Lionel Messi – Keluaran SGP, Togel Singapura, Data SGP, Pengeluaran SGP Hari Ini

Messi is thriving off the responsibility of creating a fairytale World Cup swansong | World Cup 2022

How do you stop someone who seems to have capabilities that are beyond human? That is the question that no player or team that has gone up against Lionel Messi at this World Cup has been able to answer. Next in line to try to stop the unstoppable and end Messi’s hunt for the missing piece of his trophy puzzle will be the Netherlands on Friday evening.

At 35 years old this is potentially the Argentinian’s final World Cup and he is thriving. Thriving off the responsibility and expectation, almost as if the fact that this could be his last chance has lifted the pressure that comes with all that.

I was a centre-back for England and played domestically in England, Sweden and the US. Occasionally, you come up against players who just strike fear into you. For me, there were a few but the Brazilian forward and six-time Fifa world player of the year Marta stands out. She was, and is, similar to Messi. She had that characteristic close-ball control with added trickery, using all parts of her foot to control and dribble and roll and change direction. As a defender it was always hard to try to keep her in one direction and force her away from dangerous areas. The Arsenal forward Vivianne Miedema is probably the modern‑day equivalent that I faced in the women’s game.

She reads where and when players drop their weight with the same speed and intelligence. She waits for you to commit yourself and if you drop a shoulder or you angle your body to take control of the situation, she’ll either feint you or go around you. In situations where you expect her to take a shot early, often she doesn’t, instead she puts you on the floor, goes again and then creates a clearer scoring opportunity for herself. I can only imagine what stepping out opposite Messi must feel like.

It’s almost like he has a gravitational pull and he himself has a gravitational force, pulling and twisting and managing the movement of the ball like it’s a part of his orbit. He has such a continuity in his movement when he’s on the ball, when he’s dribbling with that close-ball control with such effortless grace. His first touch, which is nearly always sublime, means he doesn’t ever give you an inch of space. Often as a defender you’re counting on putting pressure on at the first touch, if it’s a poor touch you have a chance of stopping them. However his first touch is often so good that defenders are stopped dead in their tracks, and he’s able to just skip by them.

One of the only ways to defend against Messi is to do it in numbers. I would want to pull in the defenders around me, drag my wing-back in, have my centre-back close to me, maybe my deep-lying central midfielder offering support and focus on trying to get in the way of those passing lines that he so often finds. But the problem is that he also thrives in those situations. He sucks players towards him. He wants three or four players swarming him with pressure and when that happens he finds the pass. He knows where the space is, he knows where his spare man is, and he’ll find him. If it’s not that, he’s drawing the foul and then we all know what he can do with a free-kick.

Lionel Messi at an Argentina training session. — Lionel Messi shows off his technical skills at an Argentina training session. Photograph: Jorge Sáenz/AP

The alternative is being exposed to Messi one v one and that’s only really going to end one way. When you see him approaching, you often see defenders almost shift onto their tiptoes, waiting to see what direction he’s going, and none of them want to dive in because he’s also a nutmeg master. The minute you get half a step towards him he’s putting the ball through your legs or putting it around and you running around to collect. It’s over before you’ve had time to even try and guess and it looks a humiliation. But how can you be humiliated? It’s Messi. That’s his bread and butter. He makes the best defenders in the world look average time and time again.

A lot of what is special about him is enhanced by his low centre of gravity. That helps his agility, his ability to read where players drop their weight and to utilise his momentum to shift from dribbling slow, sucking players in, to then speeding it up. He does that with an unrivalled fluidity, he doesn’t have to stop and push again, he can just keep going and ramp it up. It’s hard to stop someone with that level of momentum coming towards you. You end up getting pulled into positions you don’t want to be in and doing things that are uncharacteristic.

