a écrit le 16 mars 2012 à 15h21 For defenders, it's going to get Messier
ONE of the weirdest conversations I have had in recent months concerned Lionel Messi, Rangers and Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish.
Researching my book on FC Barcelona, I discovered that in his earliest days in the first team, Messi was very nearly loaned to Rangers to gather experience. While McLeish was confirming the details of the story he added a tiny, quirky aside. ''Our scouts had spotted Messi in youth tournaments,'' he explained, ''but my son, Jon, had seen him a couple of years earlier as a 'prospect' on Football Manager!"
It transpired that the research put into that interactive computer game is so thorough that starlets are often pinpointed there before they register on the radar of the majority of big, predatory clubs.
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In which case, Jean Marie Dongou must already be a superstar on Football Manager.
You might argue - with justification - that for the same club to possess Messi and then have coming through the youth ranks a striker with what appears to be an equally voracious appetite for goals, seems utterly unjust. But Barcelona is in that precise situation.
Dongou, small and Mike Tyson-powerful, is without question the most awe-inspiring player I have ever seen at his age. When I witnessed Messi at the same stage of his development, it later transpired that he was a little bit sulky at being forced to play on the wing in the game I went to watch and, consequently, I came away unimpressed.
But having watched Dongou for several months - aged both 15 and 16 - I have to warn the next couple of generations of defenders that they should start having nightmares now just to get in practice.
The Cameroon-born striker has the low centre of gravity that made Romario so hard to contain, the ability to calculate an acute angle of snooker champion proportions, and an explosive eruption of pace reminiscent of a cobra's head darting forward to attack.
He's miles ahead of his age group and has been promoted to the Barca B side - the last-but-one step before the top team - which competes in a league where men are men and the brand of red-meat tackling that was prevalent in the 1970s is not only still alive but dominant.
Yet Dongou thrives. He has been collecting goals at junior level for a couple of years and having arrived from Africa, aged 13, he ''did a Messi'' by scooting through three different age groups at Barcelona in the same season.
ONE of the weirdest conversations I have had in recent months concerned Lionel Messi, Rangers and Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish.
Researching my book on FC Barcelona, I discovered that in his earliest days in the first team, Messi was very nearly loaned to Rangers to gather experience. While McLeish was confirming the details of the story he added a tiny, quirky aside. ''Our scouts had spotted Messi in youth tournaments,'' he explained, ''but my son, Jon, had seen him a couple of years earlier as a 'prospect' on Football Manager!"
It transpired that the research put into that interactive computer game is so thorough that starlets are often pinpointed there before they register on the radar of the majority of big, predatory clubs.
Advertisement: Story continues below
In which case, Jean Marie Dongou must already be a superstar on Football Manager.
You might argue - with justification - that for the same club to possess Messi and then have coming through the youth ranks a striker with what appears to be an equally voracious appetite for goals, seems utterly unjust. But Barcelona is in that precise situation.
Dongou, small and Mike Tyson-powerful, is without question the most awe-inspiring player I have ever seen at his age. When I witnessed Messi at the same stage of his development, it later transpired that he was a little bit sulky at being forced to play on the wing in the game I went to watch and, consequently, I came away unimpressed.
But having watched Dongou for several months - aged both 15 and 16 - I have to warn the next couple of generations of defenders that they should start having nightmares now just to get in practice.
The Cameroon-born striker has the low centre of gravity that made Romario so hard to contain, the ability to calculate an acute angle of snooker champion proportions, and an explosive eruption of pace reminiscent of a cobra's head darting forward to attack.
He's miles ahead of his age group and has been promoted to the Barca B side - the last-but-one step before the top team - which competes in a league where men are men and the brand of red-meat tackling that was prevalent in the 1970s is not only still alive but dominant.
Yet Dongou thrives. He has been collecting goals at junior level for a couple of years and having arrived from Africa, aged 13, he ''did a Messi'' by scooting through three different age groups at Barcelona in the same season.
