Argentina relies on Messi’s leadership to avoid tragedy

Shortly before going up to the Maracanã lawn, the Argentine national team players gathered in a circle, and Lionel Messi spoke.

“The path is more important than the result”, he said, to motivate the squad.

Ninety minutes later, contrary to what he said, the result would be the most important thing. Argentina defeated Brazil 1-0 and won the 2021 Copa América. It was Messi’s first relevant title for the national team. The perception of the importance of that for the number 10 shirt was immediate by the other players. Everyone rushed to hug him. They threw him high.

“When Messi speaks, everyone is silent. It is as if the president of Argentina were speaking”, compared goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez.

Messi’s leadership today is unquestionable. Sometimes it becomes devotion. Lisandro Martínez confessed to having been paralyzed, on his first call-up, when the striker went to greet him.

“We need to give a Cup [do Mundo] to Leo”, said the defender.

For that, Argentina cannot lose this Saturday (26). And, in order not to suffocate in the third round, he has to win in the second. The rival will be Mexico, at 4 pm (Brasília time), at the Lusail stadium. The same one that saw the biggest upset of the World Cup in Qatar so far: Saudi Arabia’s victory over Alviceleste by 2-1.

Messi needs to be the leader he wasn’t in the past. On the contrary, for a long time, he received criticism precisely for his lack of leadership. Silent, at times shy, he closed in on himself. Defender Pablo Zabaleta, one of his first friends in the national team, confessed that it took him a while to find out what his voice sounded like.

And when Lionel said something, it was within the definition of Argentine journalist and writer Leonardo Faccio. When interviewing the already best player in the world, he concluded that Messi was someone who bit back his words to keep them from coming out of his mouth.

In 2010, at the World Cup in South Africa, the star stumbled in the speech before the match against Greece. Then-coach Diego Maradona decided that he would be captain in that match because he needed to learn to be a leader. In the circle of players in the tunnel, everyone was waiting for the word of who wore the armband.

“Actually, I don’t know what to say,” she blushed.

“The night before leaving, Leo was worried. He wanted to know what he could say. I only advised him to say what was in his heart”, he told the Sheetin 2017, Juan Sebastián Verón, Messi’s roommate in 2010. A choice by Maradona so that the then 23-year-old athlete could learn to command with the 35-year-old veteran.

Maradona should have already suspected that it would be difficult. If he could barely talk to Messi over the phone, how could he be expected to speak in front of dozens of other people? It was Diego who observed that it was easier to make an appointment with God than to get Lionel to answer his cell phone.

It could be an unfair image. If Messi didn’t lead with words, he did it by example. He was the one who trained the most. He wanted the ball in every situation. The harder it was, the more he asked for it.

In the book “Messi, the Complete Genius”, Argentine journalist Ariel Senosiain collected testimonials that recall the Argentine’s football upbringing in Barcelona, ​​where no one is used to shouting, appealing to emotions. In the team’s school, especially under the command of Pep Guardiola, the leaders appeared with the ball at their feet.

That didn’t always work well in the passionate environment of the Argentina national team. He was even charged in public by defender Nicolás Burdisso in a game against Colombia, in the 2011 Copa América. The phrase “pendejo, la ultima pelota se corre”, demanding more effort in marking, entered the striker’s folklore.

“Pendejo”, a word for “stupid”, may be meant as a joke. But it may not have. For those who saw the scene, it did not seem harmless. Burdisso swears he was.

Truly assuming the leadership of the Argentine national team, for Lionel Messi, was a process. Slow sometimes. It started with Alejandro Sabella asking, in 2011, for captain Mascherano to pass the armband permanently to the number 10. It was the repetition of what Carlos Bilardo had done when he took over the selection, in 1983. He took away the role of Daniel Passarella, the man who he had lifted the trophy in 1978, and passed it to Maradona.

Passarella was furious. Mascherano accepted naturally.

On the way between the 2010 clumsy speech and the words of 2021, Messi cried the defeats in the finals of the 2014 World Cup and the 2015 and 2016 Copa Americas. He announced that he would no longer play for the national team, before retreating. He saw the birth of Thiago, his first child, in 2012, an event he claims changed his perception of things. He has weathered the desolation of the 2018 Worlds campaign.

Finally, he reached last year’s continental title and became the undisputed idol of his teammates with the Alviceleste jersey.

“We all know what he does on the field, but I stay with the person he is. He’s won everything and sits down for a mate with you even if you don’t know him. The day I retire, I’ll be able to say that I played with the best of history. His way of being makes him the greatest of all”, praised defender Cuti Romero.

Romero is one of those who can leave the team for this Saturday’s match. He had a bad performance in the defeat to Saudi Arabia and comes from injury. His replacement would be Lisandro Martínez. Other studied changes are the addition of Gonzalo Montiel on the right wing, Marcos Acuña on the left and Enzo Fernández in midfield. Nahuel Molina, Nicolás Tagliafico and Papú Gómez (or Leandro Paredes) would go to the bench.