El Clásico 2017: Real Madrid should have known Lionel Messi would break their hearts

In his first goal, Lionel Messi shifted the world around Daniel Carvajal. Carvajal must know that the Earth is a sphere, and that one stands straight up, without leaving the ground, and is able to walk without falling over because gravity pulls everything down towards the center of our planet — if the planet had been a square, we would be pulled in a tilted direction.

Yet when Carvajal stuck his right leg out to intercept the ball from Messi, he had to have doubted this science. Messi had already cut to the inside with his right foot, adding more weight to the right side of the world, and Carvajal swung his leg, missed, and inevitably tilted as if physics had abandoned him. He desperately grabbed at the air, trying to combat this random bout of vertigo and to regain a sense of self.

So, like someone whose understanding of the world had been a vicious lie, Carvajal, with his hurt pride, said that Messi did not change the game. That it was the sending off of Sergio Ramos instead. Here, he would cling on to his truth. He would find some peace in choosing comfort and self-deception over reality.

Ramos being sent off did change the game, but his exit was an effect of its own with a grander cause. It was Messi who got him sent off. Ramos didn’t walk off out of sympathy for Barcelona. Ramos had tried, just like Carvajal, to stop the Argentine. But where Messi shifted the world around Carvajal, he skewed time for Ramos. The defender saw the ball and came in hard for it, but Messi had already taken several touches and turned upfield. Ramos realized too late that his world was a few critical milliseconds behind. All he could do was watch his body slide through the man, missing the ball completely, knowing that he would be sent off and that a devious trick had been played on him.

Messi is the main character in every match that he plays. His greatness means that the soccer around him is the backdrop for his story for that day. All eyes are perpetually turned towards him.

The attention of the defenders and midfielders is always on him. They continuously make the sensible gamble of sending multiple men to crowd him when he receives the ball, knowing that this leaves other attackers free. But it’s an attempt to snuff out the greatest risk there is for their team. Yet even with this group effort, the mission seems damn near impossible. Marcelo elbowed and bloodied him up, yet he kept coming. Ramos clattered him repeatedly, and he got up each time with the same intensity. Casemiro was bamboozled and forced into a bad foul 11 minutes into the game and spent the rest of his time on the pitch trying to avoid being sent off. That was also a big game-changer.

Messi was aware of this and repeatedly baited Casemiro into fouling him, as he would do Ramos. With Real Madrid’s defensive midfielder unable to properly do his job from fear of a dismissal, the middle of the field was opened to Barcelona. That left the task of stopping Messi in midfield to Toni Kroos and Luka Modric, both of whom were turned and embarrassed several times.

Before the game, there was at least a comforting stat that Messi hadn’t scored in the last six matches between the two teams. Madrid, like Juventus and Chelsea before them, had figured him out. They had made him human. And without Neymar, the only real threat should have been Luis Suárez, if recent history was any indication.

Once Messi scored that first goal, the delusion was shattered. The real fear returned that he would win the game for Barcelona. Everything else was just leading up to that final moment. There was no need for a Neymar or Suárez. He could create and score all on his own. The aura of crisis that hung over Barcelona and the supposed dysfunction created by Luis Enrique’s impending departure all meant nothing after that moment. Messi was there to remind the Madrid players, fans, and the watching world that he was still the greatest player in the world.

James Rodriguez equalizing for a 10-man Madrid in the waning minutes was spectacular. Madrid had pressured Barcelona so much during that time that it seemed that they were the ones with an extra man. The men in white were not in the mood to turn meek because of their misfortune, they were going to fight. That goal was the symbol of their perseverance. But it left too much time on the clock and made them arrogant.

Zinedine Zidane’s hubris meant that rather than telling his team to sit back after the equalizer, to do the reasonable thing, he believed that they could get a winning goal. Real Madrid don’t cower, after all.

The problem with that is that Madrid did not have their greatest defensive cover in Ramos. He would have either been the one to score the winning header or at least done the intelligent thing in fouling Sergi Roberto. Without Ramos, throwing men forward while Messi waited on the other end wasn’t just silly, it was signing their own death certificate.

So it happened that Roberto somehow summoned up the will and stamina to run almost the length of the pitch in the last minute of the game. With every challenge that he escaped, the feeling that there was something special bound to happen intensified. Roberto towards the box like an agent of fate.

As soon as Andre Gomes made the pass to Jordi Alba down the left, Messi, as if he had seen the future and knew the pivotal part he would play in the story, made a run to where the ball would eventually end up. This would be the climax of the tale. There were four Madrid defenders in the box. Alba occupied one, and the other three — knowing that they should stop the ball from coming across the face of goal where four Barcelona players waited — took their eyes off the greatest threat on the field.

As soon as that ball came to Messi, there was no question about it. Not in this game. Not after everything he had done. He couldn’t just beat Madrid, he had to bend them to his will. He had break Carvajal’s ankles. He had to get Ramos sent off. He had to force Casemiro to be substituted. Messi had to remind them that he alone was better than their midfielders and attackers. He had to remind Madrid in the worst way possible that he was still their biggest obstacle, and that the game still revolved around him.

Then Messi took his shirt off, held it in front of the fans, and made them read his name. Just as he did a few seconds before, he forced them to acknowledge that he was the greatest player on that field. The greatest player that this world has ever seen. There was no space left for delusion, the reality of it was as clear as their heartbreak.