The World Cup remains a blot on football's greatest curriculum
The image of Lionel Messi, sad and eliminated, is a common one in an Argentina shirt
How many knocks of this stature is one person -- who since he was young has been obliged to win a World Cup -- capable of taking? Lionel Messi was born in Rosario, where football is a religion, but he became a man in Barcelona. It was also surrounded by the Mediterranean that he was crowned as the best player in the history of the game, a symbolic prize which is only argued about where he was born. And all because of a tournament that is played every four years, a tournament that is whimsical and unpredictable. The hell Messi has to go through every four years is all because of Diego Maradona and his two goals against England in 1986. Bloody World Cup!
Messi, Catalan in Argentina and Argentina in Catalonia, left the pithc at the Kazan Arena with the same face as always, the same one he wore in Germany, South Africa and Brazil. Leo was the youngest Argentina player in 2006, he fought for his place, he earned the captain's armband, runs everything and should be made to feel at home. But not. He never felt like he was at home. Messi has never noticed the warmth that he receives at Camp Nou, nor complicity on the pitch from those that have grown along with him. Not once has he flowed in the Argentina shirt as he does in the Barcelona strip. The 10 on his back, the armband or the Argentine passport don't mean anything. They don't add anything. The biggest love stories aren't built on material gifts.
A STRANGE BODY
Coach Jorge Sampaoli changed his system for the umpteenth time against France. And he could change it as many times as Argentina play games with Messi. There won't be any improvement. The victories are circumstantial, the same as the losses. The problem is not the set up, nor the players selected. To find the reason why Leo looks like he's in a strange body when playing for Argentina, you have to rewind 18 years, back to when he was 13, when his destiny changed and football took him to Barcelona. That day, everything changed and Barça's success would be balanced by Argentina's failings. Because both things are intimately connected.
LAST WORLD CUP?
Russia could have seen the last of Lionel Messi in international football. Qatar 2022 is slowly appearing on the horizon and the No.10 will be 35 then. Predicting his evolution is as difficult as thinking that, even if he does play it, something will have changed for him to have a chance to win his first World Cup. Bloody World Cup! What a grotesque way to dirty the greatest curriculum in the game!
