User:Prayer for the wild at heart/sandbox

2003–06
Giuly: "He was just 16, but he destroyed us all in a training session. They were kicking him all over to avoid being ridiculed by this kid, but he didn't say anything, got up and kept playing. His every play was an attack. It was incredible. He would dribble four players and score a goal to the point of making the team's starting center backs nervous; they would commit atrocities on him. But he took it. He was an alien. He killed us all."

[Messi joined Barcelona's first team during a time of change]. Heralded by the arrivals of a new president, the Cruyffista Joan Laporta, and Brazilian star Ronaldinho, Barça were entering the most dominant era in their history. After six seasons without a trophy, the club claimed two successive league titles and the 2006 Champions League.

2005–06
Messi's first home outing in the Champions League came on 27 September against Italian club Udinese. Fans at Barcelona's stadium, the Camp Nou, gave Messi a standing ovation upon his substitution, as his composure on the ball and passing combinations with Ronaldinho had paid dividends for Barcelona.

"His confidence, speed off the mark and stunning close control made him a constant menace to the Udinese defence, while he demonstrated an almost telepathic understanding with Ronaldinho."

Chelsea manager José Mourinho accused Messi of diving after Asier del Horno was sent off for fouling the Argentine. "Catalonia is a country of culture and you know what theatre is, and what Messi did was good theatre." Phil Ball: "One thing became very clear - that the baby-faced Argentine is the hottest new thing on the football planet."

2007–08
Messi had always disliked his usual position on the wing in the 4–3–3 system traditionally employed by Barcelona. Raised on Argentine football, he considered himself an enganche, a playmaker in the mould of Maradona. Increasingly, his natural tendency to drift from the right into the centre of the pitch, behind the striker, became part of Rijkaard's tactical setup, which saw his movement mirrored by Ronaldinho from the left. Coming inside on to his dominant left foot made him highly effective against fullbacks commonly operating on their weaker right sides. The threat he posed this way was soon recognised by opposition managers: when Barça faced Liverpool in the first knockout round of the 2006–07 Champions League, Rafa Benítez employed the right-footed Álvaro Arbeloa, typically a rightback, on the left side, and in the process eliminated the defending champions.

Barcelona rapidly disintegrated. Ill-disciplined and internally divided, the team experienced two trophyless seasons; having lost the title to Madrid on head-to-head goal difference in 2007, the next year they finished in third place, 18 points behind their rivals. Preceded by a humiliating pasillo – a guard of honour for the new champions – the final clásico of Rijkaard's tenure ended in a 4–1 defeat. Barça's lacklustre showing was emblematic: "It was the story of their season," wrote the pundit Sid Low, "Leo Messi spent 90 minutes trying to win all on his own – which beats trying to win with his teammates."

By the season's midway point, he was the club's leading scorer, before injury struck again. The decision for change had long been made: Rijkaard made way for Pep Guardiola, Barça's former captain, [while Ronaldinho was sold to Milan and replaced by Messi as the club's marquee player. Though hurt by the inevitable departure of his friend and mentor, Messi embraced his impending new role. When given input into the team roster, he encouraged the return of Gerard Piqué, his teammate at La Masia, and the retainment of Eto'o, whom Guardiola initially wished to sell.] His diet was changed; [team meals were made mandatory.] Guardiola restored discipline in the team via a system of fines and incentives.

Barcelona experienced a precarious start to the new season, gaining just a single point from two matches. [Messi and Thierry Henry, in particular, had failed to implement the new style of pressing.] The turning point came when Guardiola employed Messi as a false nine, operating in the space between midfield and defence, in their meeting with Sporting Gijón. [The assistant coach, Tito Vilano, had first] used Messi in this manner in the youth team. The 6–1 victory marked the start of the team's dominance in European football.[rephrase] By the tenth round, Barcelona sat atop the league table, and remained there for the remainder of the campaign.

2009–11
Guardiola became the club's most successful manager; in just four seasons, he won three league titles, two European Cups, two Copas del Rey, two Club World Cups, three Spanish Super Cups, and two European Super Cups.

Guardiola's Barça became one of the greatest teams in the sport's history. Built on the canteranos Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, and Messi, the team won three La Liga titles in as many years and twice were crowned European champions. Considered Barcelona's most decisive player, Messi was asked by his manager to expand his influence on the game beyond just goalscoring. Guardiola moved him from the wing into the centre of the pitch, but with the freedom to roam the midfield far beyond the area normally occupied by a centre-forward, allowing him to be involved in both the build-up and finishing of plays.

