After Arsenal's Champions League exit on Tuesday night, a philosophical Arsene Wenger could find only one way to sum up the blitzkrieg that was Lionel Messi. "He is the best player in the world by some distance. He's (like) a PlayStation. He can take advantage of every mistake we make." Wenger was echoing a comment made three days earlier by Arsenal striker Theo Walcott regarding Barcelona's first-leg performance: "It was fantastic, it was like someone was holding them with a PlayStation 3 game controller, controlling them all the time."
It's interesting that videogames have become a benchmark for the brilliance of real-life footballers. EA Sports, the developer of the massively successful Fifa series of footie simulations, has put years into refining the authenticity of its virtual players, employing the latest motion-capture and animation techniques to replicate every flick, twist and feint of the real game. And the players themselves are impressed; while the likes of Gary Lineker and Glenn Hoddle spent their empty afternoons wandering around golf courses, today's professionals are much more likely to load up computer games such as Fifa 2010 and Pro Evolution Soccer. Wayne Rooney is such a frequent online Fifa player he recently had to change his Xbox Live name because he was being inundated with challenges.
So, purely in the interests of research, I loaded up my copy of Fifa 2010 and spent an afternoon replicating Tuesday's fateful match. Could the virtual Messi compare with Barca's real-life hero? Well, not quite. Playing as Arsenal it was relatively easy to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to profound genius, repeatedly clattering the Argentinean from behind with well-timed sliding tackles. Taking control of Messi himself is a different matter – I was able to repeat the deft chip he used to score his third goal, admittedly thanks to Fifa's handy built-in chip function. I also managed to jostle my way into predatory striking positions using quick sprints and some intricate manoeuvring via the 360-degree controls. I was channelling the spirit of Messi via the wonders of videogame technology.
However, what I couldn't do was re-enact his fourth goal, the one where he appears to stagger, then hop over the ball on the edge of the box, before twirling through two Arsenal defenders. I tried, I really did, attempting so many button combinations I temporarily lost the use of my right hand. But Messi's improvisational brilliance, his acceleration, his sheer balletic grace eluded me. Maybe Fifa 11 or 12 will capture something of this, but for now, the frightening thing for his opponents is that Messi is better than PlayStation.
