When it was announced that Lionel Messi was coming to Major League Soccer, there was excitement, of course. But there were also doubts. Would he treat his stay in the league as a retirement tour or even a vacation? Would the lower stakes lead to less effort? Would his age — 36 — catch up to him?
In retrospect, it should have been obvious. It turns out that if you put the best player of his generation into MLS, less than two years removed from winning the Ballon d’Or as the game’s best player, and less than a year since he was named best player at the World Cup, he is going to be really, really good.
Really good.