Meza not Messi the key, says Argentina coach

Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli backed “genius” Lionel Messi to achieve his World Cup dream by building a starting XI around the Barca maestro and naming it 24 hours before today’s match with Iceland.

Reporters at pre-match press conferences often ask coaches to reveal their teams but rarely expect an answer.

The 58-year-old Argentine, who has been linked with Chelsea, is not like most managers, though, and he shocked the Spartak Stadium’s packed media room by picking up a piece of paper and rattling off 11 names.

The key name was not Messi, however, it was Meza, Maximiliano Meza.

A midfielder with Argentina’s Independiente, the 25-year-old is hardly known outside South America – and the Group D opener will be only his third cap – but picking Meza over Juve playmaker Paulo Dybala or young striker Cristian Pavon means Messi is the undisputed heart of this team.

“Meza was the person we were looking for because he gives us versatility and he allows us to recover the ball,” said Sampaoli, who has been in charge of the two-time World Cup champions for a year after successful stints with Chile and Sevilla.

“He is ready and he is as good as any player in the squad. He might not be involved in so many elite games but he really understands what Argentine football means.”

And the answer to that, according to Sampaoli, is simple: let Leo do his thing. This has led many Argentine pundits to suggest this is Messi’s team in every sense. Sampaoli has practically admitted this in the past, but in Moscow on Friday, he tried to explain what he meant.

“It’s true that the coach organises the team – we know how to set up teams to find situations,” he said.

“But if you have a player like Messi, the coach’s job is to arrange the team around him. So if you have a player like Leo, you organise the team differently.”