Mesmeric Messi makes the heart beat faster.. so why on earth would anyone want to see him go home?
IT was hard not to wince hearing people say before a ball was kicked in Russia that this was Lionel Messi’s last chance to prove he’s as good as Pele and Maradona.
Although it was easy to do so reading orgasmic tweets from Jeremy Clarkson clones after his ineffective role in Argentina’s shellacking by Croatia, which put them in sight of the departure lounge.
How could a bit of history with “the Argies” make you want such a gripping tournament to be denied the talent of Messi, who wasn’t born when General Galtieri invaded the Falklands or even when God raised Maradona’s Hand?
Had Marcos Rojo not hit a late winner against Nigeria and Argentina been sent home, should we have concluded that Messi’s inability to breathe life into a shambolic national set-up bars him from being up there with the greatest of all time? Only if you have a poor memory or a twisted agenda.
It’s a bit like saying George Best was average because he didn’t help Northern Ireland win the Home Internationals, Alfredo Di Stefano and Johan Cruyff weren’t geniuses because they failed to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy, or Ian Rush wasn’t in the same class as Jamie Vardy because he never played in a World Cup.
Many would be saying if Argentina had been knocked out that it settled the world’s-best player debate in Cristiano Ronaldo’s favour because, unlike Messi, he can inspire his national side to be better than the sum of its parts.
Ronaldo is a glorious footballing machine, but he operates primarily for his own greater glory, and for the past decade Portugal have been a highly-organised team built around him.
He missed a penalty against Iran but it didn’t seem to matter the way Messi’s miss did against Iceland. Neither did the fact that the free-kick Ronaldo scored against Spain was the first one in 45 attempts at major tournaments. It’s as though the expectations that surround Messi are higher and the burden of being exceptional in every game even heavier. Which is maybe the point. In our hearts most of us know which special player makes it beat faster. I don’t buy into the notion that Messi, Argentina’s alltime leading scorer with 65 goals, doesn’t do it for his country. He may not be as influential as Maradona (left, with Pele)) was, but without his brilliance at the last World Cup, in Brazil, Argentina would have failed to reach the final. In qualifying for Russia, Argentina picked up 21 points from 30 when Messi was playing but only six from 24 when he wasn’t. In their final game in Ecuador, a Messi hat-trick ensured qualification and saved national pride.
And then there was Nigeria on Tuesday, and that moment when Messi did what only he can do, stop time with three sublime touches and score a goal that leaves your brain trying to compute what your eye has just seen.
It wasn’t just that goal but his free-kick that hit a post, his delicious through ball to Gonzalo Higuain, his runs that team-mates didn’t see, and his words at half-time which they hung on to for dear life.
His Argentina team-mate Angel Di Maria this week referred to Messi as “the extra-terrestrial,” which sums him up to perfection. No expert can tell you with any certainty if he’s the greatest player of all time, or even the best pound-for-pound one on earth today.
But I know, in more than 50 years of watching the game, that I’ve never seen anyone create more beauty, more often, on a football pitch.
And when Argentina get knocked out of this enthralling World Cup it will be all the worse for his absence.