Argentina: A Messi Affair
What would you do if you had the weight of a nation on your shoulders?
When I set out to write this series, I wanted to recount the competition history of every World Cup favourite during the 21st Century.
So I could start this tale recounting to you the torrid events of the 2002 World Cup, where Argentina exited in the group stages; the final nail in the coffin delivered by David Beckham who had been sent off in the same fixture four years earlier.
But what I have found while writing these testaments to international football, is it’s not what’s on the surface that is the most interesting.
With Brazil, it was how a beloved sport became twisted in the viewpoint of its fans, both on the pitch and in terms of what it stood for, while with France the greater story was how the French national team became embroiled in greater debates over immigration and nationalism.
With Argentina however, the true story is much less symbolic. It is simply the tale of how one national team had arguably the greatest player of all time and failed to win a single trophy with him for nearly 18 years.
To start with you can remove the simple answer of ‘he was just in a bad team’, because as you will see as we progress through the years, the players that Argentina had at their disposal included some of the greatest of their generation.
Esteban Cambiasso, Javier Zanetti, Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria, Riquelme and so many more. This was a team of champions and true ‘jugadors’, yet one man stood above them all…
Lionel Andres Messi. The boy who was meant to be the heir to the late great Diego Maradona, but ended up in many ways eclipsing his legacy.
Messi would not make his senior debut for Barcelona until 2003 and then his Argentina debut would not be until 2005. But way before Beckham curled an inexplicable free kick into the top corner in 2002, you could feel the wave of expectation building for what Argentina was about to unleash on the world.
At the age of six, Messi would join Newell’s Old Boys, the club he supported and still supports to this day. He played for six years as part of the youth team nicknamed ‘The Machine of 1987’; they would spend three of those years unbeaten and Messi himself would score over 500 goals.
His youth coach at the time, Adrian Coria, would say of him:
"When you saw him you would think: this kid can't play ball. He's a dwarf, he's too fragile, too small. But immediately you'd realise that he was born different, that he was a phenomenon and that he was going to be something impressive."
‘He’s a dwarf’ would refer to the fact that at the age of 10, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. He needed treatment, which would eventually be paid for by Barcelona as part of the deal to sign him in 2000 (and we all know how that went).
Years would pass, and Messi would rapidly rise through the ranks of La Masia, be mentored by the great Ronaldinho and eventually make his debut for the first team in October 2004 against Espanyol; though he would not score his first goal until the 1st May 2005, against Albacete.
Frank Rijkaard, who was the manager that gave him his debut, was in awe of the youngster:
“From the moment Messi was introduced, we all knew he was a unique talent. I remember Deco and Ronaldinho immediately realised how special he was, and they took him under their wing.”
But this isn’t the story of Messi with Barcelona; how he gained his seven Ballon d'Or and won everything there was to win; this is the story of Messi and the Argentina national team and that is a tale where the successes that came so easily at club level can scarcely be found.
Messi made his debut for Argentina in 2005 in a friendly against Hungary. It lasted 40 seconds.
The 18-year-old eager to impress tried to take on full-back Vilmos Vanczak. He managed to get past the Hungarian, but unwilling to go down without a fight the defender began to pull his shirt to hold him back.
Messi tried to shake him off, but in doing so he caught Vanczak in the face with his arm and the referee had no choice but to show him a red card. When his teammates returned to the dressing room they found a young Messi in tears, it was only a friendly but he felt he had let the team down.
Argentina weren’t going to give up on their fledgling superstar because of one slightly dubious call (it was pre-VAR so even if it was accidental it was completely fair that in the moment, the referee made the decision he did).
His return to the squad against Paraguay in a World Cup Qualifier was dubbed his ‘re-debut' and *checks notes* Argentina lost again.
Despite this, Argentina qualified for the 2006 edition of the World Cup easily, coming 2nd in CONEMBOL qualifying (and Brazil were only ahead of them on goal difference). Messi featured regularly and started to gel more with his teammates the more he played.
And even when Messi suffered an unfortunate hamstring injury ahead of the tournament, Argentina manager Jose Pekerman still involved him in his selection.
