MISERY FOR MESSI
Argentina superstar misses from the spot as Iceland prove they are tough enough with unlikely draw
LIONEL MESSI stood a few yards away from the ball as it lay on the penalty spot. He waited. Behind him, in the stands at the side of the pitch, Argentina fans bowed down to the living deity. Behind the goal at the Spartak Stadium, more fans chanted his name. High to his left, sitting in a VIP box, Diego Maradona watched from behind a garish pair of sunglasses.
Messi took his normal short runup. Everyone expected him to score even though he misses an average of one in four from the spot. Who cares about that. Messi’s infallibility conquers mere statistics. But it was another poor penalty and the Iceland goalkeeper, Hannes Halldorsson, guessed correctly.
There were still more than 25 minutes to go but Messi must have feared even then that his Argentina nightmare was beginning again.
If his club career with Barcelona has been defined by a series of triumphs, his international career has been beset by disappointments. He has played in four major finals for Argentina and lost all of them. Now the demons were back.
This was Iceland’s first-ever game at the World Cup and they did themselves proud. But this Group D opener was a fairy tale with a difference. It was a fairy tale with a victim and the victim was the man who has scored 64 goals in 124 matches for his country and may be playing in his last World Cup. The victim was Messi.
The Barcelona icon missed a penalty for Argentina in the shoot-out at the end of the 2016 Copa America final, which they eventually lost to Chile. He briefly retired from international football after that. Now he is back for one last shot at glory with his country. A 1-1 draw with Iceland, the World Cup’s smallest nation, a missed penalty and the sight of his defenders playing like clowns was not the start he was hoping for.
Somewhere, Cristiano Ronaldo would have been in front of a television, grinning. Or winking. The man with whom Messi has played out a thrilling duel to be considered the world’s greatest player for the last decade scored a brilliant hat-trick in Portugal’s breathtaking draw with Spain on Friday night. This match, and Messi’s performance, was most definitely a case of After the Lord Mayor’s Show. Everything Ronaldo did on Friday night, Messi failed to emulate. Ronaldo buried a penalty past David de Gea. Messi saw his saved. When Ronaldo won a late free-kick, he fired a stunning, dipping, fizzing shot high into the net for a last-gasp equaliser. When Messi tried the same in the dying seconds, his effort hit the top of the wall. Ronaldo won a point for his team. Messi blew his side’s shot at victory.
They are so good that the debate about who is better ebbs and flows. Ronaldo’s supporters are in the ascendant today. His hat-trick meant he has now scored 84 goals in 151 games for Portugal, putting him joint-second on the all-time international scoring list alongside Ferenc Puskas. Only Iran’s Ali Daei, on 109, has scored more for his country. He has scored 29 goals in his last 28 Portugal appearances. He helped his nation win Euro 2016. Oh, and he has won the last three Champions Leagues on the spin.
In case you are tempted to think that the rivalry does not interest the pair, do not forget that Messi posed with a goat in a recent Adidas advert, a message that he considers himself the Greatest Of All Time. Ronaldo’s response to that after his first goal was to run to the sideline and stroke his chin. They care.
It was not that Messi played badly against Iceland. It was just that he could not lift those around him to anywhere near his level. It was another reminder that he is the greatest in the world because of what he has achieved for Barcelona, not Argentina. His stage is the Nou Camp and his foils and his enablers and his compadres have been players of the class of Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Luis Suarez and Neymar.
But after this false start, the debate about Messi and his contribution to Argentinian football will rage again. Even though Messi led Argentina to
the World Cup final four years ago, he is still struggling to silence those who claim that he has never delivered for his country in the same way that he has for his club. The accusation against him from Argentines is that he does not care as much when he wears the national shirt.
It has almost got to the point where playing in the World Cup acts as a once-every-four-years interruption to the worship Messi enjoys in the rest of his career. He decided in 2016 that he didn’t need the curse of the national team any more but he changed his mind soon afterwards and, even though Argentina suffered a torturous qualifying campaign, he is back for what many believe will be his last crack at winning it.
There is no chance of that if Argentina do not improve radically on this showing. Even Messi cannot win the thing on his own. He is a magic man but he cannot command his area or marshall his defence. The problem is, no one else in this team appears to be able to do it, either.
The best chance of the early stages fell to Iceland. As Argentina tried to play the ball out from the back, a misplaced pass forced Willy Caballero to stretch to divert the ball away from Birkir Bjarnason but he could only prod it into the path of Gylfi Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson’s shot cannoned off a defender and straight into the path of Bjarnason, who dragged his shot wide.
It was an escape for Argentina and they took full advantage of it. Sergio Aguero controlled a mishit Marcos Rojo effort with his back to goal, turned sweetly away from his marker and rifled an unstoppable left-foot shot past Halldorsson.
By then, Messi had already forced a save out of the Iceland keeper when he unleashed a shot that Halldorsson could only fist away.
Messi was already playing at twice the thinking speed of anyone else. A couple of minutes later, he anticipated an Iceland defender playing the ball out of defence, pounced on it before it reached its target and curled in a shot that Halldorsson had to dive full length to keep out.
But if Argentina possess rare riches in attack, their defence was playing as if they had been drafted in as guests from the Moscow State Circus. Midway through the half, Sigurdsson found space and drilled in a shot that caused confusion in the Argentina area. Caballero once again failed to deal with it properly and when he pushed it out, it fell to Alfred Finnbogason, who stabbed it back past him into the net.
Argentina regained a measure of control but, just before half-time, there was another reminder of their vulnerability when Sigurdsson volleyed wide from ten yards out.
Midway through the second half, Argentina’s moment finally seemed to have arrived. Messi curled a ball into the Iceland box and when Aguero threatened to run on to it, his run was rudely interrupted by a clumsy challenge from Hoerdur Magnusson. The referee pointed to the spot and Iceland did not bother to protest. Messi took the kick. Halldorsson saved it.
Messi must have felt then that the nightmare was beginning again. Argentina pressed and pressed for a winner but it would not come. Time and again, Messi was confronted with a wall of defenders as he tried to find a way through. Deep in injury time, he stood over a freekick on the edge of the area, just a little further out than Ronaldo was when he crashed in that stunning equaliser in Sochi.
This was Messi’s moment. He stepped up and curled it towards goal with that golden left foot. But a defender leapt high and blocked it. The referee turned and blew the whistle for full-time. The ball came bouncing back to Messi. He booted it high into the air. Before it had landed, he turned for the tunnel.