Revisiting the 2012 Barcelona masterclass that led Wayne Rooney to declare Lionel Messi the GOAT | OneFootball

For many, the debate over football’s greatest ever player ended when Lionel Messi lifted the World Cup in 2022. But Wayne Rooney’s mind was made up a decade before.

The Athletic have recently published a book ranking the 100 greatest footballers in the history of the game, with Messi coming out on top.

Many will continue to debate Pele or Diego Maradona’s place at the summit of the all-timers, but there’s an increasing consensus – particularly for younger generations – that Messi has won the argument.

The World Cup cemented his legacy. The only thing he was missing. He completed football.

The interesting thing is that Messi didn’t need to complete football, rack up eight Ballon d’Ors and every trophy going, becoming the most decorated footballer in history, to be considered football’s GOAT.

It’s not always been about longevity. Nor legacy, or trophies, or anything you can boil down to a few bullet points on a Wikipedia page. Messi arguably wins the vibes race too.

In The Athletic‘s top 100 footballers, the likes of Garrincha, Ronaldo Nazario, George Best and Eusebio all feature in the upper echelons. All achieved extraordinary things in the game, but none of them can claim to have completed football like Messi, nor can they boast either his consistency or longevity.

But all of them have their unquestionably belong among the all-time greats thanks to the football they produced in their pomp.

Listen to a boomer talk wistfully about Best, an old Brazilian describe Garrincha or an elder millennial reminisce about growing up watching the original Ronaldo.

That’s what it’s all about.

Luis Suarez and Robert Lewandowski have scored hundreds of goals and racked up countless major trophies, but neither of them feature in The Athletic‘s 100 golden greats.

For what it’s worth, we’d quibble with that, but neither player – for all they’ve achieved – can hold a candle to those names when it comes to capturing the imagination.

Think of Maradona. His peak was relatively short-lived. He never won a European Cup. Things didn’t work out as expected at Barcelona. His career ended in infamy. But does any of that really matter?

Try to argue he’s not amongst the greatest players in history to anyone who saw him emerge as a force of nature at Boca Juniors, write his name into Napoli folklore, or blow away millions with his legendary individual displays at the 1986 World Cup.

That’s the thing about Messi. He has the great career. The unbelievable stats. An irresistible narrative arc that reached a satisfying conclusion in Qatar.

But he also has the otherworldly peak. The unforgettable moments. The I-remember-exactly-where-I-was games.

It’s for that reason that people were already declaring Messi among the greats when he was in his early twenties.

“I believe we lost against a team that is better than us and that has the best player in the world,” Arsene Wenger told reporters after Messi scored four goals against Arsenal in 2010.

“Once he’s on the run, Messi is unstoppable. He’s the only player who can change direction at such a pace.”

The following year, Wenger declared Messi the greatest footballer in history. The Argentinian was just 23 years of age at the time.

Rooney could only echo Wenger’s sentiment in 2012. Sitting down to watch Barcelona destroy Bayer Leverkusen, Rooney tweeted: “Messi is a joke. For me the best ever.”

At around 21:09 when Rooney posted that, Messi had scored four goals. He’d add a fifth a few minutes later.

“Everyone has different views on Messi and Ronaldo but I have said many times that I think Messi is the best,” Rooney told The Times 10 years later.

“I have watched lots of videos of Diego Maradona, who was a similar player, but Messi is better.

“He has everything, the way he controls games, his dribbling, his assists, whereas Ronaldo is more of a goalscorer.”

After the World Cup final, Rooney revisited his old tweet, quoting it by doubling down: “Nothing has changed. 🤷🏻‍♂️🐐”