FROM A PARIAH TO MESSIAH
Argentina finally falls in love with Leo after miraculous hat-trick wins World Cup spot
HIS critics called him Pecho frio — ‘cold chest’ is the literal translation but ‘pea heart’ would come closer to the gist of the insult.
Lionel Messi has always come up short in the eyes of some Argentines for not being as barrel-chested, brash or bold as Diego Maradona. Now he has silenced every last one of them, perhaps for good.
This epic performance from the little sorcerer — he scored a hat-trick in a 3-1 win in Ecuador to guide Argentina to the World Cup — was the one he never quite found in the 2014 World Cup final.
And it came just as the critics were rounding on him once again. It’s one thing to lose a final but another not to even be at the tournament.
Messi’s biographer Sebastian Fest told Sportsmail yesterday: ‘Those Argentines who don’t love Messi don’t have any arguments left after that. They say he doesn’t sing the anthem and he doesn’t deliver in the most important moments. He knows how to sing the anthem but I don’t think he wants to any more because they have told him so many times that he should. I think it almost amuses him not to do it.
‘And as for not showing up when it matters, if it wasn’t for Messi then Argentina would not be at the World Cup. It’s that simple.’
Messi’s head was bowed throughout the anthem in Quito, which has always been seen by his critics as evidence of a lack of desire to play for his country.
The 30-year-old star left Argentina for Spain when he was 13, so has now spent more of his life outside the country than in it and the critics say it shows.
Messi’s frosty relationship with supporters has always been played out through his turbulent relationship with the Argentinian football media. When they attack him they do it in the name of those fans who say he will never replace Maradona.
Prominent football journalist Martin Liberman’s rant on Fox Sports went viral after a defeat last year. ‘Enough of the friends of Messi,’ he said, suggesting players are picked just because they are on good terms with the No 10. ‘I don’t want to see Sergio Aguero any more. And I would give Angel di Maria a long break.’
It was no surprise, then, that the ‘friends of Messi’ celebrated qualification by jumping up and down in the dressing room after the win in Ecuador chanting: ‘I don’t care what the f ****** journalists say, you have to get behind the team, get behind them to the death.’
Seeing Messi, bare-chested and standing up on a stool conducting his teammates in song, it could have been Maradona himself. In the midst of a crisis, here was the leader they had all been craving.
Much of the criticism of the Argentina team during qualifying has been justified. And that only adds to the weight of Messi’s achievement in carrying them on his back all the way to Russia.
The pressure was on him to such an extent that his wife Antonela Roccuzzo resisted the call to attend the game and flew to London instead where she watched the match with Cesc Fabregas’s partner Daniella Semaan.
She called Messi after the game and then posted a message on Instagram: ‘As always, there were no doubts! You deserve it more than anyone.’
That will have meant more than all the front page headlines that greeted him yesterday: ‘Thank you Messi’ in La Razon; ‘Messi is an Argentine’ in Òle; and ‘Messi’s genius puts us in the World Cup finals’ in Clarin.
Sports paper Pagina 12 even superimposed Messi’s face on to an image of Christ.
A U2 concert in Buenos Aires had been delayed so supporters could watch the end of the game on massive screens. And Bono declared: ‘Thank you Messi. God exists,’ as the goals went in.
Back in Spain, Barcelona fans tuning in at 1.30am local time to watch the game had to sit through a repeat of Masterchef instead as the national channel TVE made a mistake and only went live to Ecuador 16 minutes in.
Not to worry. In Barcelona they already appreciate what they have. After being saved from the nightmare of not making the finals, Argentina is finally coming around to the same way of thinking.
If it wasn’t for him, then they wouldn’t have qualified. It’s that simple