When I heard about the Argentinian named Messi arriving from Barcelona, I left early in the
morning and walked the riverbank, following the quais from the Île de la Cite past the Jardin des
Tuileries to a fishing spot under the shade of the Pont Mirabeau. I caught two carp off the wake
of a tourist riverboat, enough for Hadley and Bumby to enjoy for a supper fried in butter and
potatoes. As I nibbled on pieces of crepe purchased the day before from a truck inside the Champ
de Mars, the player’s entourage of Mercedes vans escorted by a dozen police motorcycles
traveled over the pont toward the Avenue Versailles in a grandeur not seen since the Allied
dignitaries marched down the Champs Élysées.

I wrapped the fish in newspaper and stuffed them inside my pack then walked across the pont
through Auteuil, where Hadley and I won eighty-five francs on an eighteen-to-one at the tracks
that kept us eating well for months. I continued past Roland Garros down to the Parc de Princes
along the tree-lined sidewalks of the Avenue du General Sarral. The day was hot and muggy, and
I’d only drank a few handfuls of water from the Seine, so I ordered a beer from a café where a
crowd had gathered in blue Paris St. Germain jerseys chanting the player’s name.

It’s difficult to understand a sport where men can’t use their hands, so the fascination with this
Messi eludes me. How many rounds would he last with Dempsey? Could he run through tacklers
like Thorpe? No, a sport where players use their feet and bounce a ball off their forehead sounds
as egregious as fishing in the fountains of the Jardin du Luxembourg. If it came down to it, could
he catch a pigeon with his bare hands?

For a while, the patrons and waiters waged a passionate debate between Messi and the
Portuguese Ronaldo, who never impressed me much with his outlandish hairstyles and his ego of
invincibility. But I’d give him longer in a ring against a five-year-old bull than Messi. The sad
truth is neither has the courage of the great Belmonte. There’s beauty in the way Belmonte
evades the horns of a charging bull inches from spilling his intestines all over the ground, like
what happened to his contemporary years ago in Pamplona. Is that beauty the same as kicking a
ball over a line of men holding their privates? They say this Messi can dribble through opponents
like the trout maneuvering the rapids of the Irati, but I’ll be impressed when he plunges a sword
into the neck of a Miura.

I didn’t want to attend the press conference, but my editors at the Toronto paper said it was
important and I can’t keep re-writing novel drafts on an empty stomach. So I grabbed my pack
and walked around the corner toward the towering stadium where bicycles once raced on the
track surrounding the infield. I pushed through rows of cameras and found a spot next to Jean
from L’Équipe, who saved me a seat beside a woman from MARCA who had flowing black hair
and smelled like the wildflowers of Northern Michigan.

Messi was dressed well in a dark suit, his beard the color of hickory bark. The tattoos emerging
from the cuffs of his white shirt created a bit of intrigue and reminded me of the rebels from the
Pyrenees. I wasn’t in awe of Messi like the others were, and I was certain I could take him in a three-rounds if given the proper time to train. But he spoke with elegance and poise and expressed a fondness for the culture and the people which I appreciated.

After the press conference, I pushed through the smoke of flares and the swarms of Parisians
outside the stadium hoping to get pictures of Messi through their teleportable phones. Hundreds
more waited in line to buy his jersey, which led me to question how long the line would be if
Belmonte were offering up sections of his muleta. I followed the same route back along the river,
stopping at the book stalls for used copies of the latest from New York. But that only angered me
about a day away from my work and the footballer who kept me from the revisions I wanted to
send to Miss Stein by the week’s end.

I stopped by the office, finished my story, and sent off a cable to Toronto then headed toward
Saint Placide where Scott had been hanging around a new café along the Rue de Rennes. I’d ask
him what he thought of Messi before he got too tight, but whenever we talked sports, he’d
glorify the great Princeton tailbacks before running off to find Zelda, leaving me alone with a
full bottle of wine and the bill.

GREG OLDFIELD is a physical education teacher and coach from the Philadelphia area. His stories have appeared in Hobart, Barrelhouse, Carve, Maudlin House, and the Under Review, among others. He also writes about soccer for the Brotherly Game and the Florida Cup and can be found on Twitter under @GregOldfield21.