For years, there was a debate in Argentina about who was better: Diego Maradona or Lionel Messi. Now, we have stopped comparing them. They are the two greatest players in football history and it makes us proud to have those two big names as part of our country.
You saw after the Croatia game all the players singing on the pitch with the fans. The song is a famous song in Argentina, you could see Messi singing, and one of the lyrics he has to sing is ‘Argentina is the land of Lionel’ — and he sings it because he is like a fan. There is another part that goes ‘Diego is watching you from the sky, trying to support you’. It is beautiful.
Even Maradona in the past said some things about Messi that were not as complimentary as you would expect. But now they both just feel like big symbols of Argentina who represent something important. We are just enjoying them.
This World Cup is the first time Argentinians are not expecting anything from Messi. When he missed a penalty against Poland in the group stage, I spoke to lots of fans and they all said the same thing, ‘Don’t worry, you can miss another 10 penalties if you want. We don’t care any more if you have a good performance or not. You are our symbol, you are our flag. We love you how you are’.
After the World Cup in 2018, when we lost against France in the last 16, there were people saying that was enough of Messi in the national team, his period is over. But winning the Copa America in Brazil last year was the big step where Messi finally got into the heart of absolutely everyone.
From my point of view, he deserved that when he started playing. But other people needed time, more proof that he was all for Argentina. The feeling in Argentina is different to other World Cups. It is Messi’s last dance and the thought of losing him hurts, because all us think that after him things are going to change. If you look at football history, after a great player has retired, their team suffer, like Brazil after Pele, Argentina after Maradona, and I am sure if will happen after Messi.
We are a country in need of some happiness. Argentina is a country that has been suffering a lot. There are a lot of troubles back home. Coronavirus hit us really bad and our economy is struggling. When you are in Buenos Aires, you feel like you are in a place where you are always destined to suffer for reasons that you cannot control.
But then you see this team and you can identify with them and you feel like they are playing as you would play if
you were on the field. With the situation in Argentina at the moment, football feels like the only thing we are really good at, the thing that we are admired for around the world. Win or lose, we know this is a group of players who represented the country really well. That makes us proud.
The end of the year normally represents a difficult time for Argentinians. People take to the street to complain about social problems, the government and poverty. But now it is a mixed feeling between all those things and Argentina possibly winning the World Cup. And if we do win on Sunday, Premier League clubs can forget about getting their players back next week… because there is going to be a big party in Buenos Aires.
