. Barcelona won the Champions League Final 2-0 courtesy of some great display by Messi.

3. Barcelona 6-2 Real Madrid ( 02/05/2009 ) - El Classico at Santiago Bernabeu.

Most of the Barcelona fans and Football fanatics would be familiar with the scoreline and the tactical aspect of this game. This was the famous false 9 - Messi game which made Football tacticians go berserk. The tactical analysis of this game was everywhere the next day. But the history before the game was important too. Real Madrid had picked up pace in the league, will the last 18 games with only 1 draw from 19, and was just 1 point behind Barca with just 5 games remain in the season. It was a real test of character for both the teams.

Messi playing at the center constantly dropped deep connection to the midfield. This move constantly created doubt in the minds of the defenders as to either stay in there place causing overload in midfield for Barca or follow him leaving space wide open behind him. All the Barcelona goals were a direct cause of Messi's Positional play and the confusion created by it. The game ended 6-2 with Messi scoring 2 and assisting 1 with numerous key passes.

2. Barcelona vs Bayern Munich (05 /05/ 2015) - Champions League Semi-final.

2014/15 Champions League Semi-Final, another big stage, and the big match player stepped up again. Bayern Munich came with a mindset to defend, they kept resisting Barcelona's attack with intent. With 77 minutes already gone something had to be done. Messi scored the much-needed opener with a fabulous strike from outside the box. Soon after breaking Bayern's Resistance, Messi again decided to produce another moment of magic, scoring the second for Barca at the 80th-minute mark. He wrong-footed Boateng, leaving him red-faced on the ground. He even ended the game by assisting Neymar with a goal at the 90th-minute mark.

1. Barcelona 3-3 Real Madrid ( 10/03/2007 ) - El Classico La Liga game.

     Unlike most of the other matches on this list, this game had little significance for Barcelona. Real Madrid were the runaway leaders and Barca realistically had no chance of stopping them from winning the league. Barca didn't even win the game as the game ended 3-3 but this game was the start of a new era in Football. The 19-year-old Messi announced himself to the world in some style. This game showed everyone that Lionel Messi wasn't just a promising young talent but had the ability to win matches on his own.

    Just like the league, Madrid dominated the game. Real Madrid went ahead 3 times but each time Lionel Messi dragged it back for Barca. He scored in the 11th minute making it 1-1 then again at 25th minute he made it 2-2. With the game poised at 3-2, Lionel Messi picked up the ball and dribbled past a group of defenders to score an absolute beauty in the extra time. It was probably the most important performance Messi has ever produced.


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How Barcelona Lost Its Way

Barcelona could decline and become “the new AC Milan”

Started the decade with a Champions league final, top of club football. Playing attractive football, promoting players from La Masia. Proper way a club should be administered--this Barcelona team was winning machine, year in year out -- they would produce football that would leave fans speechless and opposition manager scratching their heads to break this team down. Not even Sir Alex Ferguson nor Jose Mourinho could do it, they did manage to win against Barca but it wasn't  pretty. Fast forward ten years everything has changed, buying players for hefty fees, youth player leaving for first team opportunities. Where did it go wrong for Barcelona?

Barcelona's crisis has been escalating at an alarming rate. La Liga and the Copa del Rey had become Barca's default, their domestic dominance taken for granted and then diminished by disappointment in Europe. Just over a year on from almost winning the treble, Barcelona  finished without a trophy of any kind for the first time in 12 years. And yet the concern is not so much the many failures of this season but the possibility they could be just the start. The board whose leadership has left Barcelona with a team seemingly neither for the present nor the future.

Rome was bad, in 2018. Barcelona had won the first leg of that quarterfinal easily, by 4-1 at Camp Nou. Few gave Roma much of a chance in the return: a chance to restore a bit of pride, maybe. But Barcelona collapsed, losing by 3-0. Anfield was worse, in 2019. Messi had been as good as his word. Barcelona had cruised to the semifinals this time, and had dismantled Liverpool on Catalan soil. Arturo Vidal, the grizzled Chilean midfielder, had promised to make a particularly personal donation to science if Barcelona did not make the final. Trent Alexander-Arnold took a corner quickly, and Barcelona buckled and broke. But this? This was something else entirely. “The bottom,” was how Gerard Piqué, almost teary, put it. The mighty Barcelona, the Barcelona of Messi and Busquets and Piqué and Suárez, in a Champions League quarterfinal conceded eight goals. It was unthinkable, unfathomable, unbearable. It was as low as they could fall. “The bottom,” was how Gerard Piqué, almost teary, put it.

