Messi award for winning El Clasico 2017 -goal of hard man

 thousands of words are written and spoken about Lionel Messi. Newspapers, websites, radio and television. 

If possible, we would read them all together. 

No other footballer, perhaps, has ever done so much to deserve so much praise; reached stratospheric levels like, made like extraordinary, inexplicable wonders with pelota and pie. But for all the praise, for all the futile attempts to reward him with ink and hot air, none of which will ever be enough, there is a facet of the little Argentine that is discussed less than it should be: 

Messi, for all his talent and his technique and his wisdom and his technique, it is as hard as nails.

 It's not the rigid stage approach of English football in recent years. He's not Razor Ruddock, Julian Dicks or Vinnie Jones, is he? 

But Messi is tough, tough, tough, tenacious. Hard as an old shoe. It has been abused thousands of times. 

But no matter how many times he fell down, he came back up again, like one of those round wooden toys, expression unchanged, thigh-opening, magic shoes still dancing. playing to his beat in the interplay.

 As one of his opponents told The Guardian: “[Messi] is very strong, very fast. You can't beat him: you beat him hard and you don't knock him out of his stride. 

He is physically brutal.” Quiet, elegant, but cruel. If we want to discuss the brutality of Messi and his tenacity, then there is one game and one goal better than the others: El Clasico, April 2017, 90-minutes and a little higher. 

El Clasico is never without its tensions and challenges, of course, but this was more exciting than most.

Barcelona was in a dark place. Not as bad as those who have known since, but the problem compared to the standards of the last decade After their victory over Sevilla in early April, they had control of the title race and were looking forward to a Champions League quarter-final against Juventus with the momentum of La Remontada behind them. 

Two weeks later, they were beaten 3-0 in Turin, drew 0-0 with Juve in the second leg and lost 2-0 to Malaga in La Liga, handing Real Madrid yet again. It was Luis Enrique's last season and it seemed like a bad end to his glorious career.

 With Real Madrid next at the Bernabeu, things could get worse. If Madrid wins, it will be six points ahead, and the title is out of the Catalans' eyes. Messi was coming into the game and he also seemed to be struggling like his team. 

After a tough challenge against Dani Alves in the second leg at Juventus, he had a lightening around his left eye, a physical reminder of the blow to the Italian club. But the rhetoric was negative. 

"What we have to do there is what we have done before," Andres Iniesta said. What Messi has done before is probably right.

 This was the 34th El Clasico in La Pulga. In the first 33, he scored 20 and set up 13 more. But Madrid had a plan to stop him, which they made clear early on. In the 20th minute of the opening match, Messi received a wild scissor ball from the back of Casemiro and an elbow - he covered it well, but on second viewing it was probably scored on purpose by Marcelo

As a result, he added a bloody mouth and a black eye and began to look more like a boxer in the 12th round of a tough fight than the leggy sportsman we're used to watching.

 After 7 minutes, Real Madrid took the lead in the game, scored by Casemiro, and in the second half of the game, Casemiro scored.

 But remember what we said about Messi bouncing around like one of those wooden toys? It won't take long. Physically, he had white teeth between his teeth, soaked in blood.

 As a result, some were there. He dropped deep on the left, picked up the ball, laid the ball to Sergio Busquets, who passed it to Ivan Rakitic. Rakitic returned it to Messi who skipped past Luka Modric, then Dani Carvajal who shot the ball slowly but well past goalkeeper Keylor Navas. Each one.

 The game became wild, end-to-end. Both goalkeepers were forced into many saves. 

The two players Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo wasted opportunities that were sitting for them. Then, finally, the development of Barca.

 After 72 minutes, Rakitic switched the ball from his right foot to his left and fired into the top corner. 

In the 76th minute, Sergio Ramos took a two-footed ball and threw it completely at Messi and was sent off. Messi was put down again, but the game was definitely over. 

Only a quarter of an hour to go, a goal and a man going for good. You think. But this is El Clasico. However, Real Madrid rallied.

 Marcelo crossed, James Rodriguez - the anti-Messi in the sense, a man who crumbled like a biscuit - met him at the near post, and Los Blancos were level. "Bad blow," Luis Enrique called him later.

 And it was about to get worse. Madrid pressed for the winning goal, hoping to achieve an impossible victory in all but the league. 

Then, with 33 seconds left on the clock, Barcelona managed to put the first half away.

 She looked innocent. But Madrid, in their frenzy, lost structure and resilience. A quick exchange of passes released Sergi Roberto, who surged forward and was unstoppable.

Early Modric, passed Marcelo, on the halfway line. Then Andre Gomes, who touched back to Jordi Alba, who played in a space on the edge of the area. That place. You know and, more than that, you know who is busy. Messi jumped on it unnoticed and untracked. 

Magic left foot and the ball was in the back net. 

Messi took off his shirt, ran to the white shirt supporters behind the goal and held it up, and the name and number turned towards the stands - and it was the most beautiful of hundreds of celebrations.

 'You can bleed me, you can crush me, you can try to break my legs - but you can't stop me', the sign screamed.

It was a video that said more than the thousands of words that have been written about Messi. A picture that will run. Quiet, elegant, but cruel.

 The mission, as it turns out, didn't do much in the grand scheme of things. 

Despite Barcelona temporarily taking the lead, Madrid dominated the game, which they won, starting a six-game winning streak that ended with Zinedine Zidane's first La Liga crown as manager.

 Still, it's a goal worth recalling and examining. It's not just her drama or her beauty, but the way she sums up Messi's lowest qualities.