No place like home as Lionel Messi fires another blank away from Barcelona
By Max Cooper
Hands up, who thought we'd be entering November and still be waiting for Lionel Messi's first Paris Saint-Germain goal in Ligue 1?
The 34-year-old was a one-man band over the summer, putting his talismanic talents to good use and bringing Copa America glory raining down on Argentina, while topping the individual statistic charts in just about every department.
But after he was forced to wait 15 years for his first trophy in the blue and white of his beloved national team, it all feels a bit like he had to sell his soul to the devil in order to taste such sweet, sweet success.
For only a matter of months later, Messi's world is very, very different to the one we were all living in while he was blubbering like a baby in front of a packed out stadium in South America.
Since winning his first major international trophy, the Argentine has been forced out of his beloved home at Camp Nou, joined a club which is even more obsessed with the Champions League than he's been for the past half decade, and suddenly hit a bizarre scoring drought.
Messi's time in the French capital so far was just about summed up in his performance in PSG's 2-1 victory over Lille on Friday night. No goals, no assists, an injury scare and a premature withdrawal.
Messi once again blanked in front of goal for the hosts, although tellingly, he never really looked like scoring. PSG were entirely disjointed throughout the opening 45 minutes, the midfield couldn't string a pass together and the forwards appeared as if they'd never met before.
At 1-0 down at half-time, under-pressure coach Mauricio Pochettino showed the size of his cojones by subbing off the under-performing Messi (although it was revealed after that he was carrying a knock) - and in the end, that decision paid dividends.
PSG turned the game around in the Argentine's absence, while national compatriot Angel Di Maria proved once more why he's one of the most underrated players in world football, assisting the equaliser and grabbing the winner to save his boss' skin.
And while PSG supporters all breathed a sigh of relief that they'd been able to restore their measly 10-point lead at the top of the table, bigger questions lingered over their ability to embed one of the sport's greatest ever players into the team.
Let's face it. We expected Barcelona to absolutely crumble without Messi bailing them out of trouble every week, but we didn't anticipate the forward to struggle so much without the pressures of Catalonia on his shoulders.
In a team full of superstars, we hoped to see Messi's level increase even higher, now with the freedom to play his own game, minus the complications of captaincy, and the weight of 10 other inadequate idiots dragging him down.
Instead, he's struggling to adapt to a more physical style of play in France, and when he is being presented with chances, they're going unpunished. No player has hit the target more times without scoring in Ligue 1 than Messi this year, and that says it all.
It's just not working.
That's not to say he won't turn it around. Messi is enduring a mini-slump that nearly every player faces when settling into a new club, and naturally, we're surprised that even one of the best to ever do it can suffer the same fate as mere mortals.
He will score, of course. And probably when the rest of the team begins looking like they haven't just met at the pub down the road, then he'll begin mesmerising us in the French capital, just as he did for so many years at Camp Nou.