Messi (61 page)

But to go back to the flag Valdano speaks about: that is Argentina for most Argentinians, so Diego does not need to show where he is from. Messi needed to give signs of it; he has been asked to become a bit more like Maradona. But Leo, the Catalan in Argentina and the Argentinian in Catalonia, was not always going to be asking permission to be an Argentinian. In fact, he was getting more and more pissed off with every defeat and piece of personal criticism.

Since Leo burst onto the scene, decades of Argentinian frustration have been thrust upon him. Even though he won trophies with his club and individual titles, he was expected to win a World Cup in order to be accepted by his country. And, if he failed in the attempt, it will for ever be said, ‘You see, we knew it! He is no Maradona.’

‘It is almost impossible to fight a religious icon,’ as Jorge Valdano says. Leo, it must be said, has never tried to.

‘I’ve got a theory about him, although it isn’t based on any scientific fact. I think Messi is a one-off in the history of humanity, because he is actually capable of having a football inside his foot. They always said that Maradona had the ball stuck to his foot but Messi seems to have it inside his foot and that is scientifically inexplicable, but when you see seven, eleven, twenty-two rivals all trying and failing to get the ball off him, you must admit it has to be because of that.’

(Eduardo Galeano)

‘Leo or Diego? They’re different eras as well. Diego’s was from the era of man-marking.’

(Carlos Bilardo)

‘Leo, from a physical point of view, is a model of athleticism with blistering acceleration. He has twists and turns like a Scalextric. He has the latest generation braking system and peripheral vision. I also
think that through his windscreen he can see behind without even turning around. So has Diego. They are exceptional cases, rarities. A doctor friend of mine told me that Diego would have made an excellent war pilot because of his capacity to see the whole picture. And what’s more, the precision of timing to put time and distance together. Between the two of them they could have formed a spectacular force. You need to look at their DNA to see if they have the butterfly gene in their legs because they, like the butterfly, seem to have the sense of taste in their feet. And a very good taste
.

(Fernando Signorini)

And on the pitch, what unites them and what separates them?

‘Football-wise, they have nothing in common,’ says Hugo Tocalli. ‘Maradona was the conductor. Leo isn’t. They played in different positions – Messi is more of a player for the last third. And they are from two distinct eras.’ The role of the number 10 reflects the differences in football between the Eighties and today and goes a long way towards explaining what makes them different.

Thirty years ago the number 10 was a symbolic figure, the conductor of the orchestra who gradually disappeared from the centre, before being seen in the 4-4-2 system that became all the rage, either situated on the wing, becoming a second forward off the main one, or dropping back as a defensive midfielder in front of the back four. It ceased to have the importance that it had had before, and the game suffered as a result. Then, with Pep Guardiola and the Spanish side, it reappeared but in a position further up the pitch, in its latest evolution: the target man disappeared and was replaced by a false nine.

With much tighter, more together and more physical defences, the Maradona-like player who orchestrated things from the midfield can no longer exist. The centre of the action, the engine room of the team, moved closer to the box, in that position known as
mediapunta
in Spanish, or ‘in the hole’, from where the major influence on attacking play occurs today. Maradona would have been a Messi if he were to break through today. We’ll have to see if Leo, when he begins to lose his pace, can drop back and convert himself into the type of organiser that Maradona was. Many feel that this might be how he will evolve.

The statistics favour Leo: at the age of 25 he had already won 21 titles compared to Maradona’s five (Pelé had won 18, including two World Cups). Leo passed the 311 club appearances and 34 international goals that Maradona scored before retiring at the age of 38, a long time ago. But that is clearly a reflection of the way they play – Leo spends a lot more time in or around the area than Diego did.

In any case the stats count for little in this particular discussion: ‘In the confused comparison as to who is the best, Diego or Leo, Messi appears to be the perfect machine, capable of smashing all possible records, although realistically I don’t know if he will ever be able to entertain quite like Maradona.’ So says well-known
Olé
journalist Luis Calvano.

