Messi closing in on remarkable record

Posted Thursday, October 20, 2011 by ESPN

Messi closing in on remarkable record
Levante's midfielder Miguel Pallardo (left) vies for the ball with Malaga's Salomon Rondon, a match Levante won 3-0 to remain atop the table.

But while we are touching on the fact that not everything has been perma-sweet for Messi in recent years, it's a coincidence that his worst moment, Spring 2008, coincided with the wonderful Valencian club, Levante, looking into the abyss and, apparently, preparing to jump.

Its debts were all-consuming, its players had, in some instances, gone nearly two years without pay, and it looked as though Levante might not exist much longer. Naturally, the club was relegated. Administration followed, and given how voracious football is and how little pity exists for the weaklings, Levante might have disappeared.

However, I was at the Ciutat de Valencia stadium on Sunday evening to watch Levante destroy multimillionaire Malaga 3-0 to make history by retaining top spot in La Liga for the first time in its entire history.

What's more, Levante did it with a starting XI that could boast the oldest average age (just under 32 years per man) in the entire history of Spain's Primera Division. And the cherry on the icing, I think, is that that average age per player hit the record because Malaga, from which Xavi Torres is on loan at Levante, wouldn't let the midfielder take his usual place in the heart of Juan Ignacio Martinez's team unless the impoverished Valencians paid the obscenely rich Malaga a 50,000 euro fee.

From the situation in 2008 when its debts were strangling the club to today, Levante's board -- headed by the dynamic and, to some Levante fans, heroic Quico Catalan -- is meeting the obligations set by administrators to pay back creditors and aims to be debt-free by 2014.

In the summer, Levante spent approximately 200,000 euros on refreshing the squad, but this season it beat Real Madrid. Its first-choice back five of keeper Gustavo Munua, Javi Venta, Sergio Ballesteros, Nano and Juanfran adds up to about 170 years on this Earth, yet Levante has conceded the fewest goals in La Liga this season.

When you meet its head groundsman, Raimon, who has a three-room museum to the club's colorful history in his hidey-hole under one of the stands ("my sanctuary") and who has worked there for a quarter century, or Emilio Nadal, the club's articulate friendly press chief who has been devoted to Levante since a child, it's hard not to be moved by the remarkable story which the club is creating.

Is the symbol of the club Sergio Ballesteros, a 36-year-old man-mountain of a central defender who looks like a well-fed nightclub bouncer but reads the game like Paolo Maldini? Or is it the ubiquitous plastic frogs that echo the club's mascot (granota means "frog" in Valencian) as a nod to when the stadium was in the old Turia riverbed and was plagued by green amphibians?

And let's not forget the remarkable former manager Luis Garcia, who led Levante from its worst situation to the second-highest finish in its history before leaving for Getafe in 2011. To his great credit, Martinez has adopted the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it motto.

For the moment, it is a thrilling and uplifting story. But Levante is such an irregular visitor to the top division that despite its co-leadership with Barcelona at the moment, the club's chief objective is not qualifying for European football next season but achieving another domestic first -- three straight years in the Primera. With all my heart, I hope that Levante manages it and shows the rest of Spain that sometimes, shrewd, low-cost signings and debt reduction are not incompatible with intelligent football and relative success.

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