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He was too young, too shy, too special.
Argentina has always known that Lionel Messi was a rare jewel, which had to be treated with extreme care.
But 14 years after his international debut as a senior, the Albicelestes have still not managed to do their best. And the clock turns.
As for the representation of his country of origin, Messi, who will soon be 32 years old, seems trapped in a time loop.
Each tournament raises huge expectations, each tournament ends with mbadive frustration. He won the U20 World Cup in 2007 and won gold at the Beijing Olympics a year later, but has never celebrated a major international title.
"I have to get up and try again, no matter how many times I fall in. It's a good message for kids, not just in football, but in life. I want to retire after having earned something with Argentina, "said this message to Messi. month.
While Copa America is about to start in Brazil, captain Messi knows it will be one of his last chances to win a major trophy with Argentina. Some of his worst moments in football have been lived to get this elusive prize.
Messi is Argentina's all-time leading scorer with 67 goals and is not far from becoming his most capped player. He played 130 times, 17 less than Javier Mascherano, today retired.
But the eight major competitions in which he appeared for Argentina (four World Cups, four Copa Americas) raised a major question every time: why could not he be the same player that the Argentineans appreciate week after week watching Barcelona on TV?
There have always been two Messis. On one side, Pep Guardiola, the winner of the series, is a fake nine who has excelled in one of the best teams in the world, having played with his friends Andres Iniesta and Xavi since his childhood in the United States. Barca Youth Academy.
On the other side, there is an outsider in a turbulent national team full of selfishness, an unstable and uncomfortable presence who played 16 incredible games in two years without scoring, between 2009 and 2011.
Every Copa America has caused a crisis. Every World Cup has raised doubts about its future. Beaten, criticized, silent, stressed and in distress – just when the Argentines thought they could break Messi, he would come back to Spain and seemed immediately cured miraculously.
Barca was his shelter, where doubts of football disappeared and his leadership came out unscathed. Each magical renaissance adds only critics from the other side of the ocean. Why there and not here? What are we doing wrong? What does he need? At each renaissance, more expectations followed. The higher the hopes, the more the critics are heavy. Again and again, the cycle repeats itself.
But now there is finally a refreshing twist in this plot. Now the broken Messi comes from Barcelona.
Liverpool's defeat in the Champions League semifinal resulted in a shocking and unlikely outing of the competition for a second year in a row. Then there was another defeat in the final of the Copa del Rey in Valencia. Barca may have comfortably won the La Liga, but expectations were higher and recent press reports have described Messi and his best friend, Luis Suarez, as "not very positive" in the locker room.
And if the chances have finally changed? And if Argentina finally became Messi's healing clinic?
The last major title of Argentina is the Copa America of 1993. Since then, they have lost four finals of the Copa America (2004, 2007, 2015, 2016) and a final of the World Cup (2014). Messi played in four of them. No purpose and low performance.
Behind Argentina's hope of ending the drought that has raged for 26 years, there is a deeply divided fan community. Some see Messi as a savior, others wait for his failure, when they will seek to expose him again. Debate around the Argentine captain has, once again in preparation for a major tournament, scandalized two antagonistic positions, almost irreconcilable.
For the younger generations, Messi is a god, their god. For older people, comparisons with Diego Maradona are inevitable – and Messi will never be Diego. He will never win a World Cup alone, as we think Maradona did in 1986. Maybe even if Messi did, it would never be enough.
Since his debut in the national team, Messi has been publicly accused of being too selfish, of not singing the national anthem, of not attending his teammates, of not following the orders of his managers, of not not worry enough, not to score enough, not to be a number. , do not be a number nine, do not handle the pressure, interfere in the selection and cancel the tactical plans. He began to suffer criticism while he was 17 years old and continues to be criticized as the father of three boys.
This sounds odd, since he has won the Gold Ball five times, considering all the trophies and all the brilliant achievements of his career in a club. But the anti-Messi mood in Argentina flourishes after every bad result or unconvincing performance.
In the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Messi's impact was maximum: he scored a hat trick that earned him a place in Russia, thanks to a crucial 3-1 victory in Ecuador at the last day.
But the World Cup itself did not follow the same scenario. Iceland missed a shot on goal in the opening match and sub-par performance in the rest of the match.
After a 4-3 defeat by France that meant an elimination in the last match, it was not clear whether Messi would play again in the World Cup. It seemed that he would never play for his country again, to the point. Teammates Mascherano and Lucas Biglia leave international football. Then followed Gonzalo Higuain.
After witnessing the "players' revolt" following the damaging defeat in the group stage against possible Croatian finalists, some members of the board of directors of the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) wanted a radical change. Reducing Messi's influence was part of the plan.
"We have to start all over again without the older generation," said Nicolas Russo, head of the AFA, last summer.
