Lionel Messi: Viral video shows why PSG star should be studied in schools

Lionel Messi is more than just a goalscorer.

While there’s no escaping the fact that his debut season at Paris Saint-Germain was ultimately a disappointment, we’ve got to look beyond the statistic that he only scored six goals in Ligue 1.

It’s undoubtedly a devastating decline for a player used to scoring 20 or 30 goals in each league campaign, but you don’t need to be a football expert to know that Messi isn’t simply an out-and-out goalscorer.

Rather, Messi has long since moulded his game into that of a deep-lying playmaker, drifting into the upper-most points and penetrations of the midfield to make things happen between the lines.

Inevitably, that still leads to the Barcelona legend bursting forward and creating goals for himself, but it also allows him to pull the strings and play his teammates into positions where they can score for themselves.

It’s for this very reason that Messi holds the unique distinction of regularly being touted amongst the world’s best goalscorers and playmakers at the very same time, which, frankly, is an astonishing achievement.

And it should therefore come as little surprise that Messi still finished second in the Ligue 1 assist standings despite struggling to score goals as proficiently as he created them.

In reality, it’s largely just an extension of the foundations that he laid down at Camp Nou: elevating himself amongst the world’s best passers and most intelligent players when he wasn’t bagging goals for himself.

And Messi has honed that skill to such a great extent that one Twitter user’s recent declaration that: “We need to study Messi in schools,” isn’t an entirely stupid one when it comes to the beautiful game.

One football fan – going by the username @Blue_Nada10 – made that very