Pekerman was a big fan of Messi and saw the potential that the young man had even early on, but he also understood that he couldn’t put the hopes and dreams of a whole nation on the shoulders of a teenager. He later recounted to TNT Sports what he had said to the then-19-year-old ahead of the tournament:
“I told him: ‘Look, I know what at this World Cup you’re capable of… You’re going to be the best player in the world, I see that. But this World Cup is not going to be yours yet.
“You’ll play every minute you can given the situation of the matches. But it’ll serve you well to listen, to learn… the Argentine locker room is fundamental.”
And what a locker room it was. Riquelme, Pablo Aimar, Hernan Crespo, Cambiasso, Gabriel Heinze… to be honest, it might be easier if I just show you their starting XI from their Group C opener against the Ivory Coast.
Messi did not feature in this game but Argentina still had enough firepower to win 2-1 thanks to goals from Crespo and Saviola. He would feature in their second game against Serbia & Montenegro.
Now I know we’re mainly focusing on Messi for this piece, but it would feel disingenuous not to mention the goal from Cambiasso in this game. As Brian Phillips put it in his most recent ‘22 Goals’ podcast, it was like every player had scored not just the defensive midfielder.
25 passes from start to finish. Watching the goal back, Argentina are like a hunter stalking its prey; waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The patience and the industry showed in this move perfectly showed the peak of the squad under Pekerman.
But back to Messi.
When he came on in the 74th minute he became the youngest player ever to represent Argentina at a World Cup and it didn’t take long for him to show the world why he had been selected.
He assisted Crespo for Argentina’s fourth goal and then capped off the 6-0 rout with a finish of his own. The six goals in this fixture became important as after a 0-0 draw with the Netherlands, Pekerman’s side would top the group on goal difference.
Messi started that game and was lively but the real stars were the defenders; both sides made it incredibly difficult for the opposing attackers to find space and limited the number of chances they could create.
In the following game against Mexico in the Round of 16, Messi was back on the bench. He would only come on in the 84th minute with the scores one a piece, but it did not seem that the occasion had got to the young winger as he scored to put Argentina ahead… unfortunately, the goal was ruled out for offside and the game went to extra time.
They needed a goal to avoid penalties and Maxi Rodriguez duly obliged with a sensational finish. I’ve watched quite a few goals for this series so far, but this is up there as one of the best:
This Argentina side seemed unstoppable, but then the wheels came off against Germany (and unfortunately this won’t be the last time that this happens).
Full-time, the score was 1-1. After extra time the score was 1-1. So penalties followed. Messi did not make it off the bench but it was probably best that he was not on the pitch for what followed.
After Germany’s Tim Borowski slotted home the winning penalty, the already tense fixture erupted into violence. Michael Ballack tried to recount the incident to the media afterwards:
"After Tim Borowski scored [to make it 4-2] he put his finger to his lips to tell them to shut up. They were a bit mad at that. After that I didn't see much but I saw one or two lying on the ground. I didn't see what happened."
Punches were thrown and fights broke out between the players and the staff. Pekerman, potentially embarrassed by the melee that had happened under his watch and seemingly instigated by his players, announced his resignation immediately after the match. He told the media:
"A cycle has come to an end. I certainly will not go on but I leave with peace of mind. I believe this team has renewed Argentinian football."
The team had become known for its peaceful and composed style of football under Pekerman, but that had now dissipated.
Argentina had made it further than in 2002 (much further), but they could have also done much better than they did. Pekerman came under flack for his refusal to play Messi in the defeat against Germany from the Argentinian people and media but there is a simple explanation for why he did not take the field.
All of Pekerman’s substitutes were made when Argentina were ahead, so he decided to try and defend their advantage rather than go for another goal.
Gerardo Salorio, who was one of Pekerman’s coaching staff and a mentor for Messi while he was on national team duty, explained in an interview with Goal.com why the manager made the choices he did on that fated day:
"With 25 minutes to go Pekerman was saying that the only way that Germany could equalise was with a high ball," Salorio says, explaining the decision to leave Messi out.
"So he took off Riquelme and put on Cambiasso to stop their No.4 getting forward, and then a few things happened to unbalance things, like Abondanzieri’s injury. And with 12 minutes to go he made the decision, the kind of decisions that are made in 10 seconds, to put on (Julio) Cruz to have a striker who could defend in both boxes.”
