Messi makes his mark

It would take something special to knock that man Tiger Woods off the back pages and Lionel Messi provided it. Arsene Wenger described him as a Playstation following his four-goal super-show for Barcelona and Matt Dickinson in the Times has suggested the Argentine proved himself one of the greats of the game.

"The Nou Camp hosted a football match last night, but this mighty stadium was simply a stage for one man to parade his genius. The Hall of Fame at Barcelona is full of great names such as Cruyff, Stoichkov, Rivaldo and Ronaldo but very few have been fêted like Lionel Messi, whose name rolled down the steepling terraces as he walked off, almost bashfully, bouncing the match ball like a little kid.

Cristiano Ronaldo could score five goals for Real Madrid against Barcelona on Saturday and yet still face a forlorn battle to usurp Messi as World Player of the Year.

The debate may now be taken into other realms, such as where Messi stands in the all-time pantheon. Still below his compatriot, Diego Maradona, who was not only the maestro in successful teams; at Napoli and for Argentina, Maradona was the team.

Of recent greats, he sits below Zinédine Zidane, too, in that Messi does not aspire to be the conductor of his side, simply the dazzling virtuoso.

He can, as Arsène Wenger pointed out, move in and out of games; it is just that his interventions this season have been so often and so spectacular that you begin to run out of superlatives."

Brand Tiger ready to return

Tiger Woods’ press conference on Monday is still a talking point and the moment when he made a plea to potential sponsors caught the attention of the Times’ Matthew Syed.

"It is the closest thing we have seen to a marketing pitch in a press conference. Asked about being dropped by so many of his sponsors, Tiger Woods seamlessly morphed from the vocabulary of the Penitent to that of the Salesman.

“I totally understand why they dropped me,” he said. “But going forward I hope I can prove to companies that I am a worthy investment. That I can help their company, help their company grow and represent them well.”

Not that we can blame Woods for reaching out to the giants of the corporate world. That, after all, is how the world’s top golfer amassed his unprecedented billion-dollar fortune. Where Muhammad Ali symbolised the unhinged political radicalism of the Sixties, Woods represents the sportsman as walking billboard: a gun for hire, at the right price.

“Go on, be a Tiger” was the Accenture slogan that greeted passengers at airports around the world, alongside a photo of Woods sizing up his next shot, his beautiful eyes blazing with competitive intensity. “The best a man can get,” was how Gillette sought to harness the Woods phenomenon. Gatorade asked: “It’s in Tiger; is it in you?” Meanwhile the doyens at Lasik Eye Surgery plumped for: “What could you and Tiger have in common?”

And Woods was (and hopes to be again) a potent, almost irresistible force in the contemporary marketplace. He ticked all the right boxes: a mixed-race kid who achieved excellence amid the racial conservatism of modern golf; a swashbuckling sportsman who never flunked a challenge or choked on a putt; a decent man with decent values who adored his late father and was devoted to his wife and kids. This was not merely the American Dream, it was a kaleidoscope of resonance and meaning.

I bought into it. I was one of the millions who added to the global viewing figures whenever Woods was in the hunt for a major championship. I was also one of the millions inclined to switch off whenever his challenge faded. I pulled for him without inhibition, revelled in his fist-pumping heroism and revered his ability to keep his nerve as others were losing theirs. And, yes, I even bought his razor blades, without ever stopping to think why."