Lionel Messi One More Time

Work stopped and the murmurs grew louder in the media tribune of Doha’s Lusail Stadium as Lionel Messi gingerly felt the back and side of his left leg. Argentina were leading 2-0 against Croatia, a World Cup final beckoned, but you didn’t need to know Spanish to understand the general line of inquiry, which was: Is everything alright with Leo? For Argentine journalists and fans, he is always that. Never Messi.

Then, in the 69th minute, Messi went on a run that left Josko Gvardiol chasing a crooked shadow. The young central defender’s leadership and ball-carrying abilities had been widely praised but Messi spun him twice. Such chaos Messi spread in the Croatia penalty area that Julian Alvarez was left unmarked. As suddenly as Messi’s assist made it 3-0 on the night, relief replaced worry in the tribune and on the rafters.

It’s the left leg again – an overload on his hamstring this time – but from Barishal to Buenos Aires, Kozhikode to Kansas, Mussoorie to Miami, fans will hope Messi will be ready for Argentina’s first match of the World Cup, against Algeria. Like he was in 2022. He played every minute of that campaign after recovering from an Achilles injury in the lead-up.

Messi will be substituted when Messi wants, Lionel Scaloni had said in Doha. Will the Argentina head coach stick to that this summer? On form, there’s no reason not to. Messi went into Major League Soccer’s break for the World Cup on 13 goals and seven assists. He is the only one in the history of the league to have won the MVP in successive seasons, and though he didn’t play a third of the games, Messi was the top scorer in the South American qualifiers (8 goals) which Argentina easily topped.

But Messi will turn 39 during the tournament, the summer could leave players struggling like Jannik Sinner did in Paris, so managing minutes could be important. That will be Scaloni’s test. “He (Messi) has to be comfortable on the pitch,” Javier Mascherano has said. “He’s comfortable when things are working in the right way,” said Messi’s former teammate and coach. In the country hosting most of the 104 matches and where he won the 2024 Copa, Messi possibly feels most comfortable since leaving Barcelona.

It is important to bring David Beckham in here. Without him joining LA Galaxy, there would possibly have been no Messi in the USA today. And had Beckham not exercised his $25m future option to own a Major League Soccer franchise, there would have been no announcements like “Inter Miami’s goal scored by numero diez,” following which the crowd chants Messi’s name.

Nearly a fourth of the over 200,000 Argentines in the USA live in Miami so getting Messi and then giving him a new deal till 2028 is a coup by the club. “This is our moment to change the football landscape in this country,” Jorge Mas, one of the co-owners, had said when Messi joined in 2023. Serena Williams, LeBron James and Kim Kardashian attended Messi’s first match. Not unlike Barrack Obama posing with Beckham when he had shifted continents.

Like Beckham in the USA, Messi shuffled and sauntered in Doha. He walked, others ran. Credit to Scaloni for finding the balance Argentina have not seen since Carlos Bilardo wove a team around Diego Maradona in 1986 and 1990. In Qatar, Rodrigo De Paul, Alexis Mac Allister and Leandro Parades would do most the off-the-ball heavy lifting for Messi. It is important that 17 from “La Scaloneta”, the group that won the World Cup, will be in the USA.

In Qatar, something shifted in Messi. Till then, he was football’s most celebrated introvert – Maradona said he lacked personality. Even when he was the face of brands, there was no blurring the line between show and sport. For Messi the sport was the show. He remained a guy who tried to fit in, the player who lay behind the free-kick wall at Paris St-Germain.

But at the World Cup, Messi appeared more authoritative. At Salt Lake stadium in 2011, in his first match as Argentina captain, he told A Rowanan to book a Venezuela player. Eleven years later in the thumb-shaped peninsula, he spoke to referees more regularly. There were also the very public show of anger and disapproval, at Wout Weghorst and Louis van Gaal.

Ending Argentina’s 28-year trophy drought with the 2021 Copa also meant his relationship with the fans changed. Till then, Maradona was God, Messi merely great. (Six years after his international debut, in the 2011 Copa, which Argentina hosted, Carlos Tevez was greeted more warmly than Messi, who by then had won the Ballon d’Or twice.) In Doha, fans sang of Maradona and his mother blessing Messi, a song that segued into a chant that went “Ole, Ole, Ole, Leo.”

No one’s played as many World Cup finals matches (26) and only Messi has scored in all knockout round matches in one edition. No one since 1966 had a goal and an assist in four different World Cup matches. In 2022, Messi scored seven goals and made three assists (he has 13 goals and eight assists spread across five editions), bagged five player-of-the-match awards and a second Golden Ball. It’s a tough act to repeat.

Can Argentina do it one more time? Can Messi get his teammates to lift their level like they did in Doha? Jorge Valdano is optimistic. “Argentina has achieved the best thing a national team can achieve: being a team,” the 1986 World Cup winner told AP. “It’s a team with a very clear leadership, that of the coach and Leo Messi and players who haven’t lost their hunger.”