It didn’t work and so the questions followed, but as Pekerman already stated this was not Messi’s World Cup. He was a passenger not the driver of the national team, and Argentina had enough on the field to win that game without him.
Of course, it is disappointing, but at this point in his career he is 19 and has his whole career ahead of him, however, it may be considered one of Messi’s biggest ‘What If’ moments, given this was easily one of the best teams Argentina had ever produced.
But if you want to talk about ‘What Ifs’, then 2010 probably trumps it…
In 2010 Argentina once again reached the Quarter Finals, and once again they met their match at the hands of a strong German team.
This was not a cagey clash, however, as Germany blew Argentina out of the water in a 4-0 victory.
Messi had an incredibly quiet tournament, playing five games and only registering one assist. He was filling in the role that had been vacated by Juan Roman Riquelme in 2008; the metronome through which all Argentina’s possession went through.
The role didn’t quite suit Messi though as it required him to be adverse to taking too many risks in an Argentina team who were rebuilding after their golden generation. It limited him massively and was a far cry from the false 9 role he had been playing under Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.
So here we come to the crux of this section - What if Messi had never declared for Argentina at all; what if he had decided to play for Spain instead?
Messi never wanted to play for anyone other than Argentina but could have technically played for either Spain or Italy due to his grandparents (also Spain was his country of residence since he was 13).
In 2010, Spain were the best team in the world, having won the European Championships in 2008 (and spoilers, they would go on to win the World Cup in 2010).
And they owed a lot of their success to Guardiola. The style of play they adopted was very similar to the principles of Barcelona; this is probably because a large percentage of the squad was also from the club. 7/11 of the players that started the final played for Barcelona, with three of the other four coming from fierce rivals Real Madrid.
While they were exceptional at retaining possession and therefore defending. Many people often forget that the reason Pep’s teams want to keep hold of the ball is purely from a defensive standpoint. He recently spoke about this when Manchester City played Brentford in the 21/22 season:
“When the opponent has the ball far away from the goal and when you have the ball, that’s the best way to defend. To concede a goal, the opponent has to have the ball and the less they have it, the more chances we have to have a clean sheet and be solid. And after we can talk about what we have to do with the ball.”
The issue for Spain came with that last sentence. They didn’t have a focal point to work with; a player who could make it all click.
They created a lot of chances, that's what happens when you run with a midfield of Xavi and Iniesta, but in every single knock-out game, they only won 1-0.
In fact, despite having the likes of Fernando Torres and David Villa to call upon, they hold the record for the lowest amount of goals scored by a World Cup-winning team with 8.
And this is where Messi could have aided their dominance and added international silverware to his already impressive haul at the club level.
He wouldn’t have been a square peg in a round hole, given his familiarity with the personnel and the style of play. And the rest of the team wouldn’t have felt like they needed to force play through him given that’s not what happened at Barcelona (I feel Portugal have this problem with Ronaldo at times).
But of course, Messi has a deep connection with the country of his birth, and I guess that winning a competition with Argentina means so much more.
But it is still an interesting ‘What If’ scenario to think about.
2014 was Messi well into his pomp.
He was 28 years old and after this competition, he would go on to win another treble with Barcelona and score 58 goals and register 31 assists in 57 games in the 2014/15 season.
But before that could happen he needed to travel to Brazil, Argentina’s fierce rivals, and compete in the World Cup.
The manager who would be leading Argentina during this competition was the late Alejandro Sabella.
The manager always spoke highly of Messi whenever he got the chance, as many who have coached him often do, and when he was appointed in 2011, he made clear that Messi would be central to his plans:
“He is the captain from now on. We are looking to build a couple of options, looking for one or two players to build up a combination with him. I am looking forward to having a great understanding with Messi. It’s important to build a good relationship with all the players.”
And in the group stages, it seemed that Sabella’s faith had been rewarded. They never went behind once and Messi scored in every single game to put them through as group winners.
But here is the deeply rooted problem with relying on one player, once you come up against better teams, they will focus on keeping them out of the game.
And that is why despite playing in four World Cups, Messi has never scored in the knockout stages (including the 2018 World Cup we are yet to talk about).
So now Sabella had a new challenge, get his car over the line without its engine… and somehow he managed to do it.
