Lionel Messi’s late emergence as a ‘leader’ would have made El Diego happy

‘’Diego is watching us,’’ Messi famously said during Argentina’s winning campaign in Qatar, after lifting the World Cup for the first time in 36 years. It was a pep talk from the captain to invoke just the kind of nationalism the team needed in the middle of such a demanding campaign. The ‘Maradona Effect’ was also motivational because it was the first World Cup after the untimely death of the Argentine folk hero two years back.

Come to think of it, Maradona’s presence as Fifa’s ambassador in Russia just four years back had caused a major embarrassment for the Argentine team for his out-of-line behaviour in the VIP box. His presence, and his passion for the Albiceleste, as the Argentinian national team is called, was meant to fire up the national team – but after the heartbreak of losing the final in 2014 to Germany via extra-time goal and then again after their exit in 2018 in Moscow, Maradona tore into Messi.

‘’We shouldn’t deify Leo any longer,’’ Maradona told Fox Sports in an interview after their failed campaign in Russia. ‘’He’s Messi when he plays for Barcelona. Messi is Messi when he wears that shirt, and he’s another Messi with Argentina. He’s a great player but he’s not a leader. It’s useless trying to make a leader out of a man who goes to the toilet 20 times before a game,’’ he added.

Brutal? Yes, but then that’s Maradona for you. Four years before that in Brazil, he was no less severe when Messi was a surprise recipient of the Golden Ball, questioning the possible commercial interests at work behind such a decision. “Messi, I would have given him heaven, if possible, said Maradona, who coached the national team for two years including for the 2010 World Cup. ‘’But it’s not right when someone wins something that he shouldn’t have won just because of some marketing plan,’’ he said.

Messi, of course, had been no stranger to the avalanche of criticism over the years; Argentinians treated him as an outsider and for living and playing for Barcelona; it was said he was only great in club colours – an accusation that intensified following the 2014 and 2018 failures in the World Cup even as his superstardom grew in club football. His so-called international retirement in 2016, after losing the Copa final to Brazil, reflected his frustration while there was also talk of him walking away after the Russia edition but the current manager Leo Scaloni persuaded him to stay on for a final fling.

The absence of a major senior crown in Argentine colours till last year must have continued to rankle him – while the GOAT debate between him and Cristiano Ronaldo received extra grist when Ronaldo laid his hands on the Euro Championship for Portugal in 2016. A strong perception was gaining ground that the World Cup crown – which depends on a culmination of factors including a slice of the champions’ luck – was now getting a bridge too far for Messi.  

Messi’s much publicised fallout with the FC Barcelona management and subsequently shifting his base to Paris to the cash-rich Paris St Germain last year was a watershed moment in the history of European transfers – but it lent credence to the theory that an ageing Messi may now be looking for a comfort zone with nothing left to achieve at the club level.

While Messi is not the kind of personality who would cock a snook at proving people (read: Maradona above all) wrong, what must have been also hurtful for the way he was looked upon by the Argentines. ‘’In Argentina, there were those that didn’t always feel like he was one of them. He had, after all, spent most of his life in Barcelona. That’s why he plays better for the Blaugrana than the Albiceleste, they reasoned,’’ writes Mark Doyle in Goal.com.

 ‘’While they admired Messi, they adored Diego. Messi may have been the ideal family man, but Maradona was their lovable rogue,’’ Doyle added in a piece trying to define how Maradona would have loved to see Messi in his new avatar. The dramatic transformation from the reticent superstar, who often ambled about in a key match with an almost lost look, turned an animated leader of men in Doha – borrowing on the template of his erstwhile idol and mentor Maradona.

The process began, as Argentine football writers feel, last year when ahead of the final against Brazil at the Copa, a rousing speech from the captain completely altered the public perception of Messi as the silent leader.

‘’It’s been 45 days of hard work in which we haven’t complained about the travelling, the food, the hotels, the pitches, nothing. 45 days without seeing our families. 45 days…El Dibu (goalkeeper Emilio Martinez) became a father and didn’t even get to see his new-born child, and why? Because of this moment boys,’’ he said.

His last lines could actually go down as one of the best dressing room pep talk as a prelude to the acrimonious Brazil-Argentina clashes. ‘’And I want to finish with this: Coincidences don’t exist. The tournament had to be played in Brazil and do you know why? Because God brought it here so we win here in the Maracana for all of us. So, let’s go out there with confidence, with cool heads, and let’s win this trophy. Come on, boys,’’ he said.

We don’t know who had been writing the script for Messi these days, but one thing for certain is that we know whose template he had been following in reaching the peak.

However, those trying to draw a parallel between the two will do well to remember that Maradona and Messi plied their trade in different eras –former’s famous win against England in ’86 quarter finals was one of huge geopolitical significance after the Falklands War few years back.

Messi, on the other hand, is a product of the times when corporatisation of sport and social media had started ruling our lives. The duopoly of annual Ballon d’ Or awards between Messi and Ronaldo – which acted as a catalyst to keep the greatest debate alive – got predictable and almost boring after a while but one cannot blame the Argentine for it.

Messi has now proved Maradona wrong that he’s not a leader, and he will still continue to remain the establishment’s blue-eyed boy who is expected to wield a lot of clout in the world governing body. Maradona, on the other hand, was a pathological critic of Fifa, though he had gone on to accept their hospitality during the World Cup in Russia.

Argentine journalist Marcelo Sottile tries to put things in perspective when he said: ‘’Leo is the Argentine we all want to be. Diego is a bit of the Argentine that we really are: the fighter who rebels against power.’’

Messi has finally silenced his critics with the Cup to emerge out of Diego’s shadows. Still, he is no Maradona; they were like chalk and cheese as personalities! And Messi’s career – who had his most successful World Cup at the age of 35 years as against Maradona’s 25, a staggering number of seven Ballon ‘d Ors, two Golden Balls, over 1000 competitive matches, 800-plus goals and every conceivable trophy at the club level in his cabinet makes Messi the ideal candidate for the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) epithet.