Leo Messi

Watching Michelangelo

If you didn't see the Man City tie with Barca, go find the two legs on foxsoccer2go.com or the app by the same name.  Two terrific matches.  One player who simply towers above the rest:

A measure of Messi's greatness is that he makes world class players like Aguero and Suarez look distinctly ordinary by comparison.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) March 18, 2015

Even the commentators said very softly at one point (as one of their undoubtedly beloved English clubs was being shredded) something to the effect of "just sit and enjoy him."

Just to add my two cents, here's a heat map of Messi's first 400 professional goals:

For all the goals, and all the glory, it's remarkable how concentrated even an all-time-great's goals are.  Of the 41 free play goals scored in zone 13, all but two or three were struck from the arc (22 yards from goal) or less and none were wider than the 6 yard area (central 22 yards).  He's great, in part, because he has the ability to get to these areas with the ball over and over and over.  Either by running without the ball in ways that his teammates can find him, or by carrying the ball ever so cleverly into those spaces...so simple, but as with all true genius, it is the very simplicity that belies the gifts.

Oh, and yeah, if Messi is shut out in a game, as City managed to do in the second leg...he'll just pick up the game-winning assist: