Still in Brazil, after the
Maracanazo
from Argentina in the Copa América, with that 1-0 to Brazil in the final, both from Di María, a member of the Albiceleste coaching staff, writes via WhatsApp. “Normally, when you win a title, you look for the person closest to you or your best friend in the group to celebrate. Today they all went to look for the same one. Is it necessary to add something else to what Leo generates in this group? ”. Argentina was crowned after 28 years of title drought and became the second team in history to win in the Brazilian temple in an official match. The first was Uruguay in the final of the 50 World Cup. It was also the first title with the absolute blue and white for Lionel Messi. On the 10th he knelt on the Maracana grass, finally winning at the age of 34 after four lost finals (three in the Copa América and one in the World Cup). All your companions,holders and substitutes, ran to embrace their captain. They held him and sang: "Come, come, sing with me, that a friend you are going to find, that of the hand of Leo Messi, we are all going to turn around!"
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Brazil 2021 left more than the Argentine team at the top of the podium in America for the first time since 1993. It left a total Messi. Footballer, as always; leader, like never before. “Today is your night, Angel. It's your revenge for the finals you lost, ”said the 10th, alone, to Di María, author of the winning goal. Then he addressed the whole group: "Today we won." Before the Argentine team traveled to Brazil, the Rosario had already publicly broken the protocol of prudence: "It is time to strike." Messi stopped being Messi only on the field, now he was also Messi in the locker room and in front of the press. An eloquent speaker, devoid of great charisma, Messi learned to build a captain to suit him. Neither a caudillo like Pasarella nor magnetic like Maradona, the Rosario coexists with his shyness, now far from his old fears.
Photogallery: The victory of Argentina
“Come out, kid.
This place is not for you ... ”, heard Messi in his first Copa América, in 2007. He was 20 years old and wanted to be part of the Albiceleste heavyweight meeting at the Maruma hotel in Maracaibo.
In the room were Roberto Abbondanzieri, Juan Sebastián Verón, Hernán Crespo, Roberto Ayala and Juan Román Riquelme.
This was the one who spoke.
Messi bowed his head and left.
The presence of Riquelme was always uncomfortable for Messi. After Alfio Basile's second cycle at the head of the national team (2006-2008), the former Barça and Villarreal player did not return to the Ezeiza campus. The man from Rosario was not quite comfortable, nor did his entourage. Later, the stone in the shoe became Carlos Tevez. "We are all, do not quote more", they sang in the coach of the team heading to the games when Tevez was out of the call. Messi, then, silent off the field, took refuge in the personality of Mascherano, his friend and teammate at Barcelona.
In 2011, when Alejandro Sabella took over the national team, the coach agreed with Javier Mascherano, then captain, the transfer of power with Messi. “This was the moment, I am happy to receive the tape. I loved her ”, thanked the man from Rosario. The leadership of 10, in any case, was symbolic.
Argentina fell in three consecutive finals: the 2014 World Cup in Brazil against Germany and the 2015 and 2016 American Cups, both against Chile on penalties. And Messi's leadership was signaled. “I would take the captain's tape from Messi. It would be a way to take a load off him. Leadership over a group is different from how you perform on the court and the specific talent of each player. I am a fervent admirer of Messi. I rely more than anything on Messi's way of being, because of his personality. He is more shy, more withdrawn ", asked Pasarella, captain of Argentina in 1978. Maradona, owner of the bracelet in Mexico 86, added to the analysis:" Leo is a good person, but he does not have much personality to be a leader. It's useless to want to make a leader of a guy who goes to the bathroom 20 times before playing a game, "said Pelusa,who was Messi's coach in the national team at the World Cup in South Africa.
In Argentina something similar happened to what happened in Barcelona. In the Ezeiza Premises and in the Joan Gamper Sports City a phrase was repeated: "Leo says." And, as Messi did not speak, coaches, teammates, managers and the staff of both teams had to accept the words of their supposed interlocutors as good. "The problem is that Leo, sometimes, did not say anything and these people put things in their mouths that they thought," say those who know the Rosario. From Xavi Hernández to Mascherano, the silence of 10 was difficult to interpret.
But everything exploded in the concentration of the 2018 World Cup. Messi and Mascherano asked coach Jorge Sampaoli for a meeting. “What you say does not reach us. We no longer trust you. We want to have an opinion ”, said the Little Boss. The 10th, by his side, said nothing. Until, to everyone's surprise, he blurted out: “You asked me 10 times which players you wanted me to play and which ones I didn't. I never gave you a name. Tell me in front of everyone if I ever named someone for you ”. Argentina's journey in Russia ended in the eighth against France.
Messi added a new setback, Argentina a great revolution. Lionel Scaloni took command on the bench and the Rosario group - "Messi's friends", a name given to him by the detractors of 10, "the small table", with which he was known in Ezeiza for how they were located at meals - disintegrated. Mascherano, Biglia, Higuaín, Banega, Gago and Lavezzi would no longer return to the national team. Yes, on the other hand, Di María and Agüero. “Ángel and Kun are very good guys. They have another personality. They do not condition or intimidate Leo ”, they explain in the Argentine federation.
And Messi changed. He rebelled in 2019 and consolidated in 2021, closer in the dressing room, more committed on the field. “Since I have been here, Leo has not missed a single training session and even warms up with the necessary intensity. But what surprised me the most is his human part. It is spectacular, Leo enjoys having a mate with me or whoever. We put on a cumbia song and he likes to listen to it. Enjoy simple things. We fuck each other, we make jokes. And as a captain, he is a phenomenon. I had many, but Leo shows by example ”, says Rodrigo De Paul.
The captain's armband is no longer an uncomfortable symbol for Messi. “I needed to get rid of the thorn to be able to achieve something with the national team, I was close for many years, I knew that at some point it was going to happen. I am grateful to God for giving me this moment against Brazil in the final and in his country. I think I was saving this moment for myself, ”said the 10th, already with the medal hanging. The celestial and white destiny left him cruel with Messi in Argentina. He didn't know, just talking was enough for him.