‘Thank God for Messi’

Anation exploded with relief yesterday as Lionel Messi single-handedly dragged his Argentina team into next year’s World Cup finals with a spellbinding hattrick in Quito.

“Messi is E.T. He’s from another planet. He’s not from this world,” Marco Mouras, a 28-year-old Brazilian said in a crowded Buenos Aires bar as Argentinians around him went wild, beer and pizza spilling onto the floor.

Messi gave the world a masterclass of what it would be missing if he didn’t go to Russia 2018, a distinct possibility when Argentina went a goal down inside the first minute of a match they had to win.

A graveyard silence descended on bars, restaurants and homes when Ecuador’s Romario Ibarra struck in the first minute of the game, casting a pall of gloom across Argentina as he scored.

It was proof for the doomsayers that this team was a lost cause. Argentinians had suffered too much during a lacklustre qualification series and this was the last straw.

But Messi burst through the gloom to equalise and then soon scored again to give Argentina the lead.

Pride in the shirt was restored when Messi completed his hattrick in the second half. It was time for Argentinians at home to believe again.

Even music yielded to Messi when Irish rockers U2 delayed their concert by almost two hours to allow fans in the La Plata stadium near Buenos Aires time to watch the match on giant screens. When they finally came on stage, they kicked off a giant party.

With seemingly everyone crowded around every available TV set, the streets of Buenos Aires were so empty it seemed like a curfew.

People wore the Argentine shirt in the build-up, but not many.

The Argentine public had grown tired of believing in vain.

A win seemed a little too fanciful to most, exasperated by a series of underwhelming performances by the national side.

The nation yearns for a return to the glory days of 1978 and 1986 when Argentina won the World Cup.

Over to you, Lionel Messi.– AFP