Of course that whoever has Messi has an advantage. That's beside the point, since I'm not denying that at all. The idea behind my comment is that Barca would've been a great team without Messi as well. It's not just Messi that made that team special, it was a large array of factors involved, so if you take out one factor (the presence of Messi), but leave the rest in their place, the team still works to a high degree because the platform is still there and so are most of the pieces which make it work. Obviously it wouldn't be as close to unbeatable as with Messi in it, but great enough to compete and win many titles. We already saw what a working platform is, even without Messi, since we beat Madrid 4-0 and Messi came in at 3-0. That's the sign of a great great team. Even if you take away the best player in it, and one of the best ever, the rest are still absolute world class, capable of trashing their biggest rival on their home ground.
The fact that Barca's golden period happened to also be Spain's golden period at NT level is not a coincidence, and it does actually underlines that the generation Barca had during Pep and later was exceptional, and does not limit to just Messi. I don't see how it is controversial to say Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Alves, Pique, Villa, Henry, Eto'o, Abidal and other absolute world beaters in their position would've still formed a great team in the absence of Messi. It's really not.
) And without the golden core I doubt Messi would be able to will RM to the amount of titles Barca won. Especially since we know how dominant Barca 08-12 was without Messi (Spain essentially). We probably would've won less titles although maybe might've won two CLs still since Xavi and Iniesta had HUGE contributions to those runs.