A victory in the return clásico would all but clinch Barça's first championship in three years. Prior to the match, Madrid had spoken of an "anti-Messi" plan. [The night before the tie, however, the Argentine was summoned to Guardiola's office for last-minute tactical instruction; at the coach's signal, he was to switch places with Eto'o and move from his usual position on the wing into the centre of the pitch.] Madrid's central defence was left stupefied, contributing to a resounding 6–2 victory, Barça's largest-ever goal haul at the Santiago Bernabéu. The Catalan sports media waxed lyrical: Mundo Deportivo adjudged it the "best performance Barcelona had ever produced", while Sport gushed that Messi was "Maradona, Cruyff, and Best all rolled into one."

Barcelona repeated this tactic in the Champions League final against Manchester United in Rome. [Messi entered the final already the competition's top scorer, having last scored a brace in the 4–0 quarterfinal rout of Bayern Munich.] In the pre-match build-up, the English media made much of the fact that Messi had never scored against an English team, and propagated the idea that his lack of headed goals made the diminutive Argentine a less complete player than Ronaldo. In his pre-match press conference, Guardiola ...] Messi scored the second goal with a leaping header. Barcelona's triple victory of the league, Copa del Rey, and European Cup was the first treble achieved by a Spanish club.

[Barcelona proceeded to win every title on offer in 2009, achieving a unique sextuple. Messi left his mark on all three trophies with a brace against Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish super cup, a starring role versus Shakhtar Donetsk in the European super cup, and a performance awarded the Golden Ball at the Club World Cup in Abu Dbabi. His late, match-winning goal of the 2–1 final clash with the Copa Libertadores champions, Estudiantes, had come off his chest; "I scored with my heart," Messi said.]

[Messi scored 10 goals in four matches, including successive hat-tricks in the league, a feat no other player had ever acomplished for the blaugrana. His penultimate goal against Zaragoza received applause even from the opposition fans.] At an explicit outburst from a supporter behind Barcelona's bench, Guardiola turned around and told him: "If it wasn't for Messi, I'd be a third division coach."

Barcelona set a new points record of 99 points in La Liga; no club had ever reached 90 points.

The defining game of Guardiola's Barça was the historic 5–0 victory – a symbolic manita, or little hand – in their first meeting with Madrid of the 2010–11 season. While he failed to score for the first time in 10 matches, [in which he had accrued 15 goals], Messi showcased his growing ability to influence a match as a playmaker. "His performance was sublime," wrote the pundit Sid Low. "There were fewer brilliant dribbles, less fantasy, but there was a stunning assuredness and impeccable precision in the passing. This was the Messi who controls the game and then decides it." Succeeding Xavi as the team's leading assist provider, the Argentine created more goals than any other player in La Liga that season.

El clásico, one of the world's greatest sporting rivalries, came to be personified by his personal rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo. Since the latter's transfer to Madrid in 2009, their careers had become inextricably connected in the eyes of each club's supporters, inviting endless, often angry debate on their individual merits. Each player defined his club in style and personality: Messi as an exponent of contemporary Barça – homegrown, technically skilled, likeable – and Ronaldo as the star of the most expensive team ever assembled.

The Barça–Madrid rivalry reached its peak the following spring when the two faced each other in the league, the cup final, and the Champions League semifinals in the span of 18 days.

2012–14
The 2011–12 season brought the return of Cesc Fàbregas, his teammate at La Masia. To accommodate the midfielder, the team formation changed into a 3-4-3 shape with Messi and Fàbregas operating in tandem as number 10s.

[Another 10-match goalscoring streak in the league, totalling 18 goals, kicked off with a four-goal haul against Valencia. (19/2)]

Hunter: "Since Spring 2012, Messi has increasingly been carrying the burden of a declining team rather than garnishing a great team with his brilliance."

Messi missed a penalty that would have prevented Barça's elimination in the semifinals at the hands of Chelsea.

[After the championship had been conceded to Madrid, in a 2–1 defeat, Messi scored nine goals in three matches, including four against Espanyol.]

The season ended on a high note with a victory against [Marcelo Biela's] Athletic Bilbao in the cup final. Dropping deep into midfield, Messi created space in the final third for his teammates to exploit, contributing to the 3–0 trashing of the Basques. It was his 12th final under Guardiola, the 10th in which he scored. His goal, struck into the roof of the net at the near post, was his 73rd of the season.

Midway through the 2012–13 season, Barcelona had accrued 18 out of 19 possible victories; their only draw was a 2–2 meeting with Madrid, in which Messi and Ronaldo each scored twice.

By the start of 2013, Barça had virtually won the league back. They reached 100 points, 15 ahead of Madrid, the widest margin ever between first and second.

They suffered back-to-back defeats to Madrid, the second of which eliminated them from the Copa del Rey 4–2 on aggregate.

Other
"Every week he seems to break another record; he has made the ridiculous so routine that it no longer seems so remarkable. He has taken the debate onto a new plane: It is no longer absurd to ask if he is the best player ever."