For Lionel Messi’s Argentina this is the eve of a World Cup final that has been a long time coming. As the bumpy yet steadily improved road to glory unfolds, the inevitable comparisons with the late Diego Maradona get ever stronger. Like some phantom standard that Messi is supposed to reach, the pinnacle of triumphalism on lifting the trophy, the shadow cast by Maradona looms ever larger.
On Argentinian radio, as in south-east Asian reports, European media and the USA, the comparison between the two players is being underscored, feeding the idea that somehow Messi has to become “more Maradona” if the feat of winning this tournament is to be finally achieved.
“Could we say that what is in fact happening, socio-cosmically speaking, is that we’re moving from the comparison between the two to the fusion/incarnation of one with the other?” Sergio Chodos, an avid Argentinian observer of both men, wonders.
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The consensus, after the bitter quarter-final battle against the Netherlands, was that Messi was indeed becoming “Maradonised” – comments such as “he’s found his inner Diego” or “he’s been possessed by Maradona” were commonplace in the Argentinian and international press alike. This perception was triggered by a series of seemingly out-of-character reactions by Messi during and after that match. He lashed out at the referee, lost his cool and insulted the Dutch striker Wout Weghorst during his post-match interview: “What you looking at silly? Go away.”
My view is that Messi is very much not becoming Maradona; what we are seeing is Messi becoming himself. More and more comfortable in his own skin, more assertive in his own unique personality, more comfortable in his own style of leadership.
I first met him in 2009, a one-to-one interview for a Unicef book about players and their childhoods. Messi was polite, reserved, and only livened up after a number of questions. Noticeably, when talking about what a sore loser he is – he hates losing at everything, card games, dice. Anything. Back then he told me that for a long time when he was a young boy he didn’t realise how good he was at football, because he secretly suspected his older brothers and their mates purposely let him win – to avoid his tantrums if he lost.
This opinion is reinforced by testimony from his current teammates aired in an inside the Copa América Netflix documentary, an intimate series with unique access, in which the Argentina players reveal, among other gems, a certain fear they all share of making Messi angry.
So his displays of anger and frustration are not new. His “outburst” against the Netherlands, the players and manager, is not only not Maradona-like in character but also very much in keeping with the real Messi.
Even his choice of insult is endearingly childish: “Go away, silly.” Who says that? The Spanish word he used, bobo, is almost out of use. The kind of expression that might be used by a character in a novel by the 20th-century Argentinian absurdist Roberto Arlt, or by a granny out in the farm: “You’ve spilt your soup, bobo.” It’s such a uniquely weird outburst that it has been immediately lapped up as a Messi trademark. Tattoos, T-shirts, even a wine, and mixes to dub and cumbia music have gone viral.
Maradona would have been more brutal – perhaps inventing a new insult specifically for Weghorst; certainly utilising expletives and profanities with more bite. Messi retains a childlike innocence in his use of language, which is always simple and basic, and quite a contrast from Maradona’s inventiveness.
After worldwide speculation that Messi and his teammates’ antics at the end of the Netherlands match were reminiscent of more stereotypical views of Argentina from past behaviours at international encounters, the Scaloneta – that is the national manager Lionel Scaloni and his advisers Walter Samuel and Pablo Aimar– as well as Messi himself, were quick to rein in any suggestion of accusatory or angry speech that went too far.
Argentina’s next match, the semi-final against Croatia, was a stark contrast, both on the pitch and in the reactions afterwards. A comfortable win, followed by a marked playing down of the inflammatory reactions from the quarter-final. “At times like these everything gets magnified,” Scaloni said when asked about the incidents after the Netherlands game. “We feel it’s important to write nothing, say nothing, and make sure nothing gets amplified.”
Messi echoed his manager’s sentiment with mature remarks about “the heat of the moment” and let it be understood there were no grudges. A very constrained response to reporters eager to build up a story of confrontation. Maradona used to thrive on confrontation. Argentina’s sporting icon needed to be fighting a solo battle against adversity: it was forever him against the world. On the field, his teammates would look to get the ball to Maradona and let him resolve the match single-handed.
Messi is very different. He needs a system that works, a well-oiled machine in which he can know where everyone around him is going to be and in what direction they will be moving. In this way, he can manage the ball, and can sense where the others are in order to be able to execute his ideas to perfection.
