Messi had already scored twice in the game. But the beauty and impudence of this goal — by some counts, the 656th of Messi’s professional career — was clear to all. Betis supporters stood to applaud their tormentor. Soccer pundits reached for celestial metaphors. On ESPN.com, the journalist Musa Okwonga wrote that “the ball, with the glorious inevitability of our slowly dying sun, rose and fell.” The wildest exultations came from the operatic English TV commentator Ray Hudson, who unleashed a torrent of mixed metaphors. “The staggering genius of Lionel Messi!” he cried, during a live broadcast on the beIN SPORTS network. “This miraculous footballer, this halo of a footballer! ... He’s got an algebraic equation to solve in the blink of a baby’s eye, and he does it in a way that is just so poetic!”

Hudson is onto something with this talk of algebra and poetry. Messi’s greatness lies in his mind as much as his body. Watching replays of the goal, you marvel above all at the audacity of Messi’s idea. A chip? From that distance, at that angle, in that frenzied moment of open-field play? It’s nuts — a fool’s fantasy that blossoms, with every slow-motion replay, into wondrous fact. Messi saw something we didn’t even consider.

That viral clip is a testament to Messi’s supernatural talent. It’s also a reminder that online video is changing the way we consume and conceptualize sports. Decades ago, the culture of “highlights” was already transforming America’s pastimes. The decline of slow-paced baseball, the ascendancy of the razzle-dazzle N.B.A., the rule changes that have brought an offensive explosion in the N.F.L. — these developments were fueled in no small part by the rise of ESPN’s SportsCenter and the primacy of video clips. But in the old days, those highlight packages were appointment viewing, available only on nightly broadcasts. Today highlights spread across the web in seconds, mutating into memes and turning star athletes into visual brands. You don’t have to be a purist to wonder how this media ecosystem is affecting our tolerance for the natural rhythms and longueurs of sports, those lengthy stretches of “lowlight” play that are only occasionally punctuated by thrills.