- Matthias Zibell (@mundozibell)
- BBC News World
image source, Getty Images
The final kiss.
There are two kinds of love stories: those that following many vicissitudes end with a happy ending, and those that, on the verge of having a happy ending, end with a tragic denouement. The whole planet today knows how the story between Messi and Argentina ended.
And although following the victory on penalties once morest France, which allowed Argentina to win its third World Cup on Sunday, Lionel Messi said he wants to play a few more games with your teamHis previous statements regarding this being his last World Cup suggest that there will not be another moment as important as this in the relationship between Rosario and the Albiceleste.
To work, a love story does not necessarily have to end well.
If not, ask William Shakespeare, and he “did” everything to those poor Romeo and Juliets: in the end, he sent them to a penalty shootout, poisoned them, and stabbed them.
But if it’s going to end well, the love story needs obstacles. Easy, accessible love, we don’t like it. We have to suspect that everything can be derailed at the last moment to assess, satisfied, the final kiss.
And the story between Messi and Argentina was on the verge of failing so many times, even in the heart-stopping final in Qatar, that that kiss he gave to the World Cup before lifting it was the perfect ending, the dream outcome, the moment when all the cinema stops and asks for the Oscar for the screenwriter.
If we go back to its beginnings, we can say that this story has never been for the faint of heart: first, there was a time when Messi might not have played for the albiceleste, but for another country; Later, he began the romance with a Sub 20 World Cup in Holland 2005 and an Olympic gold medal in Beijing 2008.
Then everything went wrong, three consecutive lost finals -2014 (World Cup in Brazil) and the Copa América in 2015, 2016- that led him to resign from the national team, which we will talk regarding later in this article.
Finally, the apotheosisfirst with the 2021 Copa América and now in Qatar with the grand finale.
image source, Getty Images
Gone was the bad taste of Brazil, when the World Cup turned its back on it.
And if this love thing may seem like an exaggeration, I invite you to see the festivities in Argentina and its social networks, a country with inflation as heart-stopping as the final in Qatar, with a political division so fervent that it even has a name: “the crack “.
Before the match final versus Francean Argentine Twitter user -@JuanStanisci- wrote: “This is happening to us is wonderful. It’s as if the whole country had agreed to live as if they were in love.”
After Argentina’s triumph, if Romeo and Juliet came across Shakespeare and his tragic endings, they might have said three and a half words: “Andá p‘there, fool”the famous phrase that Messi dedicated to a player from the Netherlands following a heated quarterfinal match.
disagreements
Messi never made his debut in the Argentine first division. He went to Barcelona as a teenager, which, in addition to leading him to glory, paid for medical treatment for his physical growth that no club had wanted to pay for in his country.
For this reason, the AFA (Argentine Football Association) found out that it had a young promise, not on the field every Sunday, but thanks to a video that Messi’s father, Jorge, made with his son’s plays.
To prevent the future idol from ending up playing a World Cup with the red shirt of Spaininstead of the albiceleste, a call from Buenos Aires to Messi’s family ended with Lionel playing a friendly under 20 once morest Paraguay on June 29, 2004 at the Argentinos Juniors stadium, the same club where he had debuted in first years formerly Diego Armando Maradona.
image source, Getty Images
Messi, with the number 18 on his back, sent off in his first game with the senior team.
But the debut in the major might not have been more disappointing.
On August 17, 2005, he entered a friendly once morest Hungary and was sent off at 45 secondson the first ball he touched, due to a slap to the face of winger Vilmos Vanczák.
That same year, Messi lifted -like Maradona in Japan in 1979- his first title with the albiceleste: youth world champion.
A year later he made his debut in a World Cup -Germany 2006- with three games played and one goal. Then, in 2008, he won Olympic gold in Beijing.
In 2010, the whole stage was set for the great chapter of this story. Messi in the South Africa World Cup directed by Maradona.
However, although he played every game until the quarterfinal elimination, it was the only World Cup in which did not score a single goal.
image source, Getty Images
Messi wrapped up by Maradona following the 4-0 defeat once morest Germany in South Africa 2010.
If history went wrong in South Africa, the situation worsened when the team failed to nor reach the semifinal in the 2011 Copa América. The data is not minor, because that tournament was played in Argentina.
