Messi squanders chance to join the greats
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Argentina’s 1-0 defeat
by Germany in Sunday’s World Cup final prevented Lionel Messi, who was
named Player of the Tournament, from cementing his place in the pantheon
of the truly great.
While the 27-year-old has won everything there
is to win — and broken every record there is to break — with Barcelona,
the final offered him the opportunity to definitively seal his legacy
in the sport.
Pele, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo all scored
decisive goals in finals, while Diego Maradona created the goal that
settled the 1986 tournament, but Messi found himself upstaged by Mario
Goetze’s sensational extra-time winner for Germany.
He would be haunted in particular by a glaring
opportunity early in the second half, when he found himself with only
Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to beat, but whipped his shot wide.
It was to be his only clear sight of goal and
his failure to seize the chance continued a narrative that had taken
root earlier in the knockout phase.
Whereas Maradona had seemed to grow with each
match as Argentina surged to the title in 1986, scoring braces against
England and Belgium in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, Messi
appeared to shrink.
After dazzling in the group phase with four
goals, he made the winning goal for Angel di Maria against Switzerland
in the last 16, but in his own encounter with Belgium he flickered only
sporadically, and in the semi-final against the Netherlands he was
anonymous.
He has now gone four games without scoring for
the first time under the stewardship of coach Alejandro Sabella, losing
his capacity to make a difference at precisely the wrong time.
His inability to reverse Argentina’s fate at
the Maracana suggested that the fatigue of which his father has spoken
weighed more heavily upon him that he has yet admitted.
With 354 goals in 425 games for Barcelona,
many of them works of art, his genius cannot be denied, but as he
himself has admitted, there is no substitute for a World Cup winner’s
medal.
- Overcooked his shot -
“I would give all my personal records to be world champion,” he had told German tabloid Bild ahead of the final.
“I’d prefer to win the World Cup than the
Ballon d’Or. As a player, winning the World Cup is the biggest thing
there is. It’s something you dream of as a youngster and that dream
never fades away.”
Whereas Holland had successfully man-marked
Messi during the semi-final, Germany opted to crowd him out whenever he
picked up the ball.
Bastian Schweinsteiger had shackled him
masterfully during Germany’s 4-0 quarter-final win in 2010 and the
Bayern Munich midfielder recorded early victories by nicking the ball
away from Messi on a couple of occasions.
Germany’s high defensive line left wide open
space behind their back four, however, and Messi twice launched
dangerous raids down the right flank that exposed Mats Hummels’s lack of
pace.
On the first occasion his cut-back was cut out
by Schweinsteiger, while shortly before half-time he got in behind
Hummels and toed the ball past Neuer, only for Jerome Boateng to hack
clear.
The moment that the thousands of Argentines
inside the Maracana had been waiting for arrived a minute into the
second half when Messi was freed by Lucas Biglia, but he overcooked his
shot and rattled it wide of the right-hand past.
An injury-time free-kick from 30 yards offered one last improbable chance at redemption, but he hooked it over the bar.
Where Maradona had broken down in tears after Argentina lost to West Germany in the 1990 final, Messi looked merely numb.
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