As two of the most stylish and successful athletes of all time, Roger Federer and Lionel Messi naturally invite comparison. It is fitting that two books about them have been released at the same time
In recent years the similarities between the two sporting stars have deepened. Mr Federer won three of his major titles after turning 35; aged 34, Mr Messi has just won an international tournament—hitherto the one prize to elude him. Sport was once considered the sole career in which, after 30, you were fated to know only professional decline. Mr Federer and Mr Messi are both showing that no longer needs to be the case.
Modern athletes are more disciplined than their forebears, who often lived like rock stars and expected their bodies to give out before they reached middle age. In the early 1970s Johan Cruyff, another Barcelona footballing legend, was a chain-smoker. He was so unfit that, during his time at Ajax, Cruyff would hide in the woods while his teammates did running training, only rejoining them for the last lap.
The story of Barcelona in recent years is, in many ways, the tale of Mr Messi. In everything from player signings to the team’s tactics, Barcelona “handed Messi the keys to the club”, Mr Kuper writes. Sandro Rosell, the club’s former president, says: “If you have the possibility to be the best player in every match, you have to be a bit of a dictator, as Messi is.”
Both “The Barcelona Complex” and “The Master” emphasise the decision-making that helps set superlative athletes apart. Mr Messi is renowned, rightly, for his balletic dribbling, pinpoint passing and clinical finishing in front of goal. But underpinning all these qualities, Mr Kuper shows, is what sports scientists call “scanning”: looking around to take visual snapshots of play.
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