Lionel Messi looks dejected at the end of Argentina’s loss against Croatia earlier this week
It is a strange world we inhabit when the struggles of Lionel
Messi, a footballer who has brought so much joy to so many people, are
greeted with glee by some and triumphalism by others. Why would seeing
Messi brought low make you happy? Why would seeing a bird trapped in a
cage make you rejoice?
Maybe it is because his subdued performances so far at this World
Cup are thought to vindicate a twisted, confected, malevolent opinion
that the Argentina forward has always been dependent on the talent
around him at Barcelona and that without his supporting cast, he is
really rather ordinary.
Maybe it is because some have become so obsessed with championing
Cristiano Ronaldo’s case as the greatest player in the world that they
think they are furthering his cause by heaping scorn on the one rival
whose own sublime talents have always denied the Portuguese the right to
be considered the best.
I was at the Spartak Stadium in Moscow last Saturday to see
Argentina’s laboured draw with Iceland and I watched their 3-0
demolition by Croatia in Nizhny Novgorod in an Ekaterinburg bar full of
Peruvians who found some solace in Argentina’s misery after their
elimination from the tournament earlier that evening.
The evidence of both those games was that even a forward line of
Messi, Pele, Johan Cruyff, George Best and Diego Maradona wouldn’t be
enough to rescue this mess of an Argentina side. Misshapen and
disorganised, caught between one defensive formation and another, it’s
football’s equivalent of an army unit gone rogue.
Messi was subdued by the error strewn performance of players around him for Argentina
‘Are my methods unsound?’ the renegade colonel, Kurtz, asks Captain
Willard in the film Apocalypse Now. ‘I don’t see any method at all,
sir,’ Willard replies. Argentinian football’s Armageddon is organised
along similar lines. Jorge Sampaoli did great things as manager of Chile
but it is easy to see why he is detested and distrusted by Argentina
fans.
So, sure, Messi was subdued. You would be subdued, too, if you
watched your goalkeeper chipping the ball to Ante Rebic, who volleyed it
straight back past him into the roof of the net for Croatia’s opening
goal. You’d be subdued if your manager was pacing the touchline, ashen
and sweaty, looking like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The Argentina defence was a shambles against Croatia and Iceland
and their midfield was not much better. Javier Mascherano was a fine
player once but he plays his club football for Hebei China Fortune now
and he looked 34 going on 54 against Luka Modric and co. Messi might
have missed a penalty against Iceland but he worked tirelessly to try to
spark his team into life. By the time he faced Croatia, admittedly, he
looked as if he already knew the game was up.
Does any of this affect the way he will be viewed by future
generations? Well, it will count against him in the arguments about
where he stands alongside Pele and Maradona, in particular, if he never
lifts the World Cup. But the same applies to Ronaldo. Messi at least
dragged an average Argentina team to the final against Germany four
years ago in Brazil. That already seems to have been forgotten.
It also seems to have been forgotten that for a player who can’t
hack it without Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Luis Suarez, Neymar and the rest
of his Barcelona buddies, he has somehow managed to blow away a
legendary striker like Gabriel Batistuta and establish himself as his
country’s all-time leading scorer. He has 64 goals in 126 appearances
for Argentina.
Not bad for someone who is accused of not caring when he plays for his country. If anything, he cares too much.
As for Ronaldo, his contribution to this World Cup has been
electrifying. They were lucky, those who were there in Sochi, to see his
stunning performance against Spain and his dogged, indomitable refusal
to accept that he and his Portugal team were beaten. His athleticism,
his sheer force of will and the technical beauty of that last-gasp
free-kick marked him out once again as one of the all-time greats.
Does that diminish Messi? No. None of what has happened at this
World Cup has changed my opinion one iota about him. Nor has it
tarnished any of the memories I have of seeing him play live. Every
single one, and particularly the time I took my son to watch him perform
at the Nou Camp so he could say he had seen him play, has been a
privilege. It is a shame he is not lighting up this tournament. It would
be better for it if he were.
Still, two ordinary games for Argentina is nothing when set against
the canon of his achievements. Nothing. Because when I say
‘achievements’, I don’t just mean Champions Leagues won or La Ligas
lifted or records set. I mean the entertainment he has provided for more
than a decade.
If there is a difference between Messi and Ronaldo that strikes me
most, I think it is that. Ronaldo seems to be doing this for his own
greater glory. Messi is more self-effacing. He is doing it for the joy
of it. I love watching Messi play.
I know Ronaldo is a magnificent player but I can’t get past mere admiration for him.
Unconsciously or knowing, there is a love of the football aesthetic
in what Messi does. There is a desire to make the game beautiful for
people to watch. And here is the irony for those who persist in saying
that Messi cannot do it without a great team behind him: maybe that’s
because he is a team player.
Ronaldo, first of all, is an individual. He puts himself first. At
Barcelona, Messi plays for the team and the team play for him. His
genius is unselfish. Ronaldo’s is not.
Whatever happens at this World Cup, whether Portugal win the thing
and Argentina lose to Nigeria on Tuesday and don’t even make the second
round, I’ll always prefer Messi. If only one man of this generation is
to be anointed the successor to Pele, Cruyff, Maradona and Zidane, it
can only be him.
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Source: Daily Mail UK