Given a rare night on the Barcelona bench last Sunday, Lionel Messi yanked on the seat in front of him, hunched his shoulders over the chair back and kicked it with his cleats. He seemed not so much the world’s best soccer player as a restless kid in a movie theater. He is 23, with a grown-up’s income reported to exceed $43 million this year. Yet Messi still has a boy’s floppy bangs, a boy’s slight build and a boy’s nickname, the Flea. Even the ball stays on his feet like a shy child clinging to his father’s legs.
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1 comment:
I am thankful that the NYT has enlightened all of us with their use of the often overlooked "Steal" statistic. I look forward to their incorporating other useful basketball stats into their soccer analysis- there's clearly a place for the charge, block, double dribble, over-and-back violation and of course goal tending.
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