CURIOUSLY, for such a knowledgeable student of the game, Neil Lennon had never set eyes on the greatest footballer in the world until three nights ago.
Sure, he knew Lionel Messi's game inside out having savoured his play for years, like everyone else, as a television viewer of Barcelona and Argentina games. However, only on Saturday night did he actually see the great wee fella in the flesh.
Lennon flew to Spain to take in Barcelona's 5-4 away win over Deportivo la Coruna, in which Messi scored his first hat trick of the season and the 21st of his Barcelona career. Ominously for Celtic, and everyone else in the competition, he has 53 goals in 70 Champions League games, 269 goals in 332 club appearances, and 31 in 75 for his country. One other number: 25, his age.
The Celtic manager enjoyed the privilege of watching Messi and yesterday, having arrived in the striker's adopted city, he gave a typically articulate assessment of what he must now try to do to stop him.
If it sounded as if he was describing a lost cause at times, that was only because Lennon's analysis of football is always underpinned by unsentimental realism. "It was funny watching Messi the other night because he basically made the two [Deportivo] centre-halves redundant. He just walks around as the ball is being popped about and lets everyone else deal with it. Then, all of a sudden, he comes alive. He just has that burst of pace to get away from people and cause problems. One minute he looks as if he's not interested, the next thing he'll drop a shoulder and he's away.
"So my centre-halves will have to be so mindful not just of the threat Messi brings but also players around him. You can talk about them all night and how you would go about stopping them but they come at you in such a variety of ways that it's near enough impossible.
"If you took Messi out of that team, it would take away a huge amount of goals. He is a phenomenal goalscorer with a huge amount of assists, as well. If you lose him you probably lose, in my opinion, the greatest player ever. You can argue about that all you want but from what I've seen over the years he has everything you could ask for. Take his goals the other night against Deportivo: left foot, right foot, left foot. And he hit the post with a 30-yard free-kick. The guy can do everything."
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