Not enough is said about the vision of players such as Messi off the ball too. Lots of people talk about scanning, but not everyone does it and not everyone does it effectively. The best players in the world do it the most often. Messi is the sort of player who is constantly looking over his shoulder, analysing where he can pick up those little pockets of space between players, in between units, and the smallest of spaces is all he needs to operate in, which is wild.

What is perhaps most exhilarating about watching him in this tournament is that he is in form but also that he looks like he is thoroughly enjoying this potential last ride. If Argentina win the World Cup? Well, what a way to cap off the huge joy we’ve all had witnessing him play.

Argentina’s success against Socceroos ‘brings out the fire’ in Lionel Messi | World Cup 2022

Oh, Aziz. You’ve done it now. The second it happened, Argentina’s players knew there was only one way this was going to end. Anyone who has watched Lionel Messi a lot did, and there has been a lot of him to watch. By the time they left the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, scene of his 1,000th game, his teammate Alexis Mac Allister was laughing about it, the apparent inevitability of it all. Australia had picked the wrong guy: that’s not a knife, this is a knife.

There were 10 minutes to go until half-time, there had been little sign of a breakthrough, and Messi had given the ball away the last two times he had it, when he and Aziz Behich clashed out on the right touchline. The Dundee United player barged him, grabbed his shirt and had a word or five. He also gave away a foul. Messi reacted: twice. First he faced up to his opponent, then he took the free kick, fast. Within seconds, Argentina had the lead and their captain had scored his 789^th career goal – seven hundred and eighty nine – and his first in a World Cup knock out.

Heading across from the touchline, Messi had rolled it towards Mac Allister, turned and continued to the area. “I always try to pass to him, try to make sure the ball gets to him because if he has it everything’s much easier,” the midfielder said, three hours later, but this time was different. Yet if one of those rare moments when he wasn’t looking for Messi, still he still found him, like the ball has a will of its own. And, let’s face it, whose feet would you rather the ball fell at?

“The pass was for Otamendi, but it came to Messi, which was a bit of a surprise,” Mac Allister admitted, mission accomplished if accidentally. Otamendi lost control – “I told Leo it was an assist,” he joked later – but Messi rescued it, took a touch and then played another pass, this time into the net. The shot went through the legs of Stoke’s Harry Souttar – alas, it was neither wet nor Wednesday – and beyond the dive of Matty Ryan. It was Argentina’s first shot on target, and the first time he had been in the area.

Lionel Messi of Argentina leaves three Australian defenders trailing. Photograph: Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Getty Images

“It’s probably the only chance I’ll ever get to share the pitch with arguably the greatest to ever do it [and] it’s a bit surreal, a moment to reflect on at the end: to look back and say you got to compete with one of the greatest,” Australia’s Jackson Irvine said. “What stands out is his understanding of the game, how he picks and chooses his moments to come to life. And when he does he’s hard to stop. We controlled him so well for most of the first half, but it’s that one little moment, that one half-metre you give him. We’ve seen it hundreds of times: so ruthless, so clinical, and ultimately that was the difference.”

There was just one doubt. Had Messi chosen that moment himself? Or had Behich – who, it should be said, almost scored the goal of the World Cup when for a moment he was more Messi than Messi – accidentally chosen it for him? A rule going back years reads: don’t piss off “La Pulga”. Behich had done that, waking something in him, the animal within, and payback was swift. After all, when it was later suggested that the first thought Argentina’s players had when they saw the foul was “oh, you fool”, that they could see it coming, Mac Allister laughed. “For sure, for sure,” he replied.

“When those things happen, it brings out the fire he has inside, the personality he has, and that makes him even greater than he is,” the Brighton midfielder said. “He always tries to give his best but those moments work for him, they’re useful: he plays even better, and in games like he’s even greater yet. He has those touches that appear from nowhere and win you the game.”

“He is the most important player we have: he knows that, he helps us a lot and we are proud to have him,” Mac Allister said. “I enjoy playing with him, it makes me happy: for me he’s the best player in history of the world.”

