One game. Five goals. Even I know that’s a big deal.
Sports are not my natural habitat; I can converse fairly fluently in baseball, speak basketball and (American) football with a heavy accent, and communicate haltingly in soccer. Yet even I, with my limited sports awareness, can recognize uncommon talent when it takes the field.
Lionel Messi is said to mean more today to soccer than Michael Jordan did to basketball during the dynasty of the Bulls in the ‘90’s. At 24, Messi has won the FIFA World Player of the year three times (only a handful of players have won it three times, and no one more than three). He scored 30 goals in just his last 25 games. Last week he scored five goals in a Champion’s League game against Bayern Leverkusen. Considering that soccer is a sport where common final scores are 2-1 or 1-0, five goals (by one team, let alone one player) is considered outrageous.
And yet, he’s done it. And continues to do it. He plays so well, so unspeakably, inhumanly well, that a friend (half) jokingly said to me, “If Jesus is the Son of God, is it possible that Messi is the grandson?”
An interesting idea. A provocative idea. But certainly not a new idea. Argentine soccer superstar Diego Maradona, forever enshrined in the hearts of fans for his 66-yard dribble through six English players to score the “Goal of the Century” against them in the quarterfinal round of the 1986 World Cup, is so revered that in 1998 a church bearing his name sprung up in Rosario, Argentina.
“Beloved Diego, thank you for your everlasting magic,” church-goers sing to the tune of Ave Maria, “We are the church of the football god, we believe in your divineness” The Church of Maradona boasts 40,000 members in 56 countries. Crazy, or simply convinced the soccer star was imbued with a drop of divinity? The faithful are split on the issue, themselves. Couples are married, babies baptized in Maradona’s name – who can say how real is their belief?
What is unquestionably real, however, is our all-too-human habit of worship. Our lives tend to be tempered by routine patters and expectations. When something startling breaks in – be it the vast yawning gorges of the Grand Canyon or a man who wields impossible control over a black and white ball – we fall to our knees in wonder. We feel small. Overwhelmed. Insignificant in comparison. Something in us cries, “Too much! Too much!” We are undone.
And yet, the same breath undone cries out, “More!” Hearts wearied and worn thin by burdens common to man nurture a secret, silent hope that something greater, larger, and more significant than they stalks the universe. When fleeting glimpses of uncommon glory pass by, that which was hoped for shouts, “I am here!” and wearied hearts then swell, renewed and vindicated, hoarse with unbridled joy. “I knew it! I knew it!”
This is why we are gladly small in the presence of the great, why language fails us in the sharing of aching beauties, and why a sports hero can ignite so fiery a passion that it blazes through the very marrow of his fans daring them to believe he is more than a man – he is a god. We want there to be more than what we see. We want there to be a plane of existence where the possibilities we barely dare to hope for reside. We want to know that the very ordinariness of our lives and the messiness of our souls can be overcome, that the dreams we dream could come true. They, the ones we are tempted to call deity, are loved because they hint that we are right.
Again, I return as I have so many times before to the question begged – why? If we, all of us, great or small, are no more than bone and spittle and muscle and sweat, if we are the random result of random chemicals devoid of intentionality, then where did we develop a taste for purpose? For worship? How did we get so addicted to the promise of hope? Why are we both humbled and inspired by startling beauty and by unspeakable, inhuman talent? Witnessing what we never imagined could be done so moves us that joy forcibly overtakes every cell of our being – we laugh, cry, shout, and throw up our hands as if we had done it ourselves. Indeed, we've briefly tasted the hope that we could have.
Is Lionel Messi God’s grandson? Is the moon the grandchild of the sun? Or does one light the darkness through its ability to reflect the other? The lesser glory is seen only by the presence of the greater glory. A man who can score like an angel whispers of a God who enjoys watching him do so. Even I know that’s a big deal.
"Messi is my Maradona" -Diego Maradona
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