Landon Donovan: Why Argentina's Lionel Messi is Soccer's GOAT

Lionel Messi was about 30 minutes from taking the field for Argentina when Landon Donovan tried to put into words what the soccer world is watching unfold.

The setup is staggering. Messi already scored a hat trick in his first game of this World Cup, which left him tied for the all-time leading goal scorer. Donovan, talking with guest host Kirk Morrison, said that at Messi's age, given everything he has done, scoring a single goal in this tournament would be a miracle. A hat trick is something else entirely.

"You are looking at, in my opinion, the best player who has ever played soccer," Donovan said. And because this has been the world's game forever, he went a step further: one of the best athletes who has ever walked this earth.

Donovan reached for a comparison Morrison would feel. Watching Messi now is like watching Tom Brady at the end, when you just wonder how the guy is still doing this, except Messi is doing it against the best players on the planet.

The personal angle landed harder. Donovan's wife and his middle son, Slate, were at the game in Dallas. From their hotel room, his wife watched people lining the streets at 8:00 a.m. to get into the stadium. People are flocking to these games, Donovan said, to see Messi live in America, right in front of them. His advice to anyone watching: enjoy it while you have it, just like Jordan.

Donovan believes Messi is almost certain to break the World Cup scoring record, maybe even that day.

Then the conversation widened to the tournament itself, and what has pulled Donovan in beyond Messi. He told a story about texting Tim Howard after the first Los Angeles game. "Tim, I can't believe how cool soccer is," he wrote. The crowd, the culture, the gear, the vibe, the energy, all of it made the game the place to be.

That carries weight coming from Donovan, who said people used to make fun of him for dribbling a soccer ball around, back when sports media would not talk about soccer at all. Now it has become the cool thing to do.

The other piece exciting him is how competitive the tournament has been. The United States, he said, is the anomaly. Nobody expected the US to be winning its group after two games. Meanwhile teams expected to cruise through have not. Spain struggled in their first game and sit on four points heading into a final match against a really good Uruguay team that will not be easy.

The result, Donovan said, is that some big countries are likely to go out, or finish second or third and draw a hard matchup in the round of 32. For him, that unpredictability is exactly what makes this tournament great.