This was a brutal, ruthless, surgical exposure of all that is wrong with Barcelona. There is no need to reel through that long list — the dreadful recruitment, the total absence of planning, the boardroom infighting, the negligent squandering of a legacy — but, in the space of 90 minutes on Friday, Bayern Munich laid it all bare. This is not a team that can play as it wants to, as it is meant to. It is a team that has come to the end of its line, as even Piqué alluded to afterward, when he admitted that even he will have to leave, if that is what is best for the club. It is not a team that can compete with the finest clubs in Europe any more. It should have realized that at Anfield, really, but it cannot ignore it now. It is a team that needs to be broken up. Coutinho was supposed to replace Andrés Iniesta, just as Arthur Melo was supposed to replace Xavi. Neymar, the man who would play alongside and eventually replace Messi, should be taking the lead now. But he became impatient and Barcelona were powerless to prevent him leaving in 2017. They have become locked in a spiral of loss and nostalgia ever since, desperate to make amends to the point where they tried to bring him back again but did not have the money.

Problems dominate everything, so many they cannot fit on this page.

The current incarnation of Barcelona dates to 2003 and the election of the charismatic, ambitious outsider Joan Laporta as president. He had the air, back then, of a Catalan Kennedy. He saw a need to drag the club forward. He encouraged his subordinates to come up with ideas to increase Barcelona’s flagging revenues. He wanted the team to reflect the place: not just by building the team around the talent flowering at La Masia, the club’s academy. Barcelona has continued to act in that spirit, even as the faces in charge of the club have changed. Laporta was deposed in 2010, and his successor, his onetime protégé Rosell, resigned in disgrace after he was accused of financial crimes in 2014. But in 2017 the club started an innovation hub, with the stated aim of becoming the Silicon Valley of soccer. And in 2018 it laid claim to being the first sports team to surpass $1 billion in revenue. Barcelona, slowly, made the leap from sports team to business. 

When Sandro Rosell stepped down as Barcelona president, some fans were thrilled. It signified the beginning of an honest, organized board.  But how wrong were they? It gets worse from there the board can't hide behind anything. Barcelona are falling apart, but it doesn't bother Bartomeu. Josep Maria Bartomeu asked four of his directors to resign because he didn't feel like he could trust them. Emili Rousaud was the next target, having only been appointed vice-president at the turn of the year and was originally viewed as Bartomeu's successor. There were calls for Bartomeu to resign at the Camp Nou which, luckily for the president, have been halted by football's suspension due to the coronavirus crisis. Bartomeu's aim is to stay in power until the end of his term in June 2021 and, now his distrusted directors are gone, he has the board under control.

If action's are not taken accordingly this maybe a long way for Barcelona to reach the glory days. Without proper leader at the helm, club already looks clueless in transfer-market. With no plan or strategy , they might end up like AC Milan or Manchester United. 

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As big as it gets: Two European powerhouse go head to head

Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich: How Messi, Barca ended up Champions League underdogs, How will Champions League fixture play out tonight?

Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona in the Champions League. Has any game epitomized the elite world of football any better than a match between Die Roten and the Blaugrana? The clubs have met eight times before in the grandest stage of European football, each meeting a classic. History favors Bayern, as they have won six of these meetings while Barca has only won two. However, both teams have their fair share of accomplishments.

Why are Barcelona the underdog?

It's quite simple, really. Barca have been inconsistent since play resumed in June while Bayern have been the strongest team in the world, which obviously makes them the favorite. Forget that Bayern have won 19 games in a row -- they are actually unbeaten in their last 24 games and are conceding 0.54 goals per game while scoring 65 goals in those games. They've been dominant, have blown opponents out of the water and are arguably the strongest team left standing. While Bayern have been perfect, Barca have lost to Osasuna and drawn Celta Vigo down the stretch to concede the league title to their bitter rivals. Bayern can break you down if you play fantastic defense, but if you give them space, they will ruthlessly hurt you. Barca must be careful.

What must Barca do to beat them?

Defensively, Barca have to be very cautious because Bayern can beat you in a variety of ways. Keeping shape, staying compact defensively and tracking runners will be crucial. Just look at the positioning of Jordi Alba here in the 3-1 win over Napoli last week in the round of 16 second leg. Do that against Bayern, and they will exploit it. He's in the red circle, and the blue circle is where he should be.