A great example of the Messianic essence of Messi seen in his creative playmaking and astonishing ability to execute a plan was his pass to Nahuel Molina in the quarter-final. A perfect illustration of Messi’s talent at his best. Can he see where Molina is going to be before Molina gets there? Or can he actually see Molina? If so, how? His head is down, his eyes on the ball and on the Dutch players immediately surrounding him. The precise moment when he decides what’s going to happen, and the pass to its exact place, can be watched over and over on an endless stream of clips. For this to have been performed so perfectly, he needs to operate in conjunction with the rest of the team. He cannot do it alone.
And this is the main difference between Messi and Maradona. Maradona, good team player though he was, carried the weight for everyone. The plan was get the ball to him and Maradona would sort it out.
Messi cannot carry the weight for others – he needs to be part of a bigger unit. He needs Molina to “transmit” to him where he will be – so, not necessary to actually “see” Molina, but rather to “know” what his teammate is going to do.
Against Croatia, Messi delighted us yet again with this apparently sensory ability to preempt where Julián Álvarez would be ready to receive his pass for Argentina’s third. The added gambeta – dribbling, skilful feigns and dummies during which he played contentedly with the ball despite Croatia’s pointless efforts to dissuade him – are the signature not just of Messi himself but of the style and tradition of the aspects of Argentinian football that fans have grown to love.
Match by match at this World Cup, we have seen Messi growing into himself. He is finding comfort in being who he is among a group who understand him, and unlike the more taciturn Messi of the past, who maybe felt the need to constrain his true essence (maybe because it is difficult to understand, because it diverges enough from what we expect people to be like), he is now more assertive in showing his true self.
The temptation to think he is becoming more like Maradona must be resisted. The weight and burden of filling those shoes has been more of a hindrance than an inspiration for Messi. This character that he is presenting now is freer; it is like the liberation of Messi. The national anthem (which he was criticised for not singing for many years) opens with the words: “Listen, mortals, it’s the sound of breaking chains.”
Messi is like a son who grows healthily and he is now marking the limits and boundaries, imposing a separation from Maradona. With calm maturity he always nods in the direction of the Great Diego, but distancing himself at the same time. By saying: “Diego is watching over us,” or: “Let’s do this for Diego,” he defers to Argentina’s football deity while at the same time naming him as an other, and so remaining very much his own man. Naming Maradona is a way of distancing himself from him.
The reaction to perceived injustice may be different but both Messi and Maradona do it. In this sense they are leaders and captains and arguably it is less important that they react in different ways, and more telling that when facing such a situation “they react publicly” – each in their own way, but both react. That’s the identity.
Reacting is a tradition that links him to Diego; a fair measure of belonging and identity links Messi to Maradona. The relationship of belonging is a thread that unites them very closely. “It’s hard for a patriarch to find himself and be comfortable in a pantheon, but when it happens it’s luminary,” says Chodos. “Messi is now comfortable in the Olympus next to, but different from, Diego.”
Argentina’s road to the final has been turbulent, but each match has shown incremental improvements on the previous game’s weakest link. The weakest link in the quarter-final was behavioural. The semi-final was close to perfection. Add to this a frenzy of praise that can see no wrong in the squad, among the press, the crowds back home, and the inordinate number of Argentina fans the world over that have become more visible than ever during this World Cup, and the biggest danger the finalists face now is not having an easily identifiable weak spot to correct.
Emerging from the tunnel feeling unbeatable is the mistake Argentina made against Saudi Arabia in their first match in Qatar. It is also a mistake Maradona would have been prone to: thinking he is the absolute best in the world, roaring to take on anyone willing to suggest otherwise.
Argentina’s hope must be that this newfound confidence Lionel Messi has in presenting his true self doesn’t get blurred into some national fantasy about divine football qualities; that his earthly, calm, emotionally mature true self can focus on his artistic beauty, and that the team are able to transmit to him which direction their movements will take them.
As Victor Hugo Morales’s commentary of the setup for Álvarez’s second goal against Croatia so aptly described: “Servant of the art of football. With a single gesture able to display the entire beauty of the sport. Eternal Aladdin of football, infinite left. Extraordinary!”
Just one more moment of such magic and Messi can bow out of the global stage with all the laurels and dignity, take his place in football’s Olympus, and delight us all. Not fused with Maradona, but his own true exponent of the beauty and power of the game.
