No-one knows better than an Argentine the impact one player can have on a nation's World Cup prospects. It is Lionel Messi's burden that today he wears the same famous shirt as graced by his legendary compatriot Diego Maradona, the man who led a competent but unspectacular Argentina side to glory in Mexico in 1986 thanks to his indomitable will to win and a sublime set of skills the likes of which have not graced a football pitch since.
After a number of false pretenders Messi is now El Diez's acknowledged heir. The best player of his generation, he has shattered a host of long-standing playing records and led his club Barcelona to a mighty haul of trophies in recent years. But amazingly, in his home country, that will all count for little if he does not help end over two decades of footballing hurt and lead Argentina to World Cup victory in Brazil this summer.
Though now the undisputed leader of the national side, Messi’s relationship with Argentina’s fans has been remarkably complicated considering his phenomenal talent. In part this reflects the fact he left his home town of Rosario at the tender age of 13. Back then his potential was just a rumour beyond the few who had seen him play for the youth sides of Newell’s Old Boys before leaving for Barcelona. The contrast with Maradona is marked. Before his own move to Catalonia in 1982 he was already a terrace idol in Argentina thanks to five years spent in the domestic league with the two Juniors – Argentinos and Boca.
Messi has been unable (or unwilling) to try and compensate for this early lack of rapport with local fans. He is as notoriously shy (or uninterested) in talking to the Argentine media as he is to reporters in Europe. Despite 84 caps and wearing the captain’s armband he remains something of an enigma in his home country.
The old accusations heard in bars in Buenos Aires that he saves his best form for Barcelona have been stilled somewhat by a barnstorming run in the arduous South American qualifying league. After an unsteady start to the campaign, Messi scored the equaliser on the way to a vital 2-1 away win in Colombia in the fourth round. After that his side never looked back and cruised home topping the table. Messi finished the campaign with ten goals and finally seems to have in Alejandro Sabella a coach willing to build a team around him.
His supporting cast is formidable. Argentina is no one-man show. Up front it can also field Sergio ‘El Kun’ Agüero, Napoli poacher Gonzalo Higuaín, Real Madrid’s devastating wide-man Ángel di María and PSG’s striker Ezequiel Lavezzi.
But it is telling that despite such attacking potential the debate in Argentina before the squad was announced revolved around a pre-ordained absence. Despite a barnstorming first season in Italy, where his goals helped propel Juventus to a third consecutive league title, Carlos Tévez will be watching the tournament on television. Since taking command in 2011 Sabella has overlooked his strong claim to a place in his squad. This has only given legs to gossip that he has been blackballed by Messi – for personal or tactical reasons depending on whom you read.
The pair had a history of misfiring when playing together for Argentina, most spectacularly when the side crashed out at home against Uruguay in the last Copa América, South America’s equivalent of the European Championship. But there are persistent whispers that the publicity-shy Messi is exerting more and more influence behind the scenes to the detriment of other players’ international careers. The rumours of personal issues with Tévez are similar to those of a reported animus against Málaga goalkeeper Willy Caballero which is supposedly the reason this highly rated shot-stopper has not been called up, despite the current Argentina No 1 Sergio Romero having many critics including at his club Monaco where he just spent most of the season on the bench.
Tévez's exclusion has led to loud rumblings of discontent among many fans at home. Like Maradona, he was a local hero before decamping to Europe and his street-fighter style of play appeals to many Argentines who worry about a supposed lack of heart within the national team. Bizarrely Sabella's own daughter Vanessa highlighted such concerns when in a radio interview she criticised her father's best player as a pecho frio – a bottler. "I'm not going to deny that he is a talented player who has broken and continues to break records," she told Radio Del Plata when asked her thoughts on Messi. "But he still lacks some of the heart and soul needed."
A lack of bottle, freezing up at key moments, is a growing concern in Argentine football. The country has traditionally fielded fiercely competitive sides at club and international level and for decades this garra - guts and determination – allied to technical ability produced a steady stream of trophies.
But considering the glut of talent it has been able to call on, the country has badly underperformed since Maradona was expelled from the 1994 World Cup after failing a drugs test during the group stages. Without him the team crashed out in the second round to the Romania of Hagi and Dumitrescu in a Rose Bowl classic.
Remarkably, since then the two-time winners have not managed to progress beyond the quarter-finals. They got that far in 1998 only to be put to the sword by Denis Bergkamp after another classic, this time against the Dutch in Marseilles. In the three tournaments that followed, bar the odd contender for goal of the tournament, they have brought little to the party. They fell meekly at the group stage in 2002. There followed two quarter-final exits at the hands of Germany, the first on penalties against the hosts in 2006 after an attritional 1-1 draw. Then under the command of coach Maradona they made a complete hash of a rematch in South Africa, being humiliated 4-0 .
It is a poor return for a nation that has sent such coveted match winners as Batistuta, Redondo, Aimar, and Riquelme to dispute the sport’s top prize. Knockout football requires its share of luck and Argentina might feel they have been denied theirs at crucial times. But a quarter-century of relative failure at the World Cup is matched by a declining prowess in the Copa América. Fourteen-time winners, Argentina’s last victory in international football’s oldest tournament came in 1993. In the last three versions of the event, despite fielding strong sides they have choked at vital moments against bitter rivals Brazil and Uruguay. The only international glory of any note since 1993 has been the two Olympic gold medals picked up in Athens and Beijing.
And the malaise goes deeper. Argentine clubs once dominated the Copa Libertadores, South America's version of the Champions League, winning the competition a record 22 times. But in the last decade the tournament has witnessed the rise of the Brazilians, whose sides have triumphed in six of the last ten years, during which Argentine teams have claimed just two titles.
In part this reflects financial realities. Argentina’s two most popular clubs River Plate and Boca Juniors receive less in television money than many second division Brazilian sides. In 2011 São Paulo club Corinthians signed a shirt sponsorship deal for €15 million, almost ten times the amount banked by River and Boca for their shirt deals. Long used to being a producer of talent for export to Europe, Argentina has in recent years increasingly started to sell players to Brazil.
This has all resulted in a certain hollowing out of the domestic game which has impacted on the national team. It is packed with stars but looks lopsided. Behind a glittering front four is a worryingly workmanlike side. The export model of the country’s domestic clubs prizes the production of the attacking talent which garners the highest prices in Europe. Messi must play in front of a defence that lacks the quality of previous generations. Today there is no Ayala, Samuel or Zanetti. Of the current crop of defenders only Manchester City’s Pablo Zabaleta would be confident of winning a place alongside such illustrious predecessors. At times during qualifying it was the reassuring presence of Javier Mascherano – playing in his favoured midfield holding role – that prevented the defence from being overrun.
It is now Messi’s task to compensate for such inbalances. He has proved unable to do so in previous tournaments for his country. But now he is approaching his peak. He turns 27 the day before Argentina’s final group game against Nigeria in Porto Alegre. Reports of an irregular contribution by his glittering standards to a troubled season at Barcelona will not worry fans back home. If anything accusations by many Barça fans that he has not being applying himself because one eye has for months been trained on Brazil and a place in history have only raised expectations.
Should Messi’s genius finally enable his talented but flawed team to deliver on those expectations then Argentina’s long wait will finally be over.