But of course, you can't win if you don't score. Barca should feel confident in seeing a good bit of the ball, but it won't come easy. While Lionel Messi has the magic to turn a game on its head at any moment, chances are something else will have to give. Be it an unexpected, strong showing from Antoine Griezmann or Luis Suarez playing like it's 2016, who will step up alongside Messi? For that to even matter, the defense must come to play. It's hard to envision a Barca team having to focus on defense first, but Bayern posses more of a threat than any team Quique Setien's team has faced this season. Barca will get their chances, and they'll get forward to impose their will, but Bayern will probably get more opportunities, and Barca's defense has to be perfect. Barca have to limit mistakes and play with caution to have any chance of moving on.

PREVIEW

The only two previous winners of either the Champions League or European Cup still left in this year’s competition are Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Both have been crowned champions of Europe five times and they face off at the Estadio da Luz in Friday’s hotly-anticipated quarter-final.After a disappointing 1-1 draw with Napoli in the first leg of the last-16 tie Barcelona were able to show their class with a 3-1 win in the second leg last week, thanks to a goal and an assist from their talisman. However with a trophy-less season looming, rumours suggest that defeat to Bayern Munich on Friday could be the final nail in the coffin for Setién.

The first part of Bayern Munich’s 2019/20 season followed much of the same pattern as the Blaugrana's. The Bavarians picked up the DFB-Pokal in their last competitive game of the season with a 4-2 victory over Bayer Leverkusen and are now just three matches away from the treble. Barcelona are currently the only club to have won two European trebles but Bayern could draw level with them if Flick can match the feat of Jupp Heynckes’ 2012/13 side.Central to their chances is the form of Robert Lewandowski, who was a losing Champions League finalist for Borussia Dortmund in 2013. The Polish striker is playing the best football of his life at the age of 31 and has an incredible Champions League record this campaign. He has scored 13 goals in just 7 games to leave him four short of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 2013/14 record for most goals in a single Champions League season. With three goals and four assists against Chelsea in the last round he was involved in all seven of Bayern’s goals and he has looked unplayable at times this year.

The two sides with most European pedigree come head-to-head on Friday and history suggests that the winner has a good chance of being crowned champions of Europe again. They met in the quarter-finals in 2008/09 and in the semi-finals in 2012/13 and 2014/15. On each of those occasions, the victor has gone on to lift the trophy.

Injuries and suspensions

Barcelona

Barcelona were without midfielders Sergio Busquets and Arturo Vidal for their second leg match against Napoli but both should be available for selection against Bayern, with the former very likely to start. Samuel Umtiti has definitely been ruled out due to a knee injury while Ousmane Dembele faces a race against time to be fit enough for a place on the bench. Martin Braithwaite was left out of Setién’s Champions League squad list so will not feature.

Barcelona Champions League form: W-W-W-L-W-W

Barcelona form (all competitions): W-D-W-W-D-W

Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich have been boosted by the return to training of Kingsley Coman and Jerome Boateng, who both missed last weekend’s win over Chelsea. Boateng will almost certainly return to the heart of the defence alongside David Alaba, while Coman will compete with Ivan Perisic for a place on the left of Bayern’s attack. Benjamin Pavard is out of this game due to a ligament injury but Bayern hope to have him fit to play some part in their Champions League campaign, should they progress past Barcelona.

Bayern Munich Champions League form: W-W-W-W-W-W

Bayern Munich form (all competitions): W-W-W-W-W-W

 Prediction : Barcelona 1-2 Bayern Munich 

This is an incredibly difficult match to call for a number of reasons, and a lot will depend on how both teams cope with the newly-structured competition. Both managers will feel that they can cause problems in the final third, but Bayern's form is staggering - unbeaten in all competitions since early December  and I am finding it difficult to back against Hansi Flick's side, ultimately backing them to record a 2-1 success. Lionel Messi has proved too much for Bayern to handle in the past but it is an enormous ask for him to turn the tie in Barcelona’s favour. Bayern remain the logical choice, but with Messi there is always a chance.