Then, the ghost of heartbreak slipped between the fans and his number 10. That he did not sing the Argentine national anthem before games, that he won everything at Barcelona and nothing with the albiceleste, that he was not a leader like the great Diego. ..
In 2014, conditions looked perfect once more. A World Cup in Brazil, the eternal rival, close enough to home for the Brazilian stadiums to be filled with Argentines. Four goals from Messi -in the group stage- and Argentina reached the final, where they fell 1-0 once morest Germany.
Not even the choice of 10 as the player of the tournament served to ease the pain of Lionel walking next to the Cup that was so close.
And that final was followed by two other lost finals, both on penalties, both with Chile, in 2015 in the neighboring country and in 2016 in the United States. After this last tournament, Messi mightn’t take it anymore:
“It is done. The selection is over for me. There are four finals (including the defeat once morest Brazil in the 2007 Copa América), it’s not for me. Unfortunately I looked for it, it was what I wanted the most. It was not given to me. I think it is ready”.
But following 45 days, Messi returned. “I love my country and this shirt too much,” he said, and three goals from him in the last qualifying match once morest Ecuador in 2017 ensured Argentina a harrowing qualification for Russia 2018.
However, that championship was another disappointment. Messi’s worst World Cup, with a 4-3 elimination in the round of 16 once morest France, a single goal in the group stage and an internal conflict between the players and coach Jorge Sampaoli.
image source, Getty Images
The last World Cup in Argentina had been in 1986, in Mexico, captained by an incredible Maradona.
But in that coaching staff there was another Lionel, Scaloni, who following the Russian disaster took over the team at the age of 40 and no previous coaching experience Not even in clubs.
In the first Copa América for both Lionels, Brazil 2019, Argentina came third but things happened, beyond the football results:
To begin with, the Argentine sports press said that Messi had been “maradonized” with his criticism of the tournament organizers, which even cost him a sports sanction and another financial one.
The fall of Argentina once morest the canarinha in the semifinal of that tournament, with arbitration decisions criticized by Messi, it was the last defeat for the albiceleste until their debut in the World Cup in Qatar once morest Saudi Arabia; there were 36 team games staircases, known as “the Scaloneta”.
In between, on November 25, 2020, Maradona died. The news shocked the country and the world of football.
Messi paid homage to him by celebrating a goal in Barcelona with the shirt that Diego wore during his time at News Old Boys de Rosario, the club of which Messi himself is a fan. From that day on, as the most sung song by the Argentine fans in Qatar says, Maradona’s role was different: “And Diego, we can see him in heaven, with Don Diego and La Tota, encouraging Lionel”.
When Brazil returned to host the Copa América in 2021, with the fields empty due to the covid, Argentina ended a 28-year drought without titles with the senior team, with nothing more and nothing less than a victory on July 11 in the final over the locals in the historic Maracana stadium.
But the World Cup in Qatar was missing, which might not have started worse. First game, defeat 2 to 1 with Saudi Arabia. End of the undefeated And the love that seemed to falter once more. But the Argentine captain spoke to the people regarding him: “We ask people to trust. This group is not going to leave them stranded.”
image source, Getty Images
Messi’s counterpart in all these years, Cristiano Ronaldo, was left out of the World Cup in the quarterfinals.
Then came three straight victories, in the group stage once morest Mexico and Poland. In the round of 16 it was once morest Australia. In that match, Messi scored for the first time in a World Cup final.
With his goals in the tie once morest the Netherlands (a game defined by penalties), once morest Croatia and once morest France, the Argentine became the first player in this World Cup to score in the round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals in history of the world
The seven goals scored throughout the tournament also allowed him to reach 12 World Cup goals and surpass Gabriel Batistuta as the top Argentine scorer in World Cups, who had 10.
In a World Cup that chose him as the best player of the tournament, not only for his goals but also for his assists, his dribbling and his vision of the game, Messi -at 35 years of age- reached another record, he became the player who most world matches played: 26.
And it also definitively settled a dispute. For years the world of football has wondered who is the best player, the Argentine or Cristiano Ronaldo. The World Cup won this Sunday definitely tilts the balance for the South American side, since the Portuguese never achieved this glory.
But, for Argentina, the settled dispute is another. Messi, like Maradona, already has his World Cup. The celestial and white firmament acquires a sacred balance:
One in heaven, the other on earth, both divine and human.
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