On November 16, 2003, La Liga giants, FC Barcelona unleashed to the world a pint-sized Argentine prodigy, named Lionel Messi. Despite being famed for ceaselessly churning super-talented wonder kids off its long conveyor belt, since the Johan Cruyff inspired revolution of 1987-1994, FC Barcelona’s latest product seemed emblazoned with the tag “extraordinary” since inception. Even by the Catalan side’s lofty standards Messi looked extraordinary.
Aside from the enviable record of great success in talent development, FC Barcelona had its fair share of false breakouts. Skeptics could be forgiven for thinking the current flavour of the month, Messi, could be the latest in the long list of football wonder kids who gobbed up acres of exulting media space only to vanish into oblivion as fast as they had come. However, Messi was not going to have any of the usual skepticism hold. At only 20 years, Messi awed the football world when he closely replicated the goal that earned compatriot the legendary Diego Maradona everlasting plaudits (Maradona’s goal would go on to be voted the goal of the century). The wonder goal, climaxing out of a breathtaking 60-metre dribbling run, was enough to put all lingering doubts about Messi’s lofty pedigree to bed.
A legend had been born. Hitherto, Xavi Hernandes and Adreas Iniesta, the club’s mercurial midfield combo, had been the undisputed yardstick of a great La Masia product. Lionel Messi was to break the proverbial glass ceiling at the Camp Nou in style. In Messi’s wake, many records were destined to fall.
True to his class, Messi quickly earned his place in what was then the best attacking trident in European football alongside already established superstars Gaucho Ronaldinho and Samuel Etoo. Still, the best was still to come.
Despite his mercurial rise, one gigantic stumbling block still stood in Messi’s way. At the time, Messi shared the FC Barcelona dressing room with arguably the best entertainer to grace the football pitch in all time—Gaucho Ronaldinho. With a mischievous smile to match, on his day (and his days were often), the buck-toothed Brazilian could move the theater to the football turf. And the fans just loved Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho was such a behemoth that he once received a standing ovation from the opposing terrace at archrivals Real Madrid after single-handedly debilitating the opponents in an El Classico performance for the record books. One of football’s long known realities is that there can only be one idol in the team with the rest forming a supporting cast. At that point Ronaldinho was the undisputed idol and everybody else, leave alone a 17-year-old scheming for superstardom, had to form his supporting cast.
The appointment of Camp Nou legend Pep Guardiola could not have come at a better time in Messi’s career. A protege of Johan Cruyff, Guardiola was single-mindedly bent on reviving the Cruyffian philosophy at FC Barcelona. The best way of reinventing the Catalan side’s fortunes, Guardiola figured, was to utilize players from La Masia, FC Barcelona’s prolific academy—players who had been born and bred in the FC Barcelona tradition. On top of his undeniable talent, Messi had found one fortune that eludes many footballers—a coach who believed in him. The last piece of the jigsaw was now in place.
Inline with Guardiola’s renaissance, other seasoned members of the attacking trident, Ronaldinho and Etoo were swiftly shipped out. Messi emerged as the tactical focal point of the Barcelona team and the new emperor on the throne departed by Ronaldinho. As the cliché goes, the rest is history.
Over the next decade, Messi went on to rewrite every notable existing record at Barcelona, and in the entire club football world—be it for individual accolades or trophies. Hold your breath: Six Ballon d’Or awards, six European Golden Shoes, ten La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles, six Copas del Rey, 638 senior club goals in 718 games,…do we still have space? One would plausibly think the monicker legend no longer does Messi justice.
Though Messi stands heads and shoulders among all the greats at FC Barcelona, other players have attained legendary status before him. Diego Maradona, Gaucho Ronaldinho, Johan Cruyff, Romario, Neymar, Luis Figo, Ronaldo Da Lima…it appears like the Camp Nou is a rite of passage to legendary status!
One way FC Barcelona has consistently excelled where so many other football clubs have failed—sustaining success over many generations—is by managing player transition. A great player is a headache that every team would love to have. However, as we know for a fact, playing careers peak out and gradually decline. More cases than we can count abound where teams hold on to a superstar player way beyond their prime, so long that the player becomes a liability to the team. The genius of effective transition management lies in the ability to conscientiously plan when the superstar player will reach their saleby date and shipping them off with minimal impact to the stability of the team whilst earning a reasonable transfer fee.
