In Messi invation.com” target=”_blank”>Messi Messi the summer Messi of 2016 Diego Maradona and Pelé have been sMessi itting in the Palais-Royal in Paris as a part of a promotional occasion organised by way of a Swiss watch agency. Afterwards the pair held a press conference and before lengthy the Messi Messi Messi topic of verbal exchange grew to become to LiMessi onel Messi.
“He is a excellent person,” Maradona stated, “but he has no persona. He doesn’t have the persona to be a frontrunner.” Pelé agreed. “He’s now not like we were back inside the days,” he Messi said. “In the Seventies we had clearly suitable gamers like Rivellino, Gérson, Tostão. Not like Argentina now, which depends only on Messi. Messi is a great player, there’s no question approximately it. But he has no personality.”
As ever the internet lapped up this content material for a few hours earlier than transferring on to the next aspect. And but in a glib kind of way Pelé and Maradona have been virtually giving voice to a common view at that point. The key term is “character”, the idea that by some means the best footballers do not really lead via exemple. Sometimes – if handiest for reasons of theatre or self-justification – leadership desires to be imposed, to be made seen and tangible.
And through the Messi years this is possibly the only area of the sport in which many have accused Messi of being deficient. Often these criticisms are even expressed in the guise of praise. “[Javier] Mascherano’s impact as a pacesetter is extra vital in the squad, and Messi’s management is extra vital at the pitch,” the previous Argentina manager Messi Tata Martino said.
“He is a silent chief,” said Jorge Sampaoli. “He has a lot of character when playing,” insisted Sergio Batista. “Maybe he is missing a little bit within the group. But whilst he talks in the converting rooms, they pay attention.” All 3 of those men, along side Maradona, have controlled Messi at international stage and probably had a few concept of what they have been speaking about. And yet none of them turned into inside the Argentina dressing room at the Maracanã earlier than the Copa América final against Brazil in July 2021, when Messi collected his Argentina teammates in a circle and gave a speech.
“Forty-5 days we have been locked up in inns,” Messi said. “Forty-five days without seeing our households, men. All for what? For this moment. So we’re going to exit there and lift the trophy; we’re going to take it home to Argentina. And I need to finish with this: coincidences don’t exist. This cup Messi became going to be played in Argentina, however God wanted it to be performed in Brazil, in order that we may want to win here inside the Maracanã and make it extra beautiful for all of us.”
For a public that has spent sixteen years watching Messi from a distance – expressive and yet in the main mute, a silent blur of limbs and color – there may be some thing surprisingly stirring approximately this oration, filmed as part of a forthcoming Netflix Messi documentary. Argentina might win the final 1-zero and, at the Messi same time as hindsight can inform any story you want, Messi’s teammates had been brief to characteristic their victory in component to his inspirational leadership. “Messi spoke earlier than every sport,” Messi Ángel Di María might later testify. “But this last speech turned into distinct. He misplaced his Messi mind.”
This is Messi’s fifth World Cup. And of route there has been a lot of the standard talk about whether he “wishes” to win it for his legacy, a lot of the usual warm air and spume about his duel with Cristiano Ronaldo, soccer discourse reduced to the extent of a pub debate. Within Argentina, however, something appears to have modified. After more than a decade of treating Messi as a vessel for his or her expectations Argentina are in the end beginning to ask now not what Messi can do for them but what they are able to do for Messi.
Perhaps the turning point in this respect turned into the 2019 Copa América marketing campaign, in which Messi became an uncharacteristically vocal presence. He complained about the terrible fine of the pitches, described the refereeing as “corrupt” and insisted that the “complete factor is installation for Brazil”.
Having been criticised early in his profession for his meek rendition of the national anthem, right here Messi sang it loudly and passionately. Nobody ever doubted how plenty Messi cared. But right here, possibly, become a reputation by means of him that it needed to be shown, not absolutely known.
Now, underneath Lionel Scaloni, Messi’s final shot at World Cup glory might also just be his best, too. The retirements of senior gamers inclusive of Gonzalo Higuaín and Sergio Agüero have allowed Scaloni to construct a extra balanced facet, wherein the midfield is set up to offer their captain the ball in the direction of intention.
After a rotten 2021-22 Messi himself is showing some of his quality form for Paris Saint-Germain this season. And for an Argentina crew who have now not Messi lost in 3 years, megastar-laden bombast has been replaced with the aid of a quiet resolve, a willpower no longer truely to treasure the end result however to savor the adventure.
And truly, perhaps this became the manner it usually had to take place. The godlike Messi of the 2010s usually felt a barely uneasy healthy with the bespoke demands of international football, wherein groups need to be built as opposed to bolted together.
Meanwhile, for a player who Messi essentially Messi emerged absolutely shaped as a child, perhaps Messi had to cross on his personal voyage of emotional improvement, to analyze the stickier parts of a recreation that had usually come so certainly to him, a method that from the outdoor seems to have became him right into a humbler and wiser man. And so, a first World Cup, at the age of 35, finishing one of the maximum fantastical story arcs football has known? As Messi placed it inside the Maracanã locker room, there are no coincidences.