Lionel Messi scores a more conventional Playstation goal

People used the term “Playstation goal” when a player shows the kind of mastery that’s usually reserved for a handheld videogame controller. The goal’s either some amazing dribbling feat, a long range blast, or the result of some aerial acrobatics.

In the video gams I used to play, the more common goals came from hitting a button the second you get close enough to score and, if you were lucky, seeing the ball fly through some defenders and into the goal for no explicable reason.

That’s the type of goal Lionel Messi decided to score for his 91st of 2012:

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With Barcelona up 1-0 at Real Valladolid. Messi takes the ball in the middle of the field and starts working his way left. As he turns toward goal a Real defender approaches. Somehow, he passes through him like he’s Patrick Swayze in Ghost.

Then, Messi just decides to shoot, hitting his controller’s buttons in a panic after when he couldn’t figure out how he passed through that guy. It doesn’t seem like a well-hit shot, but it rolls and rolls and rolls and the goalkeeper never moves. Then, after the ball is past him, the keeper dives to make the game seems more realistic, but the computer had already decided the shot was going in.

With some late dramatics, Barcelona went on to win the game 3-1 and move nine points clear of second place Atlético Madrid in the Spanish Primera Division.

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