World Cup column: Argentina cannot allow Messi’s last dance to be a solo affair
Released at the height of the world’s initial Covid-19 lockdown, Netflix series ‘The Last Dance’ quickly became a cultural phenomenon. With millions of people left with little option but to sit in front of screens for hours on end, the story of Michael Jordan trying to win one last NBA Championship with the Chicago Bulls became a cornerstone of popular culture, easily applicable to other sports.
The sheer weight of football we now feel compelled to engage with on a year-round basis means that the careers of individual players and managers start, crescendo and end in the blink of an eye. This has created plenty of opportunity for the logic of the last dance to permeate the game’s very core.
Journeyman centre-forward joins his 13th club in 14 years for one final crack at the Evo Stick Northern Premier League: The Last Dance. Neil Warnock takes charge of struggling Championship club for one last season before retiring to Devon with Sharon: The Last Dance. Cristiano Ronaldo returns to the club that gave him the platform to become a global superstar to destabilise any existing semblance of structure: The Last Dance.
But no narrative surrounding finality in football has been quite as easy to be enthralled by, to get lost in with child-like awe, than that of what is surely Lionel Messi’s final attempt to win a World Cup with Argentina.
Messi of course came close before, defeated in the final at the Maracana in 2014 after leading an ageing team that never seemed to truly suit him to an extra-time defeat against Germany. The chaos of Argentina’s round of 16 exit last time round was never going to be a fitting end for the greatest player to ever grace a football pitch.
We were promised before this tournament that Argentina had finally found a way to utilise their captain without falling into the trap of downright dependence on him. The Copa America win in 2021 was presented as a triumph of manager Lionel Scaloni’s ability to engage the collective, supported by a run of 36 matches without defeat leading up to Qatar.
Argentina’s best football at this tournament so far came in the first half of the 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia. Messi was heavily involved but not the sole source of everything good about the team. Lautaro Martinez’s stretching of the game through his runs into space came within a shoulder’s width of doubling the early lead, Leandro Paredes offered control in midfield to prevent Messi having to drop into his own half to start attacks.
But after being caught cold by an individual error and a wondergoal at the start of the second half, Argentina panicked and reverted to a policy that has already proven to be faulty – give it to Leo.
Football has always been a team game at its core, but in the era of collective pressing and intricate attacking moves rehearsed to a fine point, it no longer feels possible that an individual, even one with all of Messi’s gifts, can carry ten team-mates all the way to glory on his own.
Messi-dependence failed to produce an equaliser against Saudi Arabia, and from early on in Saturday’s meeting with Mexico it became clear that Argentina had become lost in an overreliance on their diminutive giant.
Whether it be through a fear of making forward runs in case it closes off the space for a trademark dribble or an unwillingness to make themselves available to receive the ball in case they fail to make the most of a perfectly weighted pass, it can often seem as though Messi and his international team-mates are intwined in the most dysfunctional form of relationship.
The other ten players on the pitch are so acutely aware of their inferiority to Messi that they cannot help but to try and give him the ball as regularly as possible, and this in turn undermines any sense of cohesion. One moment Messi is collecting possession between his own centre-backs, and the next he is the furthest blue and white shirt forward, trying to orchestrate attacks from the first note to the very last.
Whilst giving the ball to a team-mate widely considered the best to ever kick a ball may seem fool proof, it also makes it easier for an opponent to see what you are doing. Messi is still human and fallible even if he is less human and less fallible than most. At one point in the first half, Mexico committed five men to stop him leading a counter-attack – a tacit admission of both his importance and the lack of attention that needed to be paid to his teammates.
He ultimately produced the game-defining, highlight reel moment that his team and this tournament had been crying out for, but the goal against Mexico was a microcosm of what has seemingly never quite worked for him at international level.
64 minutes on the clock. Panic not starting to set in but undeniably in charge and dictating proceedings. Here you go Lionel, have the ball 30 yards from goal and we’ll all stand around in a state of perfect stillness to make sure we get a good view of the incredible thing you do next.
This can sometimes produce the very best of Messi. His goal against Mexico will go down as one of his most memorable in an Argentine shirt. But he is at his best when he is an important, definable part of a functioning whole, rather than being every part that he, his team-mates, the coach and the supporters want him to be at once.
It was perhaps poignant that it was a Messi pass that set up Enzo Fernandez for the 21-year-old’s delightful game-clinching goal, a very literal passing of the baton. Maybe the Benfica midfielder will be the next man for Argentina to over-rely on when the music stops playing for his captain.
