The Achilles heel of the national team is Neymar’s ankle. Of the six serious injuries he has suffered since arriving at Paris Saint-Germain, five have directly hit his support base. Two metatarsal fractures, popularly the little toe, two sprains in the left ankle and one in the right, which bothers him again and takes him out of the group stage.
It contrasts with the information from his staff that he has never been so light –in spirit– since he arrived in France. The body may be four kilos heavier than when Vanderlei Luxemburgo called him a butterfly fillet, but it is clear that the injury has nothing to do with his weight. Perhaps with the inability to release the ball faster.
In Argentina, it is called “tobillo” the same region of the body that is also afflicting Messi at the moment.
The two teams, Argentina and Brazil, seem less dependent on their stars and, at the same time, terrified of losing them. Earlier in the week, Messi showed up with massive swelling in his ankle, later reported as a pocket of gel inside his sock, to speed up his recovery.
He recalled Maradona, whose “tobillo” was measured daily by the then columnist for Sheet Silvio Lancellotti during the 1990 World Cup.
The Achilles’ heel of the World Cup would be losing two of its top stars early on due to strokes. Not European season wear. A sprain or injury caused by trauma is an accident at work for any athlete.
A hard blow for Neymar, for Messi and for Qatar.
Think that Paris Saint-Germain is today a Qatari club based in France, it hired the two stars to be champion of Europe and until today it has not succeeded. The country is now betting on the duo that fills stadiums with fans born all over Asia, dressed in yellow shirts, from Brazil, or blue and white, from Argentina.
And, as if it were a punishment from Allah, Neymar is injured in Brazil’s first game, while Messi is at risk of elimination, after playing poorly, with injury, in the defeat against Saudi Arabia.
The pressure on Messi is less on his left foot than on his shoulders. The group stages of the World Cups are a torment for Argentina, since they suffered 6 to 1 against Czechoslovakia in 1958. In the 1978 title, they lost to Italy and only came second.
With Maradona, he debuted with a defeat to Belgium four years later, drew with Italy in 1986, fell to Cameroon in the opening of 1990, qualified in the play-offs in 1994, was eliminated in 2002, was at risk until the last game against Nigeria , in 2018.
Beating Mexico and scaring away the crisis is not a difficult task. But beating Saudi Arabia looked a lot easier.
Do not forget that Messi and Neymar are workers of the official propaganda of Qatar, the dictatorship that denies rights to workers, women and homosexuals. But they don’t deserve any kind of punishment — and not even the world, which demands the Cup, is charging them for it.
Maybe the charge is fate.
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