Messi (90 page)

Because its aftermath might just make the established hierarchy shake.

  
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Alejandro Sabella

All routes lead to the World Cup in Brazil

I
t is the tournament that will see Leo, at the age of 27, at his peak. It will be played in South America and the Argentina national team has traditionally felt more comfortable when the competition is being played on its continent. They aim to win it. In their biggest rival’s backyard. The team revolves around the Rosario-born star and the necessary conditions have been created to maximise not only his characteristics, but also those of his team-mates in attack, Sergio Agüero, Gonzalo Higuaín, Ángel Di María. It is the Real Madrid of the national teams: they enjoy playing on the break, with pace, pressing high without the ball but keeping possession if required.

Leo is preparing both mentally and physically to arrive in perfect condition.

For Leo, this is his World Cup.

What will happen if he wins it? Coming just a month after playing in an extremely tough, exacting competition means that the psychological strain of preparing for the tournament will be enormous at all levels. All the baggage, everything he has learnt, and everything he has fought for so his national team understands him, will be brought to the table in June in Brazil. If he wins it, the sighs of relief and relaxation will be as necessary as they will be inevitable.

And he will return to Barcelona with the job done. Will it possibly be the time to see another Messi, to further his tactical evolution and become a creator, instead of the executioner he currently is? Would that not allow him to lengthen his sporting career? By taking a step back on the pitch he would be able to use other characteristics of his game that do not always require explosiveness and maximum
muscular demands. Facing Xavi’s logical physical decline, Leo could become the team organiser and Neymar’s assistant. ‘Now I’m the one who makes others play,’ could be his post-World Cup motto.

And what if he doesn’t win it?

The psychological pressure would be increased and leave him feeling unfulfilled. He will tell himself, yes, he is a great player, but he has been unable to lead his country to World Cup victory, as Pelé, Maradona and even Zidane have done. How does one respond to that? His desire to perform, to be important, to carry on showing the world they are wrong, could multiply to the team’s benefit (he will want to continue scoring goals and winning more games), or make Tata Martino’s job to convert him into the Michael Jordan of the victorious Chicago Bulls team more arduous. Leo will want to keep proving that he is the best in the world and the coach will have to know how to handle that ambition.

In any case, absolutely everything has been done to ensure that Argentina, and Leo, arrive in Brazil as serious contenders for the title.

At last. But it needed the arrival of a new national coach.

Despite the convincing 4–1 victory in 2010 against recently crowned World Champions Spain, and despite the pleasure he experienced from hearing the fans sing his name for the first time, Sergio Batista, the manager at the time, did not manage to combine ‘the Flea’s’ footballing growth with a team that worked. He tried Barcelona’s 4-3-3 and distanced Carlos Tévez from the national team because he understood that he did not fit the group’s new dynamics, but the results were dismal: he failed in the Copa América held in Argentina, losing to Uruguay on penalties in the quarter-finals. The opposition goalkeeper Fernando Muslera was, without doubt, the man of the match, but that fact did not appease local supporters who showed their impatience with their team. They were Messi’s worst moments with the
albiceleste
.

It was Alejandro Sabella’s turn to get rid of the deadwood and initiate a new project which had to start with the talented front line at his disposal. At 56 he used his experience not only as a footballer but also as assistant to Daniel Passarella, the coach who led
Argentina to the 1998 World Cup. His low profile helped lift spirits without making too much noise and his footballing rigorousness helped him make decisions, some of them painful ones: Tévez was not going to return, nor was Riquelme. The call-ups and style gradually became consistent and revolved around the same group.

The four forwards (Messi, Di María, Kun Agüero and Higuaín) had been developing an understanding and would be sure starters. And in midfield, a combination of Javier Mascherano’s tactical discipline and Fernando Gago’s touch, coupled with their experience and balance, made them leaders both on and off the pitch.

Messi had Gago behind him and Agüero as his partner up front in both his titles with Argentina (Under 20 World Cup and the Olympic Games). They were reunited under Sabella.

And Leo, alongside team-mates who were on the same wavelength as him, was playing with freedom. In and around the box, he started becoming Barcelona’s Messi.

‘The only thing I said as soon as I joined the national team was that he had to be left in peace,’ explains Alejandro Sabella in the book
El distinto
. ‘He once missed a penalty and it was as if an asteroid had struck the earth. Please! Then they started, what if he’s depressed, what’s happening to Messi … It turns out that he scored five goals in the following two matches. We have to understand that Messi is a human being.’

Sabella needed Pep Guardiola’s advice: ‘Protect him with players who make his job simpler.’ And make him feel loved, he added. With that in mind, the new coach flew to Barcelona to give Messi the captaincy.

Captaincy suited Leo down to the ground, it filled him with serenity. Well, that is if you ignore his first talk – or, if the one off against Greece in the 2010 World Cup is counted, the second one, too. ‘He told me the other day,’ explains Gerard Piqué, ‘that in Argentina they have a tradition of captains giving speeches before each match. When he was given the armband and it was his turn to give one, he arrived and said: “there is no speech today. Come on, let’s get on the pitch!” That in his first match as captain!’