Round of 16 - Argentina 1-0 Switzerland (Di Maria 118’)
Quarter Final - Argentina 1-0 Belgium (Higuain 8’)
Semi Final - Argentina 0-0 Netherlands (Argentina go through on penalties)
It was a defensive masterclass for Sabella (and this adds yet more credence to my rapidly cooling take that the teams that go the farthest in the World Cup are the most pragmatic ones), but he was also lucky that the two strongest teams, Brazil and Germany, found themselves on the other side of the draw.
And when you look at this, you start to understand why Roy Hodgson voted to give Javier Mascherano the Ballon d’Or. The defensive midfielder was immense throughout the tournament and his tackle against Arjen Robben in the semi-final literally kept Argentina in the tournament.
Even the great Diego Maradona felt the need to single him out for praise after his performances:
'“Masche' was exceptional. When I said it was 'Masche' and 10 more, they laughed. Today they could not laugh. The example on the pitch is Mascherano. Everyone follows his rhythm. So they cannot score against us.”
These results show what I think has always been the biggest problem with Argentina with Messi; there has always been a disconnect going forward in the later stages of the competition.
They rely on Messi to create things and the rest of the attack rotates around him, so if you’re a team looking to stop Argentina’s goals, you just stop Messi.
And that is what the highly efficient Germany did. In fact, they were so effective at shutting him down, some journalists including The Guardian’s Ian McCourt, believed that Messi may have finally begun his decline (of course in hindsight this is a horrifically off-the-mark assumption):
“But the final proved that maybe Messi is no longer the force many believe he is. When he had to deliver at the correct moment, as he has done for his club on so many occasions, he could not come up with the goods.”
But Argentina weren’t completely without chances. Given how Germany pressed high if you were able to get past their ‘gegenpress’ there were spaces behind to exploit. This wouldn’t happen often and there was also a good chance that Neuer would save any shots, so Argentina needed to make the most of it when it happened.
They didn’t
Gonzalo Higuain was a well-respected striker in Argentina before this final. He had just moved from Real Madrid, where he was incredibly successful, to Napoli and continued his good goalscoring form there.
So when the striker found himself clean through early on with space in front of him thanks to an errant back pass by Toni Kroos, many assumed that the cultured forward would put the ball in the net and put Argentina 1-0 up. He didn’t even get the shot on target.
And then, of course, there is the now infamous offside goal.
Catching Germany off guard with a quick counter in the 30th minute, the ball was played into the box where Higuain was running in. The striker scored and rapturous applause ensued with the striker celebrating wildly… however when he turned around he saw that he had been flagged offside.
This event took a huge mental toll on Higuain and he told interviewers many years later he thought of retiring straight after the final and struggled to come to terms with the disappointment. He told Marca in 2020:
“It’s not easy to be told ‘this guy’s no good anymore, he’s a failure, he can’t play football.’ It hurts. Yes, it’s true that we didn’t achieve our objective, but to have been a failure? Reaching three finals isn’t failure.
“I was about to stop playing, but my mother told me to keep going. If it was up to me, I would’ve quit football. It’s something I love, but I love my mum more. She said she wouldn’t let me to leave what I love.”
Despite their misfortunes up front, Argentina were still solid defensively. They managed to keep a German side that had just committed a massacre the previous game by beating Brazil 7-1 quiet for the full 90 minutes, and it wasn’t till the 113th minute that Germany finally got their winner through Mario Gotze.
Argentina had run a good race but fallen at the final hurdle. And then something strange happened.
Lionel Messi, the man who had not scored since the group stages, was awarded the Golden Ball. Fans, journalists, and players alike were baffled.
Nobody could pin down why he had won it (some said it was a conspiracy, but the best assumption is that he had won it symbolically given his age and stature).
James Rodriguez had scored 6 goals and registered 2 assists for Colombia and was most people’s choice for player of the tournament if it was purely on an individual basis. He deserved it for his goal against Uruguay alone (and the commentary is perfect):
If the panel wanted to give it to a player who made it all the way, Manuel Neuer had been key to Germany’s run to the final.
And if you really wanted to give it to an Argentina player, we have already established that Javier Mascherano deserved it the most from that side.
So 2014 came to a close and yet again Messi had failed to win an international tournament. Argentina needed to find balance, Messi could be their saviour, but if they continued down the road of relying on him completely when attacking, the limp final against Germany would happen again.