Not everyone agrees back home. Mac Allister’s father, Carlos “Colorado” Mac Allister played just three times for Argentina, his international career lasting less than a month and taking in two matches against Australia in the playoff that took them to the 1994 World Cup and a friendly against Germany wedged in the middle. At least he can, and does, always say that his captain then was Argentina’s other great No 10, Diego Maradona. His son’s captain is the man trying to emulate him.

“We always have that argument,” Mac Allister junior said. “For my dad, Maradona was very important, not just in his career but in his personal life and he is very grateful. For me, it’s a source of pride to be at Leo’s side and play with him. For me obviously he’s the best in history. We argue: he says Maradona is the best ever; I say it’s Messi. It’s a discussion I don’t think will ever end.”

Lionel Messi, Argentina’s pavement artist who sees shapes before others | World Cup 2022

The thing that made the goal was the touch; one of those touches where Lionel Messi doesn’t so much trap the ball or kill it but lets it come and nestle, falling asleep on his toe like a fond old cat.

There were still six more touches to go before the ball would be left spinning, with a kind of purr, in the back of Mat Ryan’s net. But it was the touch that set the clock running, as the ball was looped back out to Messi on the touchline from his own free-kick.

You could see straight away that Messi had felt that familiar surge of static, seen the numbers whirring, the spaces start to yawn. Footballers are often said to carry a picture in their head. Messi has a great whirring bank of air traffic controller’s screens up there, alternate visions of the future to scroll through and finesse.

The touch spun the ball out in front of him, enough to draw the closest Australian shirt into his arc. This was a mistake. Don’t run towards Messi. His dribbling is a kind of judo-throw effect these days, using his opponent’s movement to trampoline into space.

Messi sniped away. He had time now. Messi gets a kind of pre-screening of these things, sees the shapes before anyone else, like a pavement artist conjuring Notre-Dame out of four chalk lines. He laid the ball back to Alexis Mac Allister, then sped in a straight line towards the thing he knew would happen next.

Mac Allister laid the ball in to Nicolás Otamendi. His touch was clumsy, but Otamendi had felt things thing starting to happen too. He performed a lovely little backwards sway, like a man leaping clear of the spray from a passing lorry.

Messi took the ball and had time to take another step, to open his hips slightly as he ran, the movement hidden in his stride, but enough to ease the ball to Ryan’s right, into the far corner and out of his reach. The Ahmad bin Ali Stadium erupted into a barrelling wave of noise on three sides, that distinctly Argentinian football noise, a shout of recognition as well as joy.

Twenty minutes into the second half, with Argentina 2-0 up after Julián Álvarez’s delightful steal swivel and finish, Messi did something for fun, a kind of roll through the greatest hits. Taking the ball in the centre circle he just decided to keep running, conjuring the ghosts of the Camp Nou, that surging, mulletted miracle of snap and spring. He ran out of space, smiled, jogged back, as the Bin Ali took the chance to sing his name.

And this is the thing with Messi. Every game is now a kind of Russian roulette. Click the hammer. Is this it? That sense of jeopardy, the fear that this might be the last of Messi on this stage will now move on to the quarter-finals of Qatar 2022.

How far can Argentina take him in this thing? Here they held on at times, almost ran away at others. Australia were dogged, dragged the score back to 2-1 and will feel they showed the best of themselves. Argentina have their weaknesses. But they also have a sense of heat about them. They kept to the 4-3-3 from the Poland game here, which may just come to stand as a step change for this team.

Lionel Messi shields the ball from a posse of Australia defenders. Photograph: José Sena Goulão/EPA

At the last World Cup Argentina were subservient to Messi, a team constructed to serve their sun king, litter-bearers for the princeling in their midst. Messi became almost inert, the still centre of this imperial bureaucracy.

As a false 9 in this team he is simply a free agent, with three expert midfield rats behind, runners up front, and in the middle of this the orb, the seer, the floating brain.

