Lionel Messi

Why people think Argentina's Lionel Messi is currently "The Best Player in the World, described beautifully by sportswriter and blogger Joe Posnanski (via kottke).

updated to add: Messi plays for Barcelona, so he's buddies with most of Spain's national team. From the shallow end of the pool, here's an Argentina victory thread with lots of Messi pics/captions, and a Spain post-victory thread both from the from LJ ONTD_football where real fans also indulge in pics of shirtless players, jokes and all-around silliness.