The evolution of Lionel Messi: How the best bounced back

There was another Lionel Messi-inspired comeback at the weekend against Sevilla but the biggest comeback has been the one staged by the player over the course of the start of this season.

In the summer Messi was at his lowest ebb after again failing to end Argentina’s now 22-year run without a major international honour following a defeat on penalties in the final of the Copa America.

He was also given a 21-month suspended sentence for tax evasion and in a duel that probably interests us far more than it does the two of them, Cristiano Ronaldo won both the European Cup and European Championship - he was up and Messi most definitely down.

But so far this season Messi has 16 goals in 1019 minutes of competitive football while Ronaldo has scored seven times in 1038 minutes. Messi's performance against Sevilla was as good as he has produced in the league in recent years. The flame burns as bright as ever.

Before the game at the weekend, Sevilla coach Jorge Sampaoli had said: “There should be two Ballons d’Or; one that always goes to Messi and another one contested by everyone else.” Compliments got him nowhere as Messi went out and destroyed Sevilla with another recital – one for the Now! That’s What I Call Messi album (what are we on now, number 96?).

After the game Gerard Pique tweeted: “If the Ballon d’Or were for the best player in the world, Leo would have won it every year since 2009.”

Messi’s goal had taken him to 500 for Barcelona. The total includes 31 goals scored in friendlies but anyone who has seen him amble on to the field during a decisive league game or plod off the pitch after the pre-match warm-up ahead of a Champions League final knows that he seems to treat pretty much every game in the same way.

Sunday’s performance reminded some of Alfredo Di Stefano, or at least of accounts of Di Stefano given by those who watched the great man play. He was omnipresent they say – capable of winning the ball deep in his own half like a top defender, being central to a rapid passing move that sweeps the team from one end of the pitch to the other, like a top midfielder, and then applying the finish like a top striker.

Messi didn’t win the ball for the equaliser just before half time on Sunday but he was the beginning and the end of the move that started in his own half and finished on the edge of the Sevilla penalty area.

The days when Barcelona don’t miss Xavi are usually the days when Messi is being Xavi, as well as being Messi. And in a recent interview Xavi said of his former team-mate: “The greatness of Leo lies in the fact that he can do anything. It’s an honour that people say he can do my job. But he can also do Iniesta’s or even Gerard Pique’s. If Messi wants to he can win the ball off of you; he’s quick and he has tremendous upper body strength.”

The completeness of Messi keeps him above the competition. The only place where he is currently not matching Ronaldo is in the new contract stakes. Ronaldo extended his deal to 2021 this week and promised he would go on, not just until the end of his new deal aged 36, but until he was 41.

Messi’s contract runs out in the summer of 2018 and it’s unthinkable that Barcelona will leave it to the end of the season to open negotiations. The first meetings will be held in December with a new deal penned at a strategically selected moment during the run-in when the image of Messi’s signing will lift everyone at the club.

Negotiations will involve Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu saying: ‘How much do we have to pay to make you stay?’ Followed by his responding to whatever figure is given: ‘Okay, where do we sign?’

Barca have an inbuilt ceiling on the percentage of their revenue they can spend on wages. They are renewing everyone else first so they know just how high they can go. That will be the only limit on doing whatever it takes to keep the most important player in the history of the club from ever going anywhere else.