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The passing of the guard is a rare thing to appreciate as it happens. Sure, people love to say, “we are watching a passing of the guard,” but even if they are correct, it still takes months, sometimes years to complete. What we see from a 19-year-old Messi in this next video is a performance that happened in the middle of such a passing: the transition of Barcelona from Ronaldinho’s team to Messi’s team. In it we watch Messi score a hat-trick against Real Madrid at the age of 19, a performance that showed the world that the hype was real.
This match happened at a very interesting time. It was March, 2007. Barcelona and Real Madrid had both recently been knocked out of European competition, and their meeting was being billed as an inevitable let down. Real Madrid would win the league with only 76 points. Barcelona wouldn’t win anything of note. In a little over a year, both clubs would change managers and transfer or sign 25 players in total, which would end up including a Barcelona exit for Ronaldinho. It was about as close to a rebuilding period that either club has had.
In retrospect, how each team would emerge from this period is foreshadowed by March 2007’s El Clasico. It ended up being a resounding competition, both teams fought hard and gave the world a game worthy of the name “El Clasico,” but at the end of the day Barcelona had Lionel Messi, and that was enough to counteract whatever Real Madrid could muster.
Today, we see that the rebuilding period was a success for both teams. Real Madrid and Barcelona have both resumed their places at the top of world soccer. Real Madrid has brought in a progression of stars, the biggest in the world, but they have not been able top the success Barcelona and Lionel Messi have had in the same period of time.
Photo: @fcbarcelona9kw | Twitter
Next year will be the 10th anniversary of this game, and it will be amazing to reflect on how far Messi has progressed in that period. Now, he is arguably the greatest player of all time. Back then, he was a 19-year-old making a name for himself; there were people who still believed that he might not ever make it to the top, or that he would flame out and become mediocre. Messi, mediocre, think about that.
We of course know how ridiculous that is now, but it is humbling to remember that the hype around Messi wasn’t always known to be real.
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