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Barcelona's Leo Messi may be the 473rd New Maradona, but he's the only one to be named after a Mr Man and the only one really worthy of the title. You can forget the Little Donkey, the Rabbit, the Clown and all the other great pretenders, it's the Flea with the fast feet and fabulous control who gets closest to el Diego. He may not have the same the strutting confidence or the big mouth - in fact, he makes whispering Ted Lowe sound like a town crier - but there's definitely something about Messi.

Just ask the newspaper who ran a Spot the Difference cartoon depicting Maradona and Messi side by side, above an upside-down answer that ignored Diego's barrel-chest, black hair and bushy brows, to declare: "Don't kill yourself trying - there is no difference."

It's a lie, but you get the point. And the point is that Messi is the footballer so good the Catalan press named him six times, like some kind of suicidally curious, soon-to-be-slaughtered kids calling on the Candy Man. "Messi, Messi, Messi!" began the front cover of Sunday morning's El Mundo Deportivo; "Messi, Messi, Messi!" continued Sport, and Messi appeared. He appeared in the press, he appeared on the net and, if you listened hard enough, he appeared on the radio. He even appeared on telly, dashing from Canal Plus to La Sexta in a blue van, where he mumbled and fidgeted and blushed when everyone told him how good he is.

Which is not surprising, really. It's not surprising that Messi looked nervous when he's an awkward 19-year-old who barely ever speaks, prompting team-mates at Barça B to nickname him el mudo - the mute one. And it's certainly not surprising that everyone was busy telling him how good he is. Because Messi, already the youngest goalscorer in Barça's history and a kid who's only ever lost twice in 35 league appearances - one of those on a night where he made the European Player of the Year look like a marble-treading clown performing to the sound of a kazoo and crashing symbols - was sensational in Saturday night's 3-3 draw with Real Madrid at Camp Nou.

Three times Madrid took the lead, through Ruud van Nistelrooy and Sergio Ramos; three times Messi equalised, becoming the first man to hit a derbi hat-trick for 12 years and one of only seven players to have done so in Barça's history, alongside Gary Lineker. How Newell's Old Boys must wish they'd just found the cash: Messi only joined Barcelona as a teensy 4ft 3ins 13-year-old because his former club refused to pay almost $6,000 a year for the grow-fast hormones that led to him shooting up a centimetre a month once he'd arrived in Catalunya. Six years later and Barça may not have a giant but they do have a player who's going to be big. Very, very big.

Saturday's hat-trick proved that. For the first, Messi did what he always did - hovered on the right, glided into the area, and slotted a cool, calm finish into the net. For the second, he did what he never, ever does - absolutely smashed the ball. And for the third, he did what he must have always dreamed of - dashing inside in the 90th minute of the season's biggest match, he collected a Ronaldinho pass actually meant for Eidur Gudjohnsen, raced past Iván Helguera and thumped the ball beyond Iker Casillas to send the crowd wild.

It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic game. Which was a bit weird, really, because it wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be rubbish. Sure, there had been plenty of hype, from the 12-hour preview on telly to Marca's truly surreal Barça-Madrid comic, complete with Alfredo Di Stéfano as a cloth capped Yoda, Ramón Calderón as a rosy-cheeked drag queen and Frank Rijkaard as a leotard and leg warmer-wearing dance instructor plucked from Fame! Sure, there was a huge mosaic, with handy, easy-to-follow instructions - "1. Get out of your seat, stand up and unfold the card. 2. Hold it up horizontally, with the coloured side facing out" - and the biggest crowd of the season at 97,823. And sure, there were journalists from all over the world. But still there was something missing.

Like someone remotely relevant taking the honorary kick-off instead of some random banker, a bit of big-game atmosphere, a genuine hate figure to replace Luis Figo, Fernando Hierro, Ronaldo or even David Beckham, or two on-form teams. Never have there been such low expectations surrounding Barça-Madrid. In the wake of their European knockouts, it was, they said, going to be dire. The headlines said it all: "depressed clásico", "with fear in their hearts," "the derby of the needy", "the fallen giants", "the last train".

Luckily, they were wrong. Sevilla lost and La Liga's last train departed with Madrid and Barça on it, leaving AS's "Viva el fútbol!" headline behind instead. In the last few years, el derbi has been dumped for el clásico and this time they had a match worthy of the name, a superbly entertaining game that had it all: three goals in the opening quarter of an hour, a red card, endless saves from both keepers, over 100 attacks each, 30 shots on goal, two contrasting halves, some brilliant displays (especially from Guti), and the worst defending since some bright spark in Troy said "ooh, look at that lovely horsey, let's wheel him in". All on top of a last-minute equaliser and an even later refereeing controversy when Undiano Mallenco (probably correctly) ignored Mahamadou Diarra nudging over Ronaldinho in the penalty area in the 94th minute.

So much happened, so much went on, that everyone could happily draw their own conclusions, arguing with some justification that, in fact, their side deserved it - which was handy because, let's face it, that's what they'd do anyway - but still agree that this game will go down as one of the greats. Just like Leo Messi.