Lionel Messi, better known as “Messi”, was in India from December 13, 2025, to December 15, 25. He came, he saw thousands of fans in the stadiums in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi and was seen by tens of thousands, not all of them “fans” though, on the television screens across the country. As for conquering, it was really a case of re-conquering, since he had already conquered the football lovers in this country before he set foot here.
I propose writing a few lines about Messi to introduce him, although he needs no introduction. In this context, I am reminded of the meeting of Pele, the great football legend, with President Ronald Regan. It is said that the President introduced himself to Pele by saying, “Good to meet you. I’m the President of the United States”, and before Pele could say anything, he continued, “you don’t have to tell me who you are – I know you’re Pele, everybody knows!”
Maradona, one of the greatest footballers of all time, said of Messi, “The ball stays glued to his foot: I’ve seen great players in my career, but I have never seen anyone with Messi’s ball control.” Said Paul McVeigh, former Tottenham Hotspur player, “Lionel Messi is a one-off, a genius, probably the best player the world has ever seen…”. The eminent Uruguayan writer, who arguably has written the most creative and readable book on World Cup football, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow”, says this of the unassuming nature of Messi: “I like Messi because he doesn’t think he is Messi.”
On a different note, the tissues Messi used to dry his eyes at his farewell press conference at Barcelona, when he left FC Barcelona, where twenty-one years, improving his skills and perfecting his game, were put up for sale for $1 million. I do not know where the tissues landed, if at all, and for what price. Now, given this, it is quite understandable that in Kolkata, many fans bought tickets for the Messi event at the Salt Lake Stadium, spending between five and sixteen thousand rupees, as said. The cost of having a selfie with the great man was, reportedly, ten lakh rupees. Now, how many paid that amount, ordinary mortals like me are not privileged to know.
Much has been written about the fiasco in Kolkata and the resounding success of the Messi events in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. Let us not repeat what has been said about them. Let’s instead talk about a couple of things about the “G.O.A.T. tour of India 2025”. We must note that there was no dissenting voice about the tour. People were looking forward to it, especially in the cities he was to visit.
After the tour was over, shooter Abhinav Bindra observed that sports in the country would have benefitted a great deal had “even a fraction of that …investment had been directed toward the foundations of sports in our country.” One hopes Mr Satadru Dutta and the other organizers of the tour consider Bindra’s reasonable observation seriously.
The legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar blamed Messi in no uncertain terms for the chaos in the Salt Lake Stadium. He observed that people blamed the organizers, not Messi, for the chaos in the stadium. He asserted that Messi should also be blamed. By leaving the stadium merely some twenty minutes after his arrival, he sorely disappointed his fans. But what he misses out is that leaving the stadium that early was not Messi’s choice, but the organizers’ of his tour. In our opinion, they did no wrong because the crowd was already becoming restive, and the situation was threatening to worsen fast.
The problem with the tour of that truly exceptional footballer was that there was no football in it. For the tour, the man was important; his work was not; when it was his work that had given him the status of a global celebrity. One could argue that people had already seen his work on television, which was why they were willing to pay that amount of money to see him. Therefore, there was no need for them to see his work at that time. But by the same logic, people had seen him on television when they were watching him play, so was there a need to see him? Wouldn’t people have liked it more to see him play rather than merely see him? The organizers surely had thought otherwise. But in our opinion, the tour encouraged meaningless hero worship.
There could have been four “exhibition” or test football matches at the four venues, each of sixty minutes’ duration, or even fifty. The reigning ISL Champions could have been one of the two teams, and the other could have been a Rest Eleven team, comprising players from the other teams playing in that edition of ISL. Messi could have joined one team, and Luis Suarez, popularly known as Suarez, and Rodrigo De Paul, brilliant footballers, the other. It would have been a learning experience for the Indian players in these teams. We would have loved to see Messi and his teammates at Inter Miami play. That would have been a treat for our eyes.
(The views expressed are the writer’s own)
Prof. B.N.Patnaik
Retd. Professor of Linguistics and English, IIT Kanpur
Email: bn.patnaik@gmail.com
(Images from the net)