If you’ve been following this series, you will know that during ‘France - That’s why they call it Les Bleus (Part 2)’ we already spoke about the high stakes fixture between France and Argentina; one of the pinnacles of football on the world stage.
But I want to revisit this game and speak about it from Argentina’s perspective.
In the 2014 final, Germany, like so many teams before him, played him out of the game. He is an incredible player, and at times he is a miracle worker, but sometimes you find a mountain that can’t be moved.
Gabriel Batistuta attested to this in La Nacion, but he also explained how Argentina had started to stand right beside Messi and push the mountain with him:
“For a long time we gave it (total responsibility) to Messi; first we condemn ourselves for thinking that we had Jesus Christ and he is Messi, yes, a great player, but he is not Jesus Christ, and then we condemn him too. We did damage for a long time.
“Now that has changed because he feels freer with these guys. Of course, if I have the ball and I can give it to Messi, I give it to him. If I have two team-mates, I give it to Messi if I can. If there is a wall and he is behind it, I have to give it to the other one. Well, that's what these kids understand. And they all play well. If they can't give it to Messi, they're going to give it somewhere else.”
And Argentina vs France showed that even if in the end they lost (truly that France team is one of the greatest international teams of all time).
Now Messi didn’t play badly in this game, he got two assists, but France focused on limiting the amount of time and space he was allowed on the ball to try and completely break Argentina down.
After Antione Griezmann opened the scoring for France, one of Argentina’s most underappreciated players Angel di Maria (by the fact he was a winger in the same team as one of the greatest players of all time) equalised.
Gabriel Mercado would then put Argentina ahead.
They had fought back without a moment of brilliance from Messi; they were becoming a team of their own, no longer just the Supremes to Messi’s Diana Ross.
Unfortunately, the celebrations would be short-lived as the French onslaught began. Benjamin Pavard would equalise and then Kylian Mbappe would score a stunning brace that Argentina could have done absolutely nothing to stop.
Sergio Aguero would score late on but it was too little too late. 4-3 was the score and Argentina were out.
The Guardian would call the team ‘mediocre’ and just ‘carried by Messi’s genius’ but I think this is disingenuous. Something had finally clicked for Argentina.
They realised that instead of just being the scaffolding that let Michaelangelo paint the roof of the Sistine Chapel, they were collectively working on the masterpiece themselves; seamstresses working on the Bayeux Tapestry (with maybe Messi working on the most memorable part where King Harold gets shot in the eye with an arrow).
Argentina could no longer just rely on Messi to carry them through when their backs were against the wall, they needed to do some of it themselves.
So what next for Argentina?
Messi finally got that international trophy he had been searching his entire career for, but it unfortunately wasn’t a World Cup, it was a Copa America instead.
True to the understanding Argentina now had built, Messi dedicated the win to his teammate Angel di Maria. Di Maria told the media after the game:
“It's going to be unforgettable. Messi told me thanks to me, I said thanks to him! He told me that it was my final, that it was the rematch for the finals that I couldn't play. It had to be today and today it was.”
But now all eyes are on the World Cup, so how far can Argentina go? Will Messi finally get the trophy he has been hunting for his entire career?
The squad is certainly strong enough. Messi will be joined by the likes of Lautaro and Lisandro Martinez (no relation), Di Maria, Enzo Fernandez and a squad full of football’s top stars.
Musa Okwonga wrote a fantastic piece for The Ringer entitled Lionel Messi’s Last Dance, detailing the almost palpable build-up to the World Cup and potentially the final international tournament of one of the greatest players of all time.
My personal favourite quote from the article is as follows:
“Watching Messi for Argentina now feels a little like realizing with alarm that you have already reached the last glass of your best bottle of red wine: You enjoyed the journey, but you fear that you may not have savored it enough.”
I have already backed the horse called Brazil as my favourite for World Cup winner, but I think that a close second is Argentina (the trophy is returning to South America is what I’m trying to say).
It feels weird to think about the end of things, many of us never get to know the exact moment that it happens.
But if we get to bear witness to Messi holding the World Cup trophy surrounded by some teammates that have grown up idolising him and others that have grown up with him, then I feel like that would be a fitting end to the international career of one of history’s greatest ever players.
An iconic moment, broadcast for all to see.