Lionel Messi Must Be Managed Better by Barcelona for Long-Term Success

After again going down with injury and again forced to have scans on his injured hamstring, big questions are starting to emerge about Barcelona and Lionel Messi.

The star striker reportedly injured his left hamstring against Atletico Madrid on the weekend and was forced to go off in the second half (per BBC Sport).

According to manager Tito Vilanova, it was the "same area" that Messi had injured against Paris Saint Germain earlier in the season, and that depending on the nature and severity of the injury, could be out of action for "days or weeks."

Messi's injury—as mentioned—is not a new thing for the club, having picked it up in the Champions League against PSG and struggled with it ever since that date.

And knowing that, the question must then be as to why he was playing at all.

Barcelona had already won the La Liga title knowing that Real Madrid had drawn the day before. They had been eliminated from the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, and thus came into this game knowing that they had absolutely nothing else to win this season.

Nothing else that mattered, anyway.

Thus the question must be as to why Messi was even on the pitch in the first place at all, having already won everything this season and the striker himself still not 100 percent healed of his hamstring injuries. La Blaugrana didn't start Messi against Bayern Munich in the second leg, and for good reason—he wasn't completely healed of his hamstring injuries and their focus is on long-term success.

Why then, was he suddenly able to start against Atletico Madrid this weekend? 

How was his hamstring miraculously "better" than what it was before?

The answer, it seems, is that he wasn't better. His hamstring wasn't 100 percent recovered and for some unknown reason (perhaps the desire for records and individual goal-scoring feats), Barcelona chose to play their less-than-healthy superstar for a meaningless fixture they didn't need to win.

And as a result, the Catalan club have some serious answering to do.

Why were they pursuing such short-term gain when the entire process around Messi's recovery had been about long-term success? If he was healthy here, why didn't he play against Bayern Munich? And if he wasn't healthy, why did he play in this one? Why did he start? Why didn't he come on as a substitute if necessary, like Barcelona had done in the Champions League knockout games?

The answers to such questions will never be known, and we can therefore only hope that Messi's hamstring is nothing other than a strain and a minor incident.

For if it's something bigger, Barca will be under tremendous pressure.

Fortunately for them, the injury—at one level—doesn't matter. They have only a handful of league games remaining and, as mentioned, no other commitments. It doesn't matter—at one level—how they fare in these games, and so they won't be impacted per se, on whether Messi is there.

His presence is simply not as needed as it was earlier in the season, and it's more likely that the Argentine national coach Alejando Sabella is more worried about the 25-year-old striker than any of the Barcelona medical staff are. After all, he needs Messi to be healthy in June for World Cup qualifiers—something Barcelona don't need until the start of next season.

However, the injury should hopefully stand as a warning for Barcelona.

If nothing else, it should serve as a testament to the need to focus on long-term success and not short-term record-chasing or individual achievements.

Messi is a once-in-a-generation player, and Barcelona have him. He is the heart and soul of their team and he is the reason why they win or lose football trophies.

They cannot afford to damage that by failing to focus on the big picture here, and they can ill-afford to make the same mistakes again.

Especially not with another year of Champions League heartbreak behind them and the dominance they faced in Bayern Munich still fresh in their Catalan hearts.

Messi matters far too much to be managed as poorly as he was this week.

Barcelona need to make sure they don't make the same mistake again.

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