But he gradually adapted to the responsibilities of the role, including what were for him the least attractive ones. ‘At the beginning he would speak to us on a more individual basis,’ recounts Pablo Zabaleta. ‘But now he says: “This is Argentina, let’s go for it from the start, remember the importance to the country” … General and group things, with some individual instructions. He has taken on the role.’ And Pablo stopped giving him tips as he had as a youngster: this Messi was in another dimension.

‘They aren’t tactical things, that’s what the coach’s talks in the hotel are for,’ explains Oscar Ustari. ‘When we come back in from the warm-up, we get changed, we all shout, we call out a few things (come on lads, we are Argentina, we are going to win!). Then Leo rounds us up in a circle just before we go back out. And he calms us down, or he speaks about the team, the fans who have come to see us. He might say something else in the tunnel. And at half-time, he is doing his boots up, you can hear him going round saying: “we’re going to continue in the same way, we are doing well …”’

Fernando Signorini, the ex-national team fitness coach, offers a
different vision of the armband: ‘He didn’t need it at all [the captaincy]. Besides, I think Mascherano is much more of a captain than Leo, and Leo recognises it himself, he is not stupid. But it is part of the game, because this comes from when Bilardo gave it to Diego, because it gave Diego a special buzz. But in this day and age the captain, the leader, practically no longer exists: times have changed, cultural norms. When society was different, a leader was more contemplative, more respectful in his ways. Today it is all up for debate and it’s good that it’s like that because things are going badly, in football and in society. All you have to make sure is responsibilities as a footballer. Just let him play.’

Maradona was a captain who fought rivals both on and off the pitch, with hints of political leanings which he demonstrated by criticising the Pope or praising Fidel Castro, whereas Leo just wants to express his opinion on systems of play.

‘He is helped by two positive leaders behind him in Zabaleta and Mascherano,’ states ‘Professor’ Salorio. ‘Sometimes it’s good to have one leader with two behind. In any case, the Leo that I met in the Under 20 World Cup is not this one. This Leo is a guy who asks, demands in the true sense of the word, eh? When he demands, he demands what he has to demand, and when he asks, he asks for what he has to ask for. He isn’t a nonconformist like Diego can be.’

Leo speaks without saying a single word in training – by not complaining about getting fouled again, by constantly wanting the ball so he can assume responsibility, calling his injured teammates from Barcelona, rejecting special privileges or by participating in the organisation of trips.

The journalist Ezequiel Fernández Moores writes in
El País
about the first decision he made wearing the captain’s armband: ‘Dozens of kids jump onto the track at the IBK Stadium in Calcutta. Policemen take photos with Lionel Messi. His presence in India is a success. The promoter of the match happily pays him $200,000 on top. “Lads,” says the new Argentina captain while he rounds up his team-mates, “I suffer from the heat like you, I’ve been on a journey like you and I’ve had vaccinations like you. This cash is for everyone.” It is 2 September 2012, a friendly which Argentina win 1–0 against Venezuela, the debut of new coach, Alejandro Sabella.’

In June 2013, the Guatemalan Football Association agreed to
pay a fee of $1 million to the Argentine federation for a friendly between the countries’ national teams. Leo was a doubt because of some trouble that had been dragging on since his injury against PSG. If he played, they would pay another half a million. Leo duly travelled and played in Guatemala, and that extra half a million which was earned through his appearance was distributed among the players selected.

‘I saw him covering at right-back in Peru, the best in the world,’ adds Oscar Ustari. ‘Dropping back to defend. That was in qualifying. And you say, he’s the best of all and he’s here, defending. How are you not going to get infected by it if the team-mate who has won it all is here. Of course you have to build the team around that person.’

The points were gradually being amassed during qualification, but the odd slip-up still occurred. Meanwhile he was filling his own pockets up with goals as well. On the back of not scoring at the World Cup in South Africa or at the 2011 Copa América, he averaged almost a goal per game following the arrival of the new coach.

‘There is something very interesting about Sabella’s Argentina,’ says Carlos Bilardo. ‘That pressure over three-quarters of the pitch means Leo has to run very little. That is to say, he covers less ground than he did in South Africa. Whenever Leo is around, the opponents have to have at least three players on him. And the others find themselves with space and time to cause damage.’

The ecosystem was finally harmonious.

But every king needs a coronation, and Leo’s came on a very hot day in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Sabella explains it in the Foreword of this book. It was the day everything fell into place.

Argentina had just lost against Venezuela, a historic defeat, the first ever against
La Vinotinto
(The Burgundy), and drawn with Bolivia. Colombia opened the scoring in Barranquilla. The heat, another enemy, was unbearable. And Kun redeemed himself as his best companion up front.

‘Based on what us Argentines are like, that qualifying match against Colombia, when we came back with a spectacular second-half performance by Lionel, was key,’ remembers Eduardo Sacheri. ‘We were destined to lose that match and make qualifying complicated, and he made us win. It was epic: a Messi who can give no more, dying from the heat, on the brink of exhaustion … And he turned it around in those conditions, against very difficult opposition. We love those stories.’