The Ahmad bin Ali Stadium is a lightweight, fun, fizzy thing dumped down in the overflow carpark of the Mall of Qatar. It looks like a giant wedding cake decoration, or the world’s most imperious pop-up ice rink.

Mixing with the Argentinian fans here has been a fascinating contrast. In the middle of all these gleaming surfaces, here is something disorderly and ragged. Argentinian football isn’t just passionate or patriotic. It is devotional. And here the ground was packed with blue and white shirts, laced with those familiar songs, the warm wave of noise.

As the game kicked off Messi could be seen swinging his arms, loosening up, as though it had just occurred to him he was about to do some exercise. He walked for a bit. He took up a position miles in front of the rest of his team, the small, slouching, baggy shirted chimney sweep at the top of the tree.

Graham Arnold likes to make the occasion small, to reduce it to simple human possibilities, will, desire, taking the moment. He talks about the “Aussie DNA”, a scrap-happy, fight-in-the-dog kind of schtick. Australia did fight here, but Argentina had enough to resist. And they now roll on, three games from the summit.

Another striking aspect was the love at the end as Messi led the celebrations, the feeling of the moment being cherished and locked in. It hasn’t always been this way. No other footballer has been so exposed to the glare, so relentlessly seen, analysed, venerated, bathed in light. Another one down. But there may just be a few more spins of the chamber before this thing is done.

Socceroos put fandom to one side in bid to foil Lionel Messi and Argentina | World Cup 2022

In Doha, the World Cup is Lionel Messi. Or, Lionel Messi is the World Cup. It’s hard to tell which at this point – the city is saturated with him. Messi is the face of billboards and the blue and white of flags. He is rip-off merch and dodgy Photoshop jobs, and every second No 10 shirt in the streets (hi, Diego).

Last Tuesday he was the “Where’s Messi” chants of Saudi Arabia fans at the Metro, and on Saturday the honks of car horns when he scored against Mexico. On Wednesday – even after missing a penalty against Poland – he was cheered from the stands made of 974 shipping containers.

Messi is not even short in this country – he is as tall as the skyscrapers digitally enhanced with his super-sized goal celebration. He is, after all, Qatar’s luxury brand: Paris Saint-Germain. He is Indian and Nepalese and Sri Lankan, too, and especially Bangladeshi. He is also, counterintuitively, Saudi Arabian.

Doha is so Messi right now it is almost satirical. And maybe it sort of is – he has won seven Ballon d’Ors but not a single World Cup. That is why this tournament is all about him. Why Argentina must go all the way for their 35-year-old GOAT who now has everything except the most glorious of sendoffs.

It is also why an Australian defender is sharing his devilish plot to foil the grand plan, but also being a bit nice about it too, because it’s Messi. “Unfortunately,” says Miloš Degenek, “I am a big fan of his. But I’d love to win the World Cup probably more than [I’d love] him to win the World Cup.”

Degenek would have been right behind Argentina to go all the way for their captain and talisman, except that Australia now have to face them in the round of 16. “They’re obviously driven by the motivation that it could be Messi’s last World Cup, and he wants to win it and end on a high,” Degenek says. “For us, it’s to stop that.

“I’ve always loved Messi. I think he’s the greatest to ever play the game. [But] it’s not an honour to play against him, because he’s just a human, as we all are. It’s an honour to be in the round of 16 of a World Cup. Whether we played Argentina or Poland, it still would’ve been an honour to represent Australia in the round of 16 of a World Cup.”

The fact the Socceroos are here at all is something of sporting folklore in Australia. Wednesday’s upset of Denmark did the unthinkable, and now all bets are off – even against the world’s third-ranked nation and its irresistible playmaker who has betrayed no signs he will bow out quietly.

Argentina have their eyes fixed on a quarter-final date with either the Netherlands or United States. That is how this story goes – everyone is saying it. Except, that is, for the 38th-ranked Australians, who love a good dose of external doubt to see them through.