As for the rest, this footballing tale is full of common myths. In the 1986 World Cup, so it is said, Maradona won the tournament practically single-handedly without playing in a side better than the Argentina of today. It is repeatedly written that he played for everyone in an eleven bursting with destroyers. The fact is that without Bilardo’s defensive system they would not have won the World Cup, and without intelligent players it is impossible to mount any sort of decent system. When Diego wasn’t playing well, the team supported him. Similarly, at Napoli and at Italia ’90, when Argentina were runners-up, Maradona had a good defensive structure protecting him.

It is said that Barcelona play for Messi. They surround him with eight world champions as well as other extraordinary figures (Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Villa). But Barcelona without Messi would not have won as much, or as consistently: it would have been a great side but lacking its leading light, the killer, the assassin in the box.

Time for a quick game: put a 25-year-old Maradona in Pep’s Barcelona team. Where would he play? Xavi or even Messi now occupies the space taken up by the number 10 of yesteryear. Diego had an explosiveness and skill that would allow him to play further up the pitch. He would bang in the goals. But these days players cover many more miles than in his era and, given his tendency to let himself go physically, he could find it difficult to keep up with the demanding rhythm of a whole season. And now imagine Messi in Maradona’s Napoli shirt. Up against those tough defences that
opted for man-marking, his intelligence and efficiency would make him the star of the side. But the space, the tactics, even the ball is different, heavier; he may well have found it difficult to elude his rival.

An entertaining, if ultimately pointless, exercise.

‘Of Pelé it can be said that he played in an era where footballers didn’t move and while I hope Messi takes Argentina to victory in the World Cup, it won’t be easy because he is known by everybody. In the last game against Milan they built a cage around him. He is a great lad, but I sincerely believe that I have been the greatest player in the history of the game until now.’

Who said that? You got it – Maradona.

With Diego ‘
el Pelusa
’ Maradona in charge of the national side a cycle came to an end. Four months after his first appearance as coach, Juan Román Riquelme, the then successful leader of Boca Juniors, retired from the national side claiming that he did not have ‘the same codes’ or ‘the same way of thinking’ as the coach. They could not carry on working together. Without actually saying as much, Riquelme was criticising the fact that things had been done badly: he found out on the radio that he was not going to be called up for a friendly, learned on television that Maradona was putting his place in the starting line-up in doubt because of the ‘physical problems’ that he seemed to be having at his club. ‘He’s of no use to me like that,’ Maradona had said publicly. But in his claims Riquelme was referring to something else: a group of players had received calls from the Maradona camp asking them to create a ‘difficult climate’ for the then Argentina manager Coco Basile, who had always protected Riquelme. If the conspiracy that the Boca footballer suspected was true, it had worked and now it was affecting him.

The leadership was changing.

With the World Cup a year away, Maradona stopped criticising ‘the Flea’ and turned his team’s attention to the Barcelona star to try to make the most of his talent. Maradona, a man prone to making public gestures, symbolically offered Leo the number 10 shirt for his first official game as coach against Venezuela, where victory was essential, not just for the purposes of classification but also to
give credit to the new order. Leo wanted the emblematic number, but had not asked for it. When he accepted it, he already knew that Maradona had spoken to the captain Javier Mascherano and the veteran Verón about it. Both gave him the okay. ‘It would be an honour,’ he said in answer to Diego’s proposal.

People were dreaming of and speculating about how the two of them would work together and things did indeed start well. ‘Seeing Messi like this every day is a pleasure. We should all leave the ground, pay again and come back in,’ said Maradona after a convincing 4–0 victory over Venezuela that saw a 21-year-old Messi at the centre of operations: he scored the first goal, provided the assist for the second and made the difference in an attack that included Carlos Tévez and Sergio Agüero. The number 10 shirt that had weighed so heavily on the shoulders of Ariel Ortega, Marcelo Gallardo, Pablo Aimar, Andrés D’Alessandro and Riquelme had a new owner. ‘It made me very happy that Diego gave me the number ten. The two shirts that I wore will be for my mother and my brother,’ explained Messi at the end of the game. The one that finished up in the hands of Matías Messi is now part of the museum that the city of Rosario is designing in homage to Leo and other sporting stars from the city.

