Kelly: Superstar Lionel Messi will soon face the dilemma of the future The most impressive thing about the way Lionel Messi became the all-time leading scorer in Champions League history is how ho-hum it all seemed. He did it Tuesday, by scoring a hat trick. Is that all? This was only three days after he became the leading scorer in La Liga history. What took him so long? The headlines went to another Argentine, Sergio Aguero, who also scored three in Manchester City's come-from-behind win against 10-man Bayern Munich. People rushed out into the streets to crown Aguero the best striker in the game. If that's meant to put him in competition with Messi (who's more of a classic No. 10), it's an untenable comparison. Aguero is great, probably among the 10 best players in the world. He's also nowhere near Messi, and never will be. That's how good Messi's been - the predictability of his excellence has begun to bore us. People want him to recede, to let someone else have a chance. Even his ongoing double-bill with Cristiano Ronaldo is dull. They are opposite players and people. They (un) demonstrably hate each other's guts. They may be the two best of all time. This should be the most compelling rivalry since Cain and Abel. Yet, somehow, the dramatic combination is a dud on the stage. There's a whiff of half-man, half-machine in their interactions. They are the answer to the question "Can something be too good?" This is more Messi's problem than Ronaldo's. Messi has his legacy to think of. Ronaldo will never be considered as the best ever - because Portugal wasn't good enough with him, and because people don't like him very much. At 27 years old, having scaled every mountain except the World Cup, Messi must ask himself: "If talent hits a target no one else can hit, and genius hits a target no one else can see, what's left for me?" Designing his own targets. Messi arrived at Barcelona at the age of 13. There's never been any serious suggestion he would consider leaving - until this past week. Going back several years, Messi has been accused by Spanish authorities of a tax dodge related to his endorsement deals. Spanish bureaucracy is notoriously difficult to manoeuvre on this score. Messi isn't helped by the fact that his agent-manager is his father, Jorge, a former factory worker. In 2013, it was announced that Messi owed the government $6-million in back taxes. The number kept jumping. Then the police got involved. Suddenly, Lionel Messi, the most beloved athlete on the planet, was getting perp-walked into a Barcelona courthouse. Apparently, falling into this jam is fairly typical for Spanish athletes. They either get too greedy or play too loose with their paperwork. Most handle it by paying a fine and moving on. Messi has reportedly paid as much as $70-million in taxes and fines in a single year. And yet a Spanish prosecutor still wants to put him on trial, with the threat of jail time looming. It's thought this all boils down to the long spat between the Madridistas of the central government and the Catalan nation. As a Barcelona player, Messi isn't just a de facto member of the latter. He's a bigger deal than the president. Whatever the cause, it's put an understandable wedge between Messi and his adopted country. Speaking recently to an Argentine outlet, Messi said he would like to remain in Spain, but that "sometimes things don't work out as you planned." Around the same time, Barcelona's elder statesman, Xavi, suggested Messi would be well-suited to play in England, because of the Premiership's all-offence style. In international soccer, smoke does not just indicate the presence of fire. It's a more combustible element. If Messi weren't considering leaving Barcelona, he'd have nipped this in the bud himself. Instead, he sent his father out to do the old "Nothing to see here" routine. That should only make his employers more nervous. Regardless of his legal situation, Messi doesn't belong at Barcelona any more. The club is trending downward from its heights. La Liga is built like an iceberg - only the top two or three clubs break the surface. Messi's future there is more of the same (at best) and stagnation. Instead, why not prove that what he's managed in the top-heavy environs of La Liga, he could do in any league in the world? The Premiership is Europe's most balanced competition, but it's also punishingly physical. Messi is getting older, while getting no bigger. The club most likely to take on his astronomical fee is Paris Saint-Germain, but the French top flight is even weaker than Spain's. The most intriguing place for Messi is Bayern Munich. It plays in a deep, challenging league. It's led by Pep Guardiola, the manager who weaned Messi and brought out the best in him. There's room in Bayern's setup to accommodate Messi's preferred position, tucked in behind a lone striker. It's as if Guardiola saw this coming all along. Because he probably did. Bayern is already the best side in the world. With Messi, it could become - for a year or two or three - the best in history. Musing on the idea, Diego Maradona said it would represent "the end of football." "[E]veryone else would play for second place," he said. In every competition. In every league. Messi's a man who values his familiar comforts, but that challenge is worth the risk of change. All he required was an excuse - now conveniently provided by a country that took so much pride in his accomplishments.