“It’s going to be a difficult game,” says Degenek. “Obviously we’ll be playing against probably the best footballer ever to grace the game. Apart from that, it’s 11 against 11. There’s not 11 Messis, there’s one. We know their squad is full of stars – [Paulo] Dybala is on the bench and [Lautaro] Martínez comes off the bench, so it’s a squad that’s immaculate.”

Milos Degenek is aware of the threat Argentina pose beyond Messi. Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

The numbers around the market value of each of these squads have been crunched elsewhere, but suffice to say there is something of a disparity. Australia’s main well of strength in this most unexpected of campaigns has been the collective. A star team not a team of stars, as they say. How that stacks up to a team of stars who, until last week, were unbeaten in 36 games, will not become clear until Saturday night (Sunday morning AEDT) at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.

But surely there is a plan for Messi? “We’ll get him in the tunnel,” says head coach Graham Arnold. “No, sorry, that was a joke. But the thing is, if you focus too much on Messi you forget about the other players. I think [Poland] focused too much on Messi. Nearest player, pick him up. It can’t be just one, and it’s not just about stopping Messi – they’ve also got some very good players as well.”

The Socceroos – before their history-making back-to-back wins and clean sheets against Tunisia and Denmark – endured a chastening tournament-opener against France, who have their own PSG super-brand in Kylian Mbappé. Arnold chalked that 4-1 loss off as a “friendly”, a learning experience.

“Obviously this one can’t be classified as a friendly,” Degenek says. “France [are] probably the favourites at the World Cup at the moment with the players they have. But I think Argentina, after their first loss, have just turned up another level, decided to play to the best of their abilities, and come into every game with a determination to win.

“We’ve learned a lot from the France game. We showed them a bit of respect in that first game, and I think [Argentina] will be a completely different game. But it’s two completely different styles of football – France play one way, Argentina will play a different way.”

Lewandowski and Messi lead Poland and Argentina in clash of styles | World Cup 2022

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the sharpest of them all? On Wednesday night all eyes at Stadium 974 will be drawn, inexorably, to football’s version of a beauty contest: can Lionel Messi’s rich attacking gifts guide Argentina into the knockout phase or might Robert Lewandowski’s uncanny efficiency in front of goal enable Poland to eclipse the Group C favourites?

“We rely on these great strikers but an individual cannot win alone,” Czesław Michniewicz, Poland’s head coach, said on Tuesday. “But it’s not only a battle between Lewandowski and Messi – it’s not tennis, it’s not one on one, they are not serving! Robert needs his teammates, the same as Leo.”

Nonetheless Michniewicz, whose side top group C, one point ahead of Argentina, likens the South American team’s talisman to the famous 80s and 90s Italian alpine ski champion Alberto Tomba. “At our team briefing we talked about Alberto Tomba on the slope; he was able to avoid everyone,” the 52-year-old said. “So I need to put my players in positions to make a difference because, if not, Messi will score easily. You need more than one person to halt him.”

The similarities between Tomba’s technical slalom excellence and the PSG forward’s elusive attacking manoeuvring have led to Poland’s players debating how to stop “Messi dancing between the poles” as they ponder the best way of preventing him leading Argentina’s dressing room in a celebratory post-match jig of joy.

So how, precisely, can they rein in a player who has scored 93 goals in 167 international appearances? Michniewicz turned realistic and rhetorical. “Playing Argentina you have to prepare for when you concede and to avoid panic when that happens,” he said. “How to stop Messi is a great question. The world has been thinking about it for several years and I don’t think we’ll find an answer. At 35 he says this is his last World Cup so I expect he’ll be very ambitious.”

At 34, Lewandowski accepts it could be his swan song, too, and Argentina’s coach, Lionel Scaloni, is certainly not underestimating the threat posed by a centre-forward who believes a habit of eating desserts before main courses and protecting his slightly stronger right foot by sleeping on his left side, have helped to make him Poland’s record scorer with 77 goals in 136 games.