‘Román is dead, long live Lionel,’ proclaimed the newspaper
El Comercio
.

Long may he live and long may he survive. ‘Diego was worried that Leo would get kicked around, it’s the biggest worry you have with these kids who are crucial for the team,’ explains Signorini. ‘Because if you don’t have a figure like that in your squad, but rely on six or seven players who play more or less the same, well, one of them gets kicked, you stick on another. But Diego thought, whoa, if they break Leo then you’re left with nothing.’

‘In August 2009 we went to play a friendly in Russia,’ remembers Mascherano, ‘and Leo got injured the day before … and it was like someone had hit Diego over the head with a hammer. Maradona loved Leo. I think more than just love, it was almost like he had been rejuvenated, gone back thirty years, he could see himself in Leo. And anyway, on that day, he was dead. Diego went off by himself to the middle of the pitch while the doctors were checking Leo. And it was only a friendly! Maradona needed Leo.’

After winning the first three games, including the one in Moscow (2–3) that Leo played no part in, Maradona’s side was humiliated 6–1 in La Paz by Bolivia which was explained in no small part by the altitude sickness that caused Leo to vomit. Maradona had taken part a year before in a match organised by the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, to call upon FIFA to end a ban on any match played at an altitude of more than 2,750 metres. He therefore let coach Fernando Signorini (‘It’s like an external doping’) and Leo (‘Personally, I think it’s impossible to play here, even though other players come here and play. Equally this can’t be used an excuse for the defeat’) explain the difficult conditions the team had faced.

As early in his tenure as then, criticism of the Maradona regime was running deep. ‘Never before had he been so associated with football mistakes. He got it grossly wrong in the game plan,’ wrote Juan Pablo Varsky in
Canchallena.com
.

Argentina were not playing well, but the confusing coaching was not helping either. ‘Maradona’s way was a total mess,’ says Cristina Cubero, who regularly attended Argentina matches. ‘Maradona was a great footballer but an appalling manager: tactics were never worked on, it was total anarchy. Training sessions were terrible, kickabouts without any corrections, order or organisation. A bit like touchy-touchy; you’ve seen how I touch the ball, no? Well, do the same.’

Messi was not at his best either. Having been given the responsibility of leading the team, he kept trying too hard, looking too often for the individual move, appearing in the wrong part of the pitch. But not all was lost yet – qualification was still in Argentina’s hands.

They scraped past Colombia and lost away to Ecuador, before facing Brazil in Rosario, a request by Messi that was respected. There were four games left and they had to win at least two of them. It was at the Rosario Central ground, the Gigante de Arroyito Stadium, and all his friends and family were there to see him. Brazil won by a comfortable 3–1 scoreline, a result that guaranteed their passage to the South Africa World Cup. The subsequent disapproval that followed showed no respect for past or present idols. Leo and Maradona both copped it. ‘In the battle of the “aces”, Kaká enjoyed himself and beat Messi,’ was the headline in
El Clarín
.

Olé
did not believe the Tévez−Messi partnership was working.
‘Tévez runs everywhere and clashes with Messi. That is why the Flea gets close to Verón, in a deeper position. And then Mascherano has got no space to distribute the ball. The team is a mess.’ Juan Pablo Varsky reflected on most commentators’ opinion of Leo: ‘They say he is a problem. He doesn’t play with anybody apart from Verón. In Barcelona he simply plays, here he is always expected to score the Getafe goal … He did not play well against Brazil. He wanted the ball but he rarely did what the move demanded. While the 10 of Argentina was playing for his prestige in every ball, the 10 of Brazil [Kaká] did everything in a simple way.’

Another defeat, this time against Paraguay, left Argentina one place below where they needed to be to qualify.
Olé
had warned before the game that ‘so far Maradona has got it all wrong, he has not been able to hide his weaknesses as a national coach’. The same mistakes had been appearing regularly and were repeated against Paraguay (wrong tactics, too many players called up, wrong substitutions, inexplicable absences), but the sports newspaper also put the finger of blame on the players: ‘It is they who have to help Maradona.’