What Lionel Messi Sees

Lionel Messi on the soccer field takes the short, trotty steps of a dachshund in the park. Such diminutive, mincy movements are part of his mystique: He gives opponents absolutely no reason whatsoever to track his runty, 5-foot-7 figure, right up until he bolts away and suddenly tears open the grass in front of him. He becomes the most commanding man on the green expanse, and seems to grow a foot in stature as he charges the goal. Perhaps Messi’s greatest gift is this ability to control his…