The past few years when Barca wasn’t winning everything all the time I’d occasionally tease Otto that “Messi will play in MLS by the end of 2015”. That prediction isn’t looking so good right now.

As a side note I never meant that Messi wasn’t one of the all time greats, only that our expectations nowadays of top athletes performing at their best for such a long time are actually quite new – basically since the so called steriod-era. The achievements that made legends out of players like Sandy Koufax, Johan Cruyff or Magic Johnson were how good they were at the top of their game, not that they stayed at the top of their game forever and ever.

In Peru Messi is seen as one of the greatest, if not the greatest player of all time but in terms of pop culture legend in all of South America it’s doubtful that any athlete in my lifetime will come close to Diego Maradona.