La Pulga

So I try to follow soccer as much as possible mostly English, Spanish or the Italian leagues because I’m personally not to big a fan of MLS soccer. Plus its hard to find channels that actually show European soccer.

This week’s blog will be dedicated to the one and only Lionel Messi aka the Little Maestro or the little teacher in english.

Now Messi has several weird nicknames that you wouldn’t understand at first. He also goes by the flea or La Pulga. Its because his small, he harasses defenders and gets under your skin its perfect!

Anyways Lionel Messi is a name almost every soccer player should know. Lionel Messi is a 5’7 striker for FC Barcelona a spanish league team that usually dominates the league. He is small in size but, his talent is equivalent to a giant.

Let me not forget to mention this tiny athlete can score goals!

the footwork is INSANE

All types of goals….

between the legs…

that curve…upper 90… unstoppable

But seriously Messi just scores goal and some wonder how does this guy do it barely 5’7. His not that much bigger than me you would think their would be some big, meaty defenders that would be able to knock this little dude down. The truth is there are big enough guys to do so but his so small that his center of gravity its harder to knock him down.

I know this because I had the same effect when I played soccer. I was so much shorter than everyone that it was harder for bigger people to knock me down.

Essentially what I’m saying is that I was as good as Messi just I wanted to focus on my education…. lol jk jk.

my glory days in soccer…

Anyways back to Messi. Messi recently became the Barcelona’s league leaders in goals with his hat trick (a hat trick is when a player scores 3 goals in a game). His 3 goals against Osasuna propelled Barcelona to a 7-0 victory. Don’t worry I don’t know any Osasuna fans but I’d be embarrassed to be one of those fans. I think this performance only establishes Lionel as one of the greatest to play the game of futbol.

Messi, who has now scored 371 goals, eclipsed the record set by Paulino Alcantara, who scored 369 goals in 357 appearances between 1912-1927. This is ALOT of goals man. It is also the 6th season in a row where Messi has scored at least 30 goals in a season.

Perhaps the most frightening statistic for teams in La Liga (the spanish league that Barcelona) is in is the fact that Messi is only 26 years old.

This only means Messi has many more years to come. His just unstoppable the only person that comes even close in comparison is Cristiano Ronaldo, who I would argue is his biggest rival. In my opinion Lionel is better in terms of scoring but some would argue that Ronaldo is more well rounded. I think I side with Messi because of the height similarity but, I do think Ronaldo wants to be Messi though because he likes to call him out and blow kisses at him.

Ronaldo seems to mouth “Messi” then blows him a kiss… he wants him so bad.

Here is a link to an interesting article via sportsnation.com with a poll of the United states saying who they think is better.

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/10384023/messi-ronaldo

The sportsnation link says Ronaldo is better but this link says from bleacherreport.com says Messi is better from the polls.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1823071-who-is-better-cristiano-ronaldo-or-lionel-messi

In the end both players are amazing but this blog is dedicated to Lionel Messi the master, the flea, or the captain whatever you want to call him. His one of the best to ever play and I hope to one day see him play in person. Also be sure to catch him play with the Argentinian soccer team this summer in the World Cup in Brazil. Viva La Pulga!