Ah, So Barcelona Do Need Lionel Messi After All

After over a decade of being lauded as arguably the greatest player ever and being treated like a god by his adoring fans, it’s been a strange couple of months in the life of Lionel Messi.

After a summer of turmoil in which the Argentine magician looked set to do the unthinkable and leave Camp Nou, Messi’s performances in the early part of the 2020/21 have clearly suffered.

Six games into the La Liga season and the Barcelona talisman had just an opening day penalty to his name prior to his side’s clash with Real Betis on Saturday, with Ronald Koeman opting to take his misfiring superstar out of the firing line for the clash with Betis as he was dropped to the bench.

With the six-time Ballon d’Or winner watching on, Barcelona produced a solid if not spectacular performance against Manuel Pellegrini men, with Ousmane Dembele and Ansu Fati in particular showcasing their talents in the absence of their usual matchwinner.

However, as good as Koeman’s widemen were, the lack of quality in front of goal was staggering. Antoine Griezmann spurned a hatful of chances – including a penalty – and left the field at the interval without a goal to his name when in truth he could have had a hat-trick – at least!

To make matters worse, Betis levelled the scoring with the last kick of the half, and with the prospect of yet more dropped points in the offing, Koeman did what every manager in the world has wanted to do in their time of need – he looked to Messi.

The Argentina international produced one of the best halves of football you are ever likely to see, immediately carving open the Betis backline and allowing Griezmann to restore the home side’s lead.

What’s perhaps even more impressive about Messi’s role in Barcelona’s second of the game is that he didn’t even touch the ball.

As Jordi Alba advanced down the left-hand side, Messi made an instinctive run towards the near post, with the visitors’ backline utterly transfixed on not allowing him chance to gather the ball. However, with two Betis players following him, the little magician somehow had the presence of mind to know Griezmann was behind him, and he simply stepped over the ball allowing the Frenchman to slot home.

It was one of those moments where you watch it and still have no idea what happened. Did he always intend to do that? How did he know he was there? All we know is it was pure brilliance.

Messi continued to run the Betis defence ragged, with Pellegrini’s back four unable to contend with his movement and guile.

When the home side were awarded yet another penalty - following Griezmann’s first-half horror show - the Barcelona captain stepped up and rifled the ball into the top corner, before doing so yet again with just ten minutes to play.

All that was left for the maestro to do was to complete his hat-trick – which he did, only to be cruelly denied by the flag of the linesman, with replays showing he was well onside. Though to be fair, there’s not enough paper in the world for the amount of headlines that would have been written about the greatest player ever officially being BACK. Probably best to keep it to a modest brace for now.

It was a masterclass. A footballing lesson. The sort of performance that even sat in your front room watching you wanted to stand up and applaud.

And some people think Messi is finished and that Barcelona don’t need him…next time you've got a spare 45 minutes, go and watch that second-half performance, then try and tell us that.