Catch a glimpse of the next Maradona

Locker Room / Tom Humphries: Another week, another wonderkid. Theo Walcott moved to Arsenal with all the usual superlatives hanging form his neck like a rapper's gold jewellery.

There's a school of thought that his development as a player and a person might have been best served by staying at Southampton for a few more years.

Those pushing such a view are quaint and peripheral figures, however. Better to find out in five years' time that you have a great future behind you at Arsenal and several million in the bank than to wind up as the Matt Le Tissier of your generation. Beloved at a marginal club and people whispering to you that your account could be fatter.

Good luck to him anyway. He seems like a good kid and is alleged to have the pace and swerve of a slalom skier. Already, though, through the odious medium of comparison, the kid is burdened. Is he the next Wayne Rooney? Rooney, remember, has just escaped his teenage years. His talent is intact, and thus far he appears to have tacked a course away from the reefs upon which the good ship Gazza (to name but one) got stranded.

Was Gazza the next Best or the next Hoddle? Hard to remember in these times when the next of everything comes along so quickly and so urgently with strident demands for recognition and reward.

As Walcott was inking the paper that put him simultaneously in the pressure cooker and on millionaire row, a run was coming to an end elsewhere but the undisputed best teenage player in the world was still at the heart of it. This week Barcelona lost a Spanish Cup match to Zaragoza. Lionel Messi was taken down for a penalty but it wasn't enough to save Barca. A series of 18 consecutive wins thus came to an end.

If there's consolation in Ireland not being at this summer's World Cup it comes in terms of us all being able to focus on enjoying the tournament a little more soberly and a little less hysterically. Lionel Messi will be worth watching.

When he joined Barca as a 13-year-old just over five years ago he was so small that he was known as The Flea. In a game where beef and muscle play an increasingly important role he is a throwback.

He has grown of course to the glorious stature of 5ft 6in (168cm). When he first came to Barca they recall that when he sat on the bench his feet didn't quite tip the ground. The extra inches have been the source of some controversy, however.

Seeing his son blessed with genius but cursed by shortness Messi's father, Jorge, decided that he had a medical problem and should be treated with human growth hormone. A medical diagnosis apparently confirmed this.

Messi's Argentinian club, Newell's Old Boys, refused to splash out for hormone treatment to accelerate the development of a 13-year-old so Jorge, now quite livid, took his son to Barcelona for a trial. Barcelona watched him for about five minutes before deciding they had seen enough. The HGH treatments began soon after.

More controversy dogged the young fella. A protracted row over Spanish citizenship placed his eligibility to play for Barca in some doubt for a while. Spanish clubs are allowed three non-EU players and had hoped to use Messi as a non-foreigner given that he had lived in Spain since he was 13. It might have helped if Messi had ever said that he would like to play for Spain if the citizenship came through but he dedicated his future to Argentina and has already been burdened with the responsibility of being the next Maradona. By Maradona.

"This great talent has appeared in Argentina and is beautiful to watch, my kind of player filling the Argentinian jersey again," claimed Maradona. "Everybody who loves Argentinian football should be proud of him. He will inherit my place in Argentinian football and his name is Messi."

Hmmm. Even if Maradona were a little befuddled at the time of issuing that endorsement it's a lot of baggage for a kid. Messi seems unperturbed. His progress through the youth teams ranks at Barca was as rapid as the stat of 31 goals in 38 games suggests. Frank Rijkaard had seen enough to feel happy handing him a senior debut in a friendly against Oporto in November 2003. Messi was 16.

He blossomed as player of the tournament at last year's World Under-20 Championships, scoring two penalties in the final for Argentina and also finishing as top scorer in the competition. With his citizenship business settled he has gotten his feet under the table at Barca. He has a flair for the sensational.

His third Champions League game for Barca was virtually a single-handed destruction of Panathinaikos. He began with a goal and missed at least four chances to stretch the margin beyond 5-0. Missed is harsh. He was denied. Cruelly. A shot was cleared off the line. The goalkeeper saved brilliantly. There was an offside. Just when any other player would have been shrugging and thinking that it was just going to be one of those nights he reached for the magic wand.

He ghosted past two defenders before delicately chipping the keeper. His feathered touch didn't send the ball rocketing to the net. A Panathinaikos defender materialised and was made to essay a clearance. Messi, darting like a fish, arrived to poke the ball home. They cheered him like a matador.

It has kept getting better. Playing in an extraordinary Barca side (10 points clear in La Liga) he has given the socios the additional pleasure of knowing that their boy wonder has been outperforming Real's Brazilian import Robinho. Even in a set-up which includes Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Larsson among its attacking options, Messi has been outstanding. Last season he became the youngest player to score for Barca's first team when he impudently chipped the ball into the net in the last minute of a game with Albacete. Such precocity can either be cossetted and swaddled or let bloom.

In the manner of the times Messi is being given it all now. Earlier this month the Argentinian FA confirmed that he would be in their national squad for the World Cup. Perhaps the early elevation was supposed to relieve the pressure but his form at Barca had already ensured that Messi would be making no other summer plans.

His international progress shows no signs of being less accelerated. He made an impact in less than a minute on his debut against Hungary. He got sent off. Famously his team-mates found him alone in the dressingroom weeping after the game.

Since then he has compensated, winning a penalty in Argentina's final qualifier against Peru. Of all the games slated for the first round of the World Cup perhaps the sexiest on the list is the clash of Argentina and Holland in Frankfurt on June 21st. Anyone who remembers the clash of those two sides one Saturday afternoon in Marseilles during France '98 will be hoping for a reprise of one of the greatest World Cup games ever played.

And by then we'll know if Messi is truly the heir apparent to the title of best footballer in the world. The betting in this parish is that he will outshine Rooney. In pre-season he destroyed Juventus in a prestigious friendly game. Fabio Capello was moved to gush that he'd never seen a player of Messi's age with such quality. And the head of the House of Juve has certainly looked.

Every week brings a newer and younger wonderkid, another decent talent who is anointed prematurely. Of all the current crop Messi is the one consummating his potential at the highest level. Catch a glimpse of him and you understand the excitement which surrounds a Walcott or even a Stephen Ireland. Sport offers nothing as intoxicating as youth and potential. Mining for those little nuggets is half the excitement.