"If we had won, all the players would have been there to celebrate, but we lost and the plane that landed at home was carrying only one player, which is not acceptable. The captain, as captain, has to explain what has happened and lead his teammates, things have to change, we need to set standards. "
The first change saw Jorge Sampaoli sacked from his manager position in July. Lionel Scaloni would replace him.
Scaloni was one of the badistants of Sampaoli in Russia, the sole survivor of all his staff behind the scenes. Former back winger who spent eight years as a player at Deportivo La Coruna before joining West Ham on loan in 2006, Scaloni is an inexperienced manager. At his first appointment, he was the man responsible for laying the foundation for a messi-free reconstruction.
It took Messi nine months to talk openly about the traumatic experience of the World Cup.
Until just three months ago, her international future was unclear. Numerous rumors still suggest that he would not agree to return to a "disabled" fitting room, as the Argentine press says. None of the older generation was there. None of his old friends were there.
Messi had already announced his international retirement once before, in 2016, moments after missing a shootout shootout against Chile in the Copa America Centenario final.
"That's it, it's not for me, we've lost another final, I'm not supposed to be here," he said in the mixed zone after the match.
But after a vacation and the time to think with his wife Antonella, he decided to return. He developed a beard and dyed his blond hair to reinforce the idea of a fresh start. Crucial goals saved Argentina from the real possibility of not qualifying for Russia.
The only man who always tried to stay near Messi was Claudio Tapia, who became president of AFA in March 2017.
As the AFA pondered how to reorganize the national team and put Messi back in the fold once again, Tapia had a bold idea: send a public message to Pep Guardiola. With Guardiola as manager, he thought, Messi would surely come back.
"A contact (with Guardiola) was established, then we had to run away because we had to sell the AFA in order to pay it," Tapia told the press in August 2018.
The message is completely turned against him.
Guardiola responded to a press conference in Manchester City, clearly angry.
"First, no one has ever contacted me, and it is not very pleasant for the president of the Argentine federation to talk about my salary because he does not know my salary." is clear that I have a contract with Manchester City and I will honor it, and it is also clear that Argentina has very good managers and that it is an Argentine manager who should take the control of Argentina. "
The former Argentine and Valencian midfielder, Pablo Aimar, the idol of Messi, was responsible for badisting Scaloni. This was another signal sent to Barcelona. Aimar is a symbol of serenity. The serenity that had been requested.
In January, Cesar Menotti, the 1978 World Cup winning coach and long-time ally, was named national team director.
Messi returned in March during a friendly match in Madrid against Venezuela, which Argentina lost 3-1. Angel di Maria has also been recalled and soon, Sergio Aguero will also be back.
"I see a very united group – guys who really like being here," said Messi. "My son Thiago had asked me why I was not in the team.The atmosphere is very good.I am only another player, he doesn" t have a good time. there is nothing strange. "
The grieta, the crack, the ditch. In Argentina, this word explains the opposing visions of society advanced by the two main political leaders of the country, President Mauricio Macri and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, whose elections are scheduled for October.
The same chasm is also present in football. In Argentina, there will never be agreement on Messi.
Some people think that he is a shy and misunderstood soul, others define him as a selfish leader. None of them will ever accept that they could be wrong in their judgment, but it is hard to deny that Argentina has gone to Brazil with the l & # 39; one of their weakest teams in decades.
Messi, Aguero and Di Maria represent the old school, while Paulo Dybala, Nicolas Otamendi and Nicolas Tagliafico stand out as the best international footballers with expertise in the World Cup. The other players are either young and promising, such as Inter striker, Lautaro Martinez and Tottenham defender Juan Foyth, both 21, or veterans with no international experience, such as defenseman Milton Casco and striker Matias Suarez, both of River Plate and both.
There is a majority of players aged 23 to 28 years old. This is the new generation that Scaloni wants to develop. Boca Juniors goalkeeper Esteban Andrada, Roberto Pereyra of Watford, Marcos Acuna of Sporting Lisbon, Leandro Paredes of Paris St-Germain, Giovani lo Celso of Real Betis. It is hoped that this group will be led by defender Nicolas Tagliafico, captain of 26-year-old Ajax, captain in the absence of Messi, and by Dybala, who is targeting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Juventus striker Dybala was supposed to be Messi's natural substitute, but after a difficult season in Italy, he was almost excluded from the group.
To project the future, the motto in the Argentine camp was the same. Without Messi, it is impossible. Just with Messi, that's not enough.
Menotti finally met Messi two weeks ago, just after the traumatic end of Barcelona's season.
"I saw him really affected by what happened in the Champions League, eliminated in a match that he considered almost solved, worried for the future," Menotti wrote in a chronicle of the newspaper Sport.
"But despite mental fatigue, it will not change his competitive spirit or his commitment to Argentina – in fact, despite the long journey, he chose to train on his arrival. he saw a balloon, he smiled. "
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