The players of the Argentina national team celebrate qualifying for the World Cup final after a 0:3 victory over Croatia (Instagram)
In a parallel world, Rodrigo de Paul was not supposed to be in the Argentina national team, and certainly not to play in the team regularly.
He was simply born at the wrong time, and his slot is occupied by the best player in history - so what can he do?
No one can compete with Lionel Messi, so those who step in his shoes cannot optimally fit into the ranks of the Albiceleste.
Ask Paulo Dybala.
He has already celebrated his 29th birthday, but in the public mind in his homeland, he is still portrayed as the kind of boy waiting for an opportunity someday.
He is far too much of a No. 10 in character to flourish alongside the Ultimate No. 10.
De Paul is also number 10 - and even number 10 in blue and white stripes.
These are the colors of Racing Club, the club that Rodrigo has supported for as long as he can remember.
He grew up in his academy, steadfastly rebuffed the advances of arch-rivals Independiente, and when he made the senior squad at the age of 18, he didn't hesitate to ask for the all-important shirt.
He accepted it, and wore it proudly until he moved to Valencia and began his European adventure.
In Mastaia, by the way, it didn't go well for him at all - and the business started on the left foot already in the debut game, in which he was sent off within a few minutes, just like Messi in his debut for the national team.
In the end De Paul moved to Udinese, and there - in a modest and quiet club in northern Italy, away from the spotlight - he gradually became one of the finest stars in the land of the boot.
With number 10 on the back, of course.
And so, in his fifth season in Serie A, in 2020/21, De Paul was in first place in the number of dribbles, while Messi naturally leads the same ranking in the Spanish league.
He also picked up more fouls than anyone, and was the undisputed star of a team that sank to the bottom of the table.
Without his 9 goals and 9 assists, she might still have been relegated to the second division.
Many clubs fought that summer to sign him, and Atlético Madrid won after paying 35 million euros for the player designed to upgrade their link.
However, it soon became clear that Diego Simeone was not exactly interested in Udinese's De Paul.
He wanted to see De Paul of the Argentina national team in his team, which is a completely different player.
And this is also the main reason why it is such an integral part of the project that started in 2018 under Lionel Scaloni.
In Udinese he is bright, in the national team he is a black worker.
Rodrigo de Paul (Photo: GettyImages)
Until the appointment of Scaloni as the interim coach after the World Cup in Russia, De Paul had no international appearances, and he did not even come close to it in the considerations of the previous bosses.
Scalloni recognized an extraordinary fighting spirit in him, and brought him in mainly to be the engine.
It worked, the appointment of the coach became permanent at some point, and when Messi returned to the national team, the click with de Paul was immediate.
One day the connection could not overcome his shyness, knocked on the star's door and offered him to drink mate together.
To his delight, the answer was positive, and within a few days De Paul was in Messi's inner circle, along with Angel Di Maria, Andrew Pardes and Giovanni Lo Celso.
This connection works well not only in the locker room, but especially on the field.
There, in stark contrast to the role he played at Udinese, De Paul took on the task of looking after Messi.
Literally - De Paul does the dirty work so that the big star of the team doesn't have to do it, rests if necessary, and gets the industrial peace to create.
"Scaloni himself played in the Italian league, and he knows what tactical understanding I have. He is aware of my work capacity. I can press the defender and close the free areas. I am good at covering. I am there to help the important players. Media attention does not interest me." says De Paul.
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Lionel Messi's bodyguard.
De Paul with the flea (Photo: Reuters)
He used to pride himself on goals and assists, but now ball rescues interest him much more, and he enjoys stopping the opponent's attacks at least as much as he enjoys building his team's moves.
Usually, he runs more than everyone else, sweats more than everyone else, and is close to Messi when needed.
Therefore, since 2018, it is almost impossible to imagine the Argentina team without him.
He hardly ever misses games, starred in two Copa America tournaments and was defined as one of the most important players on the way to the historic victory in the South American Championship last summer.
De Paul even scored the winning goal against Brazil in the final for Di Maria, but he didn't insist on getting credit for that either.
In the national team, he is comfortable being out of the spotlight.
At a certain point, the journalists and fans started defining him as Messi's bodyguard.
De Paul tends to physically defend the captain when he is threatened by opposing players, and is willing to do almost anything for him.
Basically, he sacrifices his natural talent to such an extent that the fans see him as a much grayer player than he really is.
In the first game of the current World Cup, De Paul was heavily criticized for losing too many balls, and was to some extent responsible for Saudi Arabia's comeback en route to a sensational victory.
Some demanded that he be benched, but those who claim so do not understand his enormous importance to Scaloni's tactical setup.
The coach can give up Paredes in favor of Enso Fernandez who shows much better ability and has a phenomenal passing ability, but de Paul's status is not up for discussion at all.
He is an absolute anchor, and there was great concern in the camp when a minor injury threatened to disable him in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands.
In the end, he was trained and played 66 minutes.
After he was replaced by Paredes, there was a very substantial setback in the Albiceleste's ability to control the center of the field, and the Netherlands managed to equalize with two goals in the final minutes.
In the semi-final against Croatia, Scalloni allowed himself to replace him and rest him for the final only when the team had already taken a 0:3 lead.
The Argentina national team cannot give him up (Photo: GettyImages, JUAN MABROMATA/AFP)
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De Paul, which was a fruitful relationship At Udinese until the move to Atlético, he rarely threatened the goal in the team's uniform, and his balance stands at only two goals in 50 appearances.
In the World Cup, he hardly thinks in direction, and he doesn't have assists either - but here the statistics are actually a bit misleading.
Because when he put the pressure on Australian goalkeeper Matt Ryan in the round of 16, de Paul made him lose the ball to Julian Albers who rolled it into the open net.
He didn't even touch the ball himself, and in the dry technical definition it can't be an assist - but practically it is.
And that's exactly what de Paul tries to do all the time.
He harasses the opponent's players, wears them out and makes them make mistakes, so that his friends - whom he defines as better than him - can enjoy the fruits.
This will also be his role in the final.
Count on De Paul to burn more ground than any other player on the pitch, protect the captain from any possible harm, and not even bother with dirty exercises here and there to win the gold medal.
He wants her very much for himself, but even more for Messi - like the entire Argentine nation.
And the nation has a lot of expectations from him, even if he is only supposed to give the stage to others.
In the parallel world, de Paul was not supposed to be in the team, but he understood very well what he had to do to wear this shirt, and no one is happier than him.
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