Lionel Messi, Argentina win FIFA Youth World Championship

The extraordinary Lionel Messi cooley converted two penalties to give Argentina a 2-1 win over Nigeria in the FIFA Youth Cup tonight in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Argentina was truly great. Intricate, calm, professional, it was a senior level performance.

Nigeria played well, but lost composure after the second penalty and were unable to recover in a meaningful way. A third was avoided by some handy goalkeeping by Ambruse Vanzekin.

The play was open and it was close for the entire game. Argentina had the more creative of the play. Nigeria preferred to use their height advantage to play longer balls and outrun the Argentinian wings.

Promise Isaac, linked heavily with French club Auxerre, played well for the Nigerians who brought talent and more discipline to the tournament but were again let down by bad defensive mistakes giving Argentina 2 penalties in a tightly played game.

In addition, when flustered, Nigeria were shredded apart defensively and needed to rely regularly on individual talent to get a timely foot in.

Argentina were steady the entire tournament. And it was Barcelona's recently-150,000-million-euro-buyout-clause Lionel Messi which proved beyond a doubt he was the player of the tournament.

Barcelona must be ecstatic right now. He’s as exciting as Christiano Ronaldo of Manchester United or Arjen Robben of Chelsea. His end product is at that same level. He’s missing some exposure and a few more matches, but Lionel Messi is nothing but brilliant.