HE’S BACK BUT MUST BE THE BEATING HEART

LIONEL MESSI was not the only one you couldn’t take your eyes off. Up in the stands, the Diego Maradona sideshow was reaching new heights, or lows, depending on whether you were the TV match producer.

Maradona grabbed a Nigerian woman who happened to be within reach just before kick-off and proceeded to dance her around the executive box, wearing very much the look of an overweight 57-year-old.

His noise is something the Argentina side could have lived without in these desperate recent days, though the sight and sound of him — disappearing into some spiritual realm after Messi scored — is something they could all pay heed to, and not least the little master himself.

Because although the golden Messi touch was rediscovered — reaching sublimity when he took down Ever Banega’s 14th-minute ball on his left thigh, controlled it with his left foot before it had hit the ground and struck it past Francis Uzoho with his right — Argentina need a leader who not only produces against the world’s 48th-ranked team. Not only when the mind feels right.

From the moment the current No 10 arrived in the tunnel, you sensed all was well in his world. No rubbing of the temple and strange, private supplications to a greater force in the warm-up. No mood of isolation on the pitch.

He was running at Bryan Idowu from the seventh minute, sliding the ball through to Gonzalo Higuain on the half-hour and arcing a free-kick against the right upright five minutes later. Argentina’s vast following gave thanks, of course, though in the days when they were champions, they had an individual in that No 10 jersey whom they could really be sure of.

What the 1986 ‘Hand of God’ controversy obscured was that the Argentina side who lifted the trophy in Mexico was, Maradona apart, so very ordinary. He hauled them up that mountain. He was flawed and cuts a tragic figure now. But what we saw in the stands was a reminder that Maradona could never find restraint or be anything less than the team’s beating heart.

It could not be said of Messi here. In the BBC studio, Rio Ferdinand said the biggest pressure for Messi was Maradona ‘being in the stadium, watching him’. Maradona’s biggest pressure was the one he put on himself, to win.

In the conversation about which of these two is the greatest, Maradona’s name screams out more than ever.