Lionel Messi wheels away after scoring against Mexico. Photograph: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Getty Images

“Lewandowski’s a top player,” Scaloni said, emphatically. He may disagree with the notion that dessert first aids fat burning but he also appreciates the jeopardy “Lewangoalski” could pose his team on a night when they may require victory to guarantee progress. “As a football fan it’s a pleasure and a privilege to see Robert up close. You have to enjoy such a great player … but we’ll be prepared for him.”

Lewandowski’s goal in the 2-0 win against Saudi Arabia last Saturday – incredibly the Barcelona striker’s first at a World Cup – left Poland requiring a point at most to reach the knockout phase. Argentina, meanwhile, remain in slight shock after their Group C opening 2-1 defeat against Saudi Arabia. Scaloni could certainly do with Messi adding to the penalty he scored against the Saudis and the goal he registered in the rather more reassuring 2-0 win against Mexico.

“I know all of Argentina counts on Messi,” Michniewicz said. “We’ll respect him but we will still believe we can win.”

Given that Argentina had gone 36 games undefeated before slipping up against Saudi Arabia that may be a tall order but Lisandro Martínez, Scaloni’s Manchester United defender, did not sound overly confident.

“Poland’s a very tough opponent and Lewandowski’s a top player,” he said. “Lewandowski moves so well, he’s so dynamic. We know we have to remain focused throughout the 90 minutes.

“But we have to trust ourselves and our football. We were very anxious before the Mexico match because we knew it was all or nothing. We know what we’re capable of but we also know we haven’t reached our best level yet. But we’re trying. We have to remain calm, give it our all and show the style we are known for.”

The Messi/Lewandowski subplot is amplified by the pair’s careers having often run along parallel lines. Although a very different sort of forward, Poland’s captain effectively replaced Messi at the Camp Nou after the latter’s departure for PSG and, despite the pair having not always seemed exactly best friends when competing for individual awards, there is talk that these two attacking gladiators could yet be united for one last hurrah at Barcelona.

“When Messi was there I went to Barça so many times to see him,” says Michniewicz. “We should all be excited to play against him in a match where the stakes are high. This is a wonderful time – but I want to leave happy.”

Lionel Messi relieved by ‘weight off our shoulders’ after Argentina victory | World Cup

Lionel Messi said Argentina had lifted “a weight off our shoulders” after the 2-0 win over Mexico, sparked by his brilliant second-half goal, that breathed life into their teetering World Cup campaign.

It was, as Messi pointed out, a moment of arrival for one of the tournament favourites. Argentina would have been eliminated from the competition had they lost but improved significantly after a tentative first half and Messi, who retains hope of winning the prize that has eluded him during an unparalleled career, articulated the sense of profound relief.

“We lived with discomfort given the defeat in the opening match [against Saudi Arabia] was something we didn’t expect,” he said. “The days felt very long and we were eager to have the chance to turn it around. We knew it was a critical game. Luckily we had the option to win and it was a weight off our shoulders, a reason for joy and peace of mind because it is all down to us again.”

Argentina will be guaranteed a last 16 place if they defeat Poland on Wednesday. Messi said the victory over an unambitious Mexico was a chance to “bring peace of mind and start again”. He added: “We needed this result, it seems like in the second half we made our true debut.”

The Argentina manager, Lionel Scaloni, pleaded for a composed response to setbacks and triumphs alike, stressing the need for an “emotional balance” in assessment of his side. “It’s thrilling to see them all playing,” he continued. “If you don’t feel identified with this squad it’s because you don’t want to. I’m very proud of all my players and excited about what they did.”

Scaloni believes Messi’s presence on this stage should be savoured. “Messi should enjoy this World Cup and Argentina fans should enjoy seeing him playing,” he said. “We need to keep our feet on the ground.”