Over the years FC Barcelona has perfected the art of transition management. As the superstar players exit their prime, the team almost always will be grooming young players on the fringes ready to fill the boots of the soon-to-depart superstars. The best example is how Messi was gradually eased into the team as heir designate to Ronaldinho. As a result, Ronaldinho’s was easily forgotten upon his departure.
Good transition planning has two significant benefits. First is the obvious fact that when a player whose performance has waned is replaced with a fresh player, it reinvigorates the team. Second, and most important, is to curtail the impact of the undesirable fact that the longer a great player stays in one destination, the more the player builds a cult of dependence—indispensability if you will.
The fact that Messi has built a cult of dependence at the Camp Nou can not be overstated. Messi is Barcelona, and Barcelona is Messi. Period. So much is the aura of invincibility about Messi at Barcelona that he is publicly rumoured to hold veto powers over team selection and potential player transfers. Small wonder Messi had the brazen audacity to engage the club’s sporting director, Eric Abidal, in a public spat. This was unfathomable even at the height of Ronaldinho or any other superstar player’s power at Barcelona.
Make no mistake, on the pitch, Messi is still a top-quality player—if you doubt, just check the statistics. At 33 years, Messi can even still offers 2-3 more seasons of top-quality individual football on the pitch. However, Messi’s continued stay without an exit plan, on top of being disruptive in the short run, can only further derail the club’s succession planning in the long run. The powers that be at the Camp Nou need to realize that there is life after Messi.
Thus far, the biggest drawback from Messi’s excesses at FC Barcelona was the exit of Neymar. Inline with FC Barcelona’s tradition of seamless transitioning from one superstar player to carry the team to another, Neymar would have been the logical successor to Messi—and few would doubt the Brazilian’s ability. However, overshadowed by Messi’s overbearing cult at the Camp Nou, the egocentric Brazilian was frustrated into relocating to Paris.
As it stands now, the only feasible suitor to Messi’s throne within the Barcelona’s hierarchy is 17-year-old Ansu Fati. Having made his debut at an even younger age than Messi, the Spaniard of Guinea-Bissau descent is most plausibly a befitting successor. But to establish himself as the team’s focal player Fati requires, on average, a further 5 years of development—by which time Messi will be clocking 38 years—either retired, or merely a squad player. This is where the catch-22 is!
To mitigate the impact of the lapse in the chain of transition, FC Barcelona will have two plausible options. Either part with a euro 100 million-plus transfer kitty and sign an established superstar, or build a competitive cohesive team with no particular outstanding go-to superstar focal player.
From recent experience, the first option has not proven a sensible option for FC Barcelona. The signing of Phillipe Coutinho at euro 145 million, Ousmane Dembele at euro 125 million, and Antoine Griezmann at euro 120 million, followed by underwhelming displays, should be embarrassing enough for anyone conducting transfer business at the Camp Nou to contemplate going down a similar route in the near future.
The second option seems more plausible. One need not look far for success stories under this model. The best example is the Real Madrid team after Christiano Ronaldo’s exit. Save for acrimony in the dugout, Los Blancos has been a better functional unit in the absence of Ronaldo’s overbearing figure. Unlike during King Ronaldo’s reign when the entire team seemed to delegate the goal scoring responsibility to their lead marksman, the current Real Madrid team has effectively shared the goal scoring burden resulting into a more cohesive, and potentially successful—I dare add—unit. Moreover, exciting young players, notably Rodrygo Silva de Goes and Vinícius Júnior, have emerged from the shadows. Small wonder Los Blancos sits atop the La Liga table standings this term, with a superior head-to-head record against Messi’s FC Barcelona.
Messi has been a colossus at Barcelona. No dispute. His achievements place him close to the immortal. However, the powers-that-be at the Camp Nou seem to have taken Messi’s perceived immortality very literally and neglected to put in place a proper succession plan.
Arsenal Zealot 