There are arguments raging on three different football topics, but there is a communal thread that runs through the arguments: the freak of nature that is Lionel Andreas Messi.
Born June 24, 1987 in Rosario, Argentina, he joined Barcelona as a 13-year-old in 2000.
The three different arguments are as follows: Is Lionel Messi the greatest player of all time?
Should he win this year'st Ballon Do'r over Cristiano Ronaldo?
The third is about his goal scoring record in 2012, where he broke Gerd Muller's 40-year-old record of 85 goals for club and country in one calendar year, which was set in 1972 and has subsequently been challenged.
Messi may in the fullness of time emerge to be the best player ever, but I for one refuse to deify him just yet.
In my opinion, there are still two players that occupy those exalted positions as the all time greats.
Edison Arantes Do Nascimento aka Pele, is my greatest player till date.
I still have vivid memories of Brazil's 1-0 victory over defending world champions, England, in the group stages of Mexico 1970 and that marvellous save by Gordon Banks from a Pele header.
Pele scored twice as a 17-year-old in Brazil's 5-2 win over Sweden in the 1958 World Cup final and went on to win two more World Cup winners medals in 1962 and 1970.
Diego Armando Maradona singlehandedly carried Argentina to lift the World Cup in Mexico 1986 and almost repeated the same feat four years later in Italia 90.
For me, Messi remains in third place behind these legends of the game and can only aspire to their status if he equals their achievement of winning the World Cup.
I accept this may seem to be a rather trite assessment of Messi's superlative talents, but I strongly believe this amazing young man must be judged at the end of his career and not half way through it.
The rivalry for this season's Ballon D'or is another topic that's burning up chat rooms on various social media forums. Who deserves it more: Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?
Ronaldo, by any definition, is an exceptional footballer. If he had been born in any other era, he would have been a given for the Ballon D'or every year since he first won it in 2008.
As Sir Alex Ferguson was quoted during the week, they are both world class players, richly deserving of the award.
However, I think Messi's all round contribution to Barcelona gives him the nod. In 116 La Liga goals Barcelona have scored in 2012, Messi weighed in with 58 of them, a phenomenal achievement.
He has also scored a brace in his last eight La Liga games, another astounding effort. He has already accumulated 25 La Liga goals in December.
To put this into perspective, the two leading marksmen in the English Premier League, Michu of Swansea and Robin Van Persie of Manchester United, have 12 goals apiece.
Messi has doubled that tally and added one more goal for good measure.
Last but not the least, there is the small matter of Messi breaking Gerd Muller's record.
There were noises coming out of Brazil that the great Zico had scored 88 goals in 1989: Messi has since put that ambivalent statistics to bed with his 89th and 90th goals against Atletico Madrid (last weekend).
Closer home in Zambia, it is claimed that the late legendary striker, Godfrey Chitalu, who lost his life along with the Zambia football team in that tragic plane crash in 1993, scored 107 goals in 1992.
With due respect to Zambian football, apart from the fact that this feat only became widely known when Messi was about to break Muller's 40-year-old record, the top five leagues in Europe, of which La Liga is prominent, is light years ahead of the Zambian league.
I simply don't believe that Chitalu's record measures up to Messi's.
However, even though Messi has eventually obliterated Muller's record, Muller's stats are still incredible.
He scored 401 goals in 459 league matches. Das Bomber's 40 league goals in the 1971-1972 season still stand as a Bundesliga record: 35 goals in 35 in European Cup ties, 68 goals for his country in 62 appearances.
For all Messi's goal scoring exploits in 2012, he only won the Copa Del Ray, while Gerd Muller won the German league title and led his side to the 1972 European Championships, scoring braces against Belgium and the USSR in the semis and final.
Muller's goals were also the bedrock of Bayern Munich's hat-trick of European Cups between 1974 and 1976.
Lionel Messi is only 25, good health permitting, he will have another 10 years at the zenith of the game. I will take great pleasure in chronicling his achievements.
