Barcelona beats Supebowl for most important sporting event ... by gimleteye

I'll be watching the Superbowl this afternoon, but for my money, the biggest game of the new year was yesterday, when football superstar Lionel Messi scored a hat trick to help his team deliver its record 16th straight victory in La Liga, Spain's major league. The diminutive Messi would be lost on a football field in America, dwarfed by lumbering sometimes and sometimes graceful giants. What Messi and his team-mates are achieving in Barcelona, though, is perhaps the closest to perfection in one hundred years.

The Premier League in Great Britain is often touted as the highest quality team football in the world, gathering stars from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In terms of quality of the top teams, that may be true. Although the top league in Spain falters in terms of quality, in comparison to other national leagues there is no single team in the world that can match Barcelona's caliber. Messi is a very rare genius at the top of his performance, and he is complimented by a group of players who are stars in their own right and legends, too; Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Danny Alves, and Villa to name a few. The core of the team, now in their 20's, have been playing together for nearly a decade, nurtured by the Barcelona's development squad. There is nothing comparable in US professional team sports and football especially, where players often seem interchangeable.

Watching Barcelona play its league matches on television, I tell my children to pay attention: you may never see a team as talented, as well organized, and as powerfully complete in your lifetimes. The Superbowl will have its moments of poetry this afternoon. But Barcelona is pure magic. Catch them while you can.