There were three times when I felt especially fortunate to be at football matches last year. The first was when Leicester City were handed the Premier League trophy at the King Power Stadium last May before their game against Everton. The Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang and Claudio Ranieri stood there, straight-backed and dignified on a stage in the centre circle, bidding the crowd be silent so the wonder of the voice could be heard.

The second was at Old Trafford in September, the first match I saw after the Olympic Games, when Pep Guardiola’s new Manchester City side played a first half of such dazzlingly beautiful football that it seemed to herald a new dawn for our league. They burned so brightly that day it felt, mistakenly, as if no one could stop them.

And the third and most fortunate of those occasions came a fortnight ago. I took my son to watch Barcelona against Espanyol. It was supposed to be an early Christmas present for him but it turned out I was getting a priceless gift, too: for 90 enchanted minutes at Camp Nou, we got to watch the greatest player in the world in his pomp.

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Lionel Messi scampers past Espanyol players during another masterful outing for Barcelona

Lionel Messi will be 30 this year. It hardly means he is entering his dotage but it is a reminder that we must cherish him while we can. He is one of the great performers on any stage, in any era. He is Nureyev. He is Olivier. He is Rostropovich. He is Picasso. He is Sinatra. He is someone who brings joy to everyone who sees him on a football pitch and marvels at the beauty of his art.

The greatest footballer ever? The body of work Messi has amassed now and the consistency of his brilliance builds a stronger case for him every week.

He might never have won a World Cup like Diego Maradona or Pele or Zinedine Zidane but international football is not the gold standard any more, so that is no longer a barrier to his coronation.

FIFA are doing their best to marginalise the international game and turn it into an irrelevance. Their decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was the clearest signal of that. The plans for a 48-team World Cup represent another step closer to the abyss of indifference and disdain. Messi is not diminished by his achievements in that arena.

Club football is the summit now and that is where he reigns. He has won the Champions League three times, or four, if you count his truncated participation in the 2005-06 competition that Barcelona won. He is the greatest ever goalscorer in La Liga and, next season, he will probably overtake the marks set by Jimmy Greaves and Gerd Muller in English and German club football.

Messi lifts the European Cup after victory against Manchester United in 2011

But it is about more than statistics with Messi. Cristiano Ronaldo can boast great statistics, too, and he is also a wonderful player but I agree with Zlatan Ibrahimovic on this one: Cristiano isn’t even the best Ronaldo to have played the game.

Cristiano is a phenomenon in his own way. He represents power and courage and speed and indomitability and dedication. He is a Terminator. But he is not Messi. Ronaldo is athleticism. Messi is fantasy. Ronaldo is a star hewn from effort and toil. Messi is a natural.

The game against Espanyol was the first time I have watched him close up in his Camp Nou cathedral. The Press box has a fantastic, panoramic view from the top tier of the stadium but this time we had seats a few rows from the front, near the end Barcelona were attacking in the second half.

Watching Messi from there was like standing next to the Armco between Sainte Devote and Beau Rivage during practice for the Monaco Grand Prix and watching Ayrton Senna hurtle past up the hill, seeing the sparks flying from his car as it bottomed out on the tarmac. It was one of the greatest sights in sport I’ve ever seen.

Sergio Busquets helps Messi up off the turf during the 4-1 win against city rivals Espanyol

The pace of Messi, his speed of thought, his elusiveness, his grace, his awareness of others, his vision, his dribbling ability, the fear he strikes into the defenders, the way they try to kick him out of the game, the way they fail, the happiness everyone takes in his explosions of skill and ingenuity: all these things make watching him an unbreakable joy.

There were plenty of football tourists, like us, there that night. Messi tourists. Some of them lend Camp Nou the atmosphere of a pop concert. Every time Messi or Neymar came near to the touchline, they screamed out the names and begged them to look their way. It felt like Bay City Rollers, circa 1976.

We were lucky, too, lucky like everyone who comes to see Messi play most days and nights. He was unstoppable against Espanyol.

He was breathtakingly, jaw-slackeningly brilliant. Midway through the second half, when he slalomed past five defenders with a nutmeg, a sidestep and a jink to create Barcelona’s second goal, people hugged each other just to congratulate themselves that they had seen it.

Messi jinks his way on the edge of the Espanyol box to help set up Luis Suarez's second strike

The crowd behind the goal bowed theatrically en masse to their little genius and chanted his name adoringly over and over again.

Three minutes later, Messi did it again, destroying the Espanyol defence — who buffeted him and battered him, but could not bring him down — and creating Barcelona’s third for Jordi Alba. Again, his name rang around Camp Nou.

And in the last minute, Messi added the final touch, the thing he needed to make his night perfection. He scored. Bursting in from the right wing, he played a simple pass inside to Luis Suarez, who looped a perfect return over the Espanyol defence.

Messi sidestepped a fallen Espanyol defender, who had been bamboozled by his change of direction, and followed the path of the ball through the air. When it dropped, he hit it on the volley with the outside of his left boot, sending it through the legs of the Espanyol goalkeeper.

Suarez congratulates Messi after the Argentine hit Barcelona's fourth goal

We bounced out of Camp Nou that night, both of us giddy with what we’d just seen.

The next morning, at the newsstand by the Sagrada Familia church, we picked up a copy of Sport newspaper to keep as a souvenir. Its front page carried a picture of Messi, arms outstretched.

The headline was a Christmas play-on-words that captured the mood perfectly. ‘El Messias,’ it said.

Why Harry the Hornet’s dive was the bee’s knees

Harry the Hornet’s dive in front of Wilfried Zaha at Vicarage Road last week made me laugh out loud. Maybe it’s just that I’ve got a puerile sense of humour or maybe the curmudgeons moaning and whining about the club mascot overstepping the mark really ought to lighten up a bit.

The campaign to ban any form of fun or spontaneity from the game seems to be gathering pace daily. Before you know it, they’ll be booking players for celebrating goals with the fans.

Harry the Hornet won hearts and minds for his dive in front of Wilfried Zaha

Before the start of the season, I thought Manchester United would win the league.

That is unlikely to happen now but after a shakyautumn, Jose Mourinho does at least appear to have restored some equilibrium to the team and his own rather volatile personality.

The minimum United require of Mourinho this season is a top-four finish: it’s going to be tight but I think they’ll do it.