Imagine you are Lionel Messi. What's in your
head?

(You're not really, of course, but this is a
journey into imagination and speculation, with
a bit of wonder and puzzlement thrown in, an
experiment in seeing the world through his
eyes. And it will inevitably be based on flawed
inputs because there are only two groups of
people who can really hope to have any sort of
insight and to even have a clue, you really
need to be a member of both. One is those
close to him: friends, family, teammates. The
other is those who have been in his position,
burdened with larger-than-life G.O.A.T.
responsibilities to their club and to their
country. You can count those on two hands
and there is no overlap in the Venn diagram.
So if you're a "just the facts, please" type of
person, go read something else.)

You turned 30 this summer. You know the
clock is ticking. but you want to squeeze as
much as you can out of what is left. You know
you can still do it and right now, so does
everybody else.
This was probably Barcelona's worst summer
since you moved into the first team and the
season began with a 5-1 aggregate drubbing in
the European Cup at the hands of Real Madrid.
So what did you do? You loaded the whole
team on your back and carried them. In the
past four games in all competitions -- all of
them Barca victories with clean sheets -- you
scored eight of their 12 goals while hitting the
woodwork no fewer than six times.

When the going gets tough, you're the in-
house, video game cheat. You did it again in
the Champions League on Tuesday against
Juventus, the side that shut Barca down for
180 minutes in the quarterfinal last season.
For most of the first half, things were fairly
even. The visitors sent their front men to press
high, harassing Marc-Andre ter Stegen's build-
up play while keeping the back four low and
dense: a sort of human quicksand for you and
Luis Suarez. So right before the half, you
seized the ball, did a couple of shimmies and
uncorked a shot beneath Medhi Benatia and to
the left of Gianluigi Buffon, far enough out of
his reach.

The goal broke the ice and sent your Barca
team on the way to a 3-0 win. It also broke
Juventus' spirit, who bumbled through a
disastrous second-half that brought back
memories of Cardiff, though that may have
more to do with the bianconeri's mental
fragility right now. Still, just to be safe, you
scored another goal and set up Ivan Rakitic for
his strike. Game over.
It's not that yours is a one-man team -- far
from it -- it's just that as your new boss
Ernesto Valverde put it, "when Messi gets the
ball, anything can happen. It's a lot easier that
way."

You've given Valverde a huge boost, in fact.
While plenty believed he had the tools to do
so, he never coached at this nose-bleed level.
This is his big break and yet, like the rest of
you, he's had to endure a horrendous summer.
Not having the immediate pressure of results
(largely thanks to you) makes it a heck of a lot
easier for him to settle into the big chair.
The victories also help your president, Josep
Maria Bartomeu, though that's just a by-
product. Even as tens of thousands fill
petitions calling for his removal, you're staying
at arm's length from both sides. He
misrepresented the facts when he said, earlier
this summer, that you had extended your
contract, which expires on June 30, 2018. You
could have called him out on it then and there,
but you didn't. Exposing him in the summer,
when he was getting to grips with the Neymar
debacle and scrambling around to recruit
reinforcements at great expense (succeeding
with some, like Ousmane Dembele, but failing
with others like Philippe Coutinho and Angel Di
Maria) would have, above all, hurt your club,
your team. And you want to be a team player.
But being a team player doesn't mean being a
patsy either. And that's why the contract still
lies there, unsigned, even though Bartomeu
went to great lengths to say everything is
agreed and that your dad, your brother and
the president of the Lionel Messi foundation
have all signed.

If anything, the message is even clearer now.
It's great that all these guys have signed
Bartomeu's contract but they're not going to
be the ones lining up alongside Suarez and
Dembele.

The blank space on the contract speaks
volumes. It also gives you enormous power.
Not because anyone realistically thinks you'll
leave, but because of the optics of sitting
down with Bartomeu as you put pen to paper.
"That photo [of Messi and me at the signing}?
It'll happen..." said Bartomeu to Catalan
broadcaster TV3 on Tuesday night. He needs it
to happen. You know that. But you also know
that you can wait to put pen to paper all
season long; heck, you can run your contract
down, become a free agent and wait until the
last possible moment (some time in August
2018) and that, in terms of club politics, would
be a game-changer.

You have the power to give Bartomeu your
blessing or stay silent, let the petition play out
and wait for others to come on to the scene.
Or, indeed, demand changes at the club and in
the way it is run. But... what changes? You're a
footballer. A great one, but still: a footballer.
You have that power but with it comes
responsibility. Do you have the tools to
exercise it? Do you want to take on what could
end up being a seminal decision in the club's
history, one that could impact the club you
love and also the last few years of your career?
Those are big questions, questions above your
pay grade, and as they bubble under, you can't
help but wonder about what you care about
most: what happens on the pitch.

You can tell yourself you'll be competitive even
when you don't conjure up heroics on a weekly
basis. Dembele will come good. Suarez is as
hungry as ever. Andres Iniesta doesn't need to
be the Iniesta of Tuesday night -- when he
turned back the clock -- game in, game out: he
just needs to do it in the big matches. Sergio
Busquets is the usual metronome. Samuel
Umtiti's skill set complements Gerard Pique's
well. And if not, your old pal Javier
Mascherano, "El Jefecito," can still offer the
occasional boost. Rakitic, Jordi Alba, Andre
Gomes, Paco Alcacer: all these guys had a very
rough ride last season but you know they can
be better than they have been. You've seen it
with your own eyes.

You've been a part of better Barcelona sides --
far better ones -- but you also know there's
enough here to compete. Sometimes, at the
highest level, it's enough to stay in the game
long enough for the magic to happen. Often,
you provide it but there are others here who
can do it too.

Meanwhile, Argentina gnaws at you. You may
need to carry them... again. With two games to
go, you're fifth in the brutal thunder dome
otherwise known as CONMEBOL qualifying. It
doesn't matter how you get to Russia, it's just
about getting there. Right now, you're fifth and
that means a playoff: nothing to be scared of
(with all due respect to New Zealand) though
you could do without a trip to the other side
of the globe and back. You've got Peru at home
and Ecuador away. You could finish second or
you could miss out on Russia 2018 entirely.
The margin of error is very slim.

And yeah, it bothers you. You shouldn't be in
this situation. Last time around, you helped
Argentina as far as they could go without
winning. This may not be your last World Cup
(you'll be 34 by Qatar 2022) but will likely be
your last one at the peak of your powers. Your
relationship with your country's FA and media
has been up and down. It has hurt you. You
even briefly retired from the national side. You
will retire as Argentina's top goalscorer and,
probably, its most capped player. But having
won everything there is to win at the club
level, that World Cup goose egg will feel like
unfinished business. Not even having the
chance to make it right and watching Russia on
TV? Well, you don't even want to contemplate
that.

So you press on. You control what you can
control... on the pitch. Off it, you stare down
your tremendous -- perhaps unique -- power
and you struggle, hoping that you will make
the right decision at the right time in the right
way. You're a footballer, not a politician, nor a
club director. But increasingly, it's looking like
you'll have to wear that other hat too.


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