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La Liga season review

In review: The 2019/20 LaLiga Santander season

And in the end, the race ends, the marathon reaches its finish line and the curtains close easily.  After 38 matchdays in La Liga, the final curtains were closed in style and left people wanting craving more action.The best league in the world for many fans finished on July 19, 2020 with emphatic wins, a close relegation battle and a surprising race for Europe. It is true, the title was sealed on the penultimate matchday, but the title race was exciting and the two clubs in it, Barcelona and Real Madrid, made the league enjoyable enough to keep both sets of fans watching the two clubs religiously. Los Blancos overcoming their rivals with a game to spare, ultimately finishing with 87 points  five more than FC Barcelona’s 82.The three-month hiatus of competition because of the coronavirus pandemic is the first event that springs to mind, but there was so much more.Barcelona were top of LaLiga Santander when Ernesto Valverde was sacked as head coach on January 13.The decision was made after the defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Supercopa de Espana, with Quique Setien coming in to replace him.Just not much from the season’s three most expensive signings, João Félix, Antoine Griezmann and Eden Hazard. And even less from Luka Jovic, the fourth. Talking of Europe, this year’s race was sensational, but after the COVID–19 outbreak, some teams lost pace in the race and fell off. So, in a deep review of this La Liga season, the following part will be a summary of the best and the worst of the 2019/20.

The sentencing of Catalan politicians caused tensions to rise so high in and around Barcelona that the first Clasico of the season was postponed.Real Madrid's trip to the Camp Nou on October 26 was pushed back until December 18 in an unprecedented move.

After beating Barcelona 2-0 in El Clasico in early March, Los Blancos appeared to be in the driving seat for this season’s league title. However, their 1-2 defeat at the hands of Real Betis gave the Blaugrana a two-point lead, which they couldn’t hold on to. Quique Setien’s men failed to overcome the likes of Sevilla, Celta Vigo and Atletico Madrid, games which cost them points and handed the advantage back to Real Madrid.For their part, Zinedine Zidane’s team embarked on a 10-game winning streak, often picking up points by narrow 1-0 victories. Despite claims of VAR coming to their rescue, the All Whites didn’t let their critics distract them one bit.For Real Madrid, this was their first title since 2016/17 and a record 34th in club history. It’ll have made Zinedine Zidane especially happy as the French coach has consistently spoken about how he believes LaLiga Santander is the most difficult league in the world and about how there is so much value in being the best team over a 38-match competition. As he said after mathematically securing the title: “the Champions League is the Champions League, but this title makes me happier because LaLiga is what it’s all about.”

 After all these years, we didn’t think Lionel Messi could do anything we haven’t seen from him before. And we were wrong.For the first time ever, the Argentina racked up over 20 goals AND over 20 assists in a LaLiga season. No player in Spain’s top flight even came close to his tally of 25 goals or his 21 assists.Now 33, even Messi’s heroics can’t make Barcelona the most feared team on the planet. But that doesn’t make his performances less impressive.This Barcelona team is old. Really old.Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez are 33 and were the only players to score more than nine LaLiga goals this season. In fact, only 29 of Barcelona’s 86 league goals in 2019/20 were scored by players under the age of 30 and nine of those were from 29-year-old Antoine Griezmann. Adding Miralem Pjanić, 30, for Arthur, 23, seems an odd deal from the outside.Where is the next generation? What will Barcelona look like two years from now?  If they’re not careful, this could just be the start of a long decline.

Atletico Madrid won seven of their 11 games after the league’s restart to rise up to third on the table, a far cry from the sixth place, where they were before the break. Sevilla FC love the Europa League and have won it more times than any other club in history (5). Even so, this season they’ve managed to displace Valencia – who’d finished fourth in the last two seasons – and nab the fourth and final Champions League spot for next season.In the first season back for sporting director Monchi and a debut season for coach Julen Lopetegui, they’ve ensured they’ll join Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid in UEFA’s elite competition in 2020/21.

Having won just five matches all season, Espanyol became the first team to get relegated from La Liga after securing European football the season before. They changed four coached throughout the campaign and will have to reinvent themselves in the second tier now. Elsewhere, Real Mallorca will also bid adieu to La Liga, after having secured promotion in the 2018-19 season. But they failed to make any sort of impact upon their return to top-flight. Leganes, meanwhile, became the third and final side to be relegated to the Segunda Division, having won just eight matches, and a staggering 12 draws, falling just one point short of safety. 

For the first time in their 89-year history, Granada have qualified for Europe and will now enter the second qualifying round of the Europa League. Their achievement becomes all the more impressive when taking into account the fact that they achieved promotion to La Liga in 2018-19 season itself, and finished higher than Osasuna this term, who had won the Segunda Division last season.

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