Although it has been danced since the end of the 19th century, tango was only given lyrics in the first decades of the 20th century.
Argentina was then a society that was rapidly transforming.
Millions of European immigrants arrived with the idea of making money, progressing and, in the best of cases, returning to their places of origin.
Many got it.
Many more still stayed across the sea and prospered.
The world crisis of 1930 twisted, in part, that dream of progress and social advancement.
And the tango lyrics reflected (with exquisite persistence) the melancholy, the frustration, the defeat, the loneliness and the despair of a group of human beings who felt that they had lost the path of their dreams.
Why so much tango here and tango there?
Because for a long time, when I think of Leo Messi, the final verse of a tango has haunted me.
It's called
Desencuentro
-as if there were any doubts that tango is Argentine-, it has lyrics by Cátulo Castillo and music by Aníbal Troilo.
It is a tango that speaks of betrayals suffered, unfulfilled dreams, countless failures.
His last verse is, in fact, a brutal image: "Not even the shot at the end will work out for you."
Tango itself warns its protagonist that his bad star is so immense, so invincible, that when he tries to blow his brains out he won't succeed.
Not even that, his self-annihilation, will take place according to his will, his intentions and his actions.
Four words from that image have been around for a long time, “the final shot”, when I think of Leo Messi and the Argentine National Team.
I don't discover anything if I say that the 2022 World Cup was, for Leo, that final shot.
A more benevolent image I heard from time to time was that of "the last dance," made popular by the terrific documentary about Michael Jordan and his last NBA ring with the Chicago Bulls.
But, with the apologies of the case, Leo's was not a last dance.
Nothing of that.
It was a last chance.
A last try.
A desperate shot.
It is possible for a non-Argentine reader this description to be disproportionate.
Dark, in fact.
The last dance refers to last harmonies, to the final evolutions of a joyous dance.
It is true.
But a gentle truth for the tortured Argentine spirits.
For us things are different: they are always final, antagonistic, decisive and desperate.
Are they like that beyond us, or are they like that precisely because we lead them?
I do not know.
And reaching an answer is beyond the scope of this column and -possibly- of the years that remain of my life.
But let's go back to Messi.
It is not an exaggeration to say that he is the most important soccer player of the 21st century so far.
Titles, goals, plays, individual awards, records achieved.
planetary transcendence.
Global respect.
Overflowing love.
Except in his land.
In Argentina he had to endure, for years, the tiresome comparison with Maradona, the twisted gesture of barely concealed contempt, the condescension of “yes, it is true that in Europe he is doing well.
But playing for Argentina…” And in that “but” came all the annoyance, all the impatience and all the disappointment.
Paradoxically -or not- the closer he was to achieving important things with the National Team, the greater the criticism and contempt.
World runner-up in 2014 and in the 2015 and 2016 Copa América. "This kid is not worthy of tying Maradona's shoes" or "This kid only knows how to play in Europe, surrounded by geniuses."
The theses of his vernacular critics, in general, took one of these two broad avenues.
Only when Messi himself, heartbroken after those setbacks, considered the possibility of retiring from the National Team, did his critics choose to tone down his attacks.
Then began a twilight romance.
The Argentine fans accepted the reality (conjugating the concepts "Argentina" and "acceptance of reality" in the same proposition is almost an oxymoron) that the time had come to enjoy Messi.
And there was light.
After another new disappointment (Russia 2018) Lionel Scaloni took the reins of a confused and devastated Selection.
With patience, with wisdom, he stayed with some veterans and surrounded them with young players, sometimes almost unknown in the international arena.
And something wonderful happened: those young boys had grown up watching Messi play.
Without the absurd precautions of his elders, they admired him with the clarity and candor that one usually has in youth.
They dreamed of playing with him, and they indulged.
Then they dreamed of winning with him and they did it in the 2021 Copa América.
In another society -less emphatic than Argentina's- the World Cup in Qatar would have been, for Leo, a wonderful last dance.
But for the Argentines, no.
It had to be the final shot.
Without mercy or contemplations.
Glory or hell.
Salvation or the abyss.
And unlike the tango
Desencuentro,
Leo and his team got the shot at the end.
And boy did it come out.
And it came out so much, that they are the world champions.
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