Tears follow tension as Lionel Messi and Argentina find redemption | World Cup 2022

Listen, mortals, the sacred cry. Freedom, freedom, freedom. Suddenly, there it was, there he was, and it was all let out. In a moment, a flash of that left boot, Lionel Messi was liberated and so were they, released with a single shot. All around this place, thousands of Argentinians absolutely lost it. Below them, so did Argentina’s captain, clinging hard to his last chance. He wasn’t going to let this end yet. Not just this game, not just this World Cup, but all of it.

It was too early for that, even as it started to feel late at Lusail, time slipping away. Perhaps the greatest career football has ever seen was drawing to a close, and like that. Quietly, sadly, no last dance, a failure to finish. Argentina knew that they needed to beat Mexico to continue and at times it felt like football needed them to win too, but an hour had gone and nothing had happened until it happened. The response, the bloody roar, felt like the world had willed it.

Given the ball and a yard of grass, Messi controlled and struck it low into the far corner. The shot was superb, but seen a thousand times; what followed may not have been seen once, perhaps comparable only to the Copa América final. He sprinted off wildly, a hint of Marco Tardelli to him, teammates chasing, leapt into Ángel Di María’s arms, then disappeared beneath the bodies. On the bench, Pablo Aimar, the assistant coach who is Messi’s idol, covered his face and cried.

By the time Messi appeared again, those looked like tears reaching for the surface of his eyes, which were gone. He stood arms wide, blowing kisses, shouting, out of it. This was a moment unlike any other and it lingered. Then he looked to the sky and spoke. To Maradona perhaps? Or Cecilia, the grandmother to whom almost all of his 788 goals have been dedicated.

They have not always held him like they did with Diego Maradona, who passed away two years and one day ago, but now they could not love him any more.

Those three consecutive finals lost have at last been understood as a reason to embrace him, not reject him. Argentina’s success at the 2021 Copa América was celebrated not just as their first trophy in 28 years, but almost an act of justice.

When the final whistle had gone then, Messi slipped to his knees and sobbed, teammates running to him, as if what mattered was not so much the country as their captain.

“Half the world would have run to hug him,” the manager, Lionel Scaloni, said and there was something in that which was played out in Qatar: there are countless Argentinians here but there are more Argentina fans; they came from everywhere to see him. They came to see this.

Lionel Messi puts Argentina 1-0 up against Mexico. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

After that Copa América, Messi felt liberated, the coach said. And yet that embrace carried a hint of regret still, the desire for the ultimate story and the belief now that it could be told: winning this World Cup, his last.

It hadn’t started well. Argentina arrived unbeaten in 36 and then lost. It was not just that they might not win after all; they might not get through the first round. They had lost to Saudi Arabia, for goodness sake. It would be, it was suggested, the greatest catastrophe in their World Cup history. And maybe that wasn’t as absurd as it may have sounded. For Messi, it would have felt like it. That probably sounds ridiculous too, but go out here, and there would be nothing left, ever. The sun will come up tomorrow, Scaloni is fond of saying, but for Messi the footballer, it would not.

And as the night that could be his last went on, that felt increasingly plausible. Scaloni has always sought to remove the fear, remind them football is a game, there to be enjoyed, not endured. But how could they?

There were too few signs of life, until Messi started to drive from deep early in the second half. Until, at last, the first shot came, and it was his. The second, Enzo Fernández’s brilliant curler, finally released the tension. For four days at least. There was relief, a shot at redemption still. Before the game, Argentina’s players had sung the national anthem: listen, mortals, the sacred cry; freedom, freedom, freedom. Then they stood for a photo, the tension on their faces captured forever. Behind them, staff wheeled away a giant inflatable World Cup. Messi wouldn’t let them take the real one, not yet.

Lionel Messi’s international career has never felt closer to oblivion | World Cup 2022

There was more time. When you are Lionel Messi, there is always more time