At the heart of Argentine crisis, Messi. By Jonathan Wilson

The FIFA World Cup throws up drama that only football can. From a corrupt governing body to nobodies who rise to the ocassion and of course stars who don't. This is an insightful piece of writing from The Guardian.

 

He did not cause the defensive collapse against Croatia but the team’s dependence on Lionel Messi makes them predictable and when his country looked to him, he wasn’t there

It was in 1913 that Racing became the first non-Anglo side to win the Argentinian league title. For much of the century that has followed, Argentinian football has defined itself in opposition to the English, distancing itself from its British heritage. And yet, under pressure, in their frenzied desperation on Thursday, Argentina resembled nobody so much as England.

This was shambolic. Too many players tried to do too much themselves. There was altogether too much running, too much frenzy, too many fouls conceded as they desperately tried to regain possession, too little thought. By the end, as Ivan Rakitic casually rolled in a sarcastic third for Croatia, Argentina were gone, any semblance of defensive structure blown to the winds.
Had this been the final group game, the loss of discipline might have been explicable. But it was not. A 1-0 defeat Argentina could, plausibly, have got away with. Even 2-0 was just about rescuable. But now they are looking at probably having to put at least three past Nigeria in their final game, while hoping the other result goes their way. Perhaps Lionel Messi has one last miracle in him, but this would be his greatest yet.

Messi himself was barely involved. He touched the ball only 49 times, and only six times in the final quarter hour. When his country looked to him, he simply wasn’t there. It’s ludicrous, of course, that one player should be under such pressure, that everything should be about him, particularly when it was his display in Ecuador that got Argentina to Russia, particularly in a nation with such a proud football history as Argentina, with so many other great talents in their squad, but it’s increasingly coming to seem that the Messi dependence that has benighted Argentina for so long can be solved in only one way.

Paulo Dybala hit upon the truth in an interview earlier in the year: Messi is simply too good. Dybala said he found him almost impossible to play with because the temptation is always simply to give him the ball. At club levels players adapt; at national level, where there is less time and a greater range of talent in the squad, it is far more difficult. Everything goes through him and that makes Argentina predictable and susceptible to being frustrated by sides that pack the centre.

Jorge Sampaoli had spoken before the tournament of the 2‑3‑3-2 he intended to use, playing Messi behind a centre-forward but with another playmaker in midfield. That – essentially a 4-4-1-1 with a midfield diamond but very attacking full‑backs – was seen only briefly in the Iceland game, after Éver Banega had replaced Lucas Biglia. In the four days since, it disappeared altogether.
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Messi had told Sampaoli at an asado (barbecue) in March that he felt a 3-4-3, such as he played in for Luis Enrique at Barcelona at the end of 2016-17, didn’t work for him because it naturally drew defenders into the inside-right zone he likes to attack. Sampaoli had agreed but against Croatia he returned to that original plan. In the first half, Messi was proved right.
But at least then there was a structure. By the end, there was nothing: just players, a pitch that had become a theatre of torment, and an opposition who, also rather less than the sum of their parts, couldn’t believe their luck.
Hindsight offers hints of the devastation to come. At the anthems, Messi, staring at the ground, kept rubbing his face with his hand. He had not attended a Father’s Day asado at the team camp, staying in his room, fretting. He may still be around in Qatar in four years but he will turn 35 in June 2022. He will not be the same player. If he does, implausibly, achieve success there, it will not be as the greatest player in the world putting the final seal on his legacy but as some gnarled veteran completing one last job and achieving at the very end some redemption for an international career that has been an enormous disappointment. It’s an appealing narrative but not the one he or Argentina wanted.
Just before the second half began, Sampaoli took his place on the bench and looked almost ill, his face grey and sheened with sweat. The sense then was that he knew his side were on the brink. By the end, his jacket was off and he was reduced to waving his heavily tattooed arms in a vague lifting gesture, helpless to check the anarchy unfolding in front of him. For the defensive collapse, Messi is not at fault.
Sampaoli will be held responsible and, assuming the Argentinian Football Association can find the money to pay his compensation, he will almost certainly be dismissed. But the blame goes far deeper and begins far earlier. Sampaoli was the third coach Argentina had used in qualifying. His football, predicated on a high line and a ferocious press, was not a natural fit for Argentina’s fleet of lumbering defenders and he never had the time to find a solution. But ripping up the blueprint he had unveiled only a couple of weeks ago after one game smacked of panic. He is not the first Argentina coach to be chewed up by the chaos that surrounds the job, and he will not be the last.

But he may be the last to lead Messi at a World Cup, and that is the great sadness of their defeat. Messi remains at the absolute summit of the pantheon but he deserved a better farewell from the World Cup than this strange homage to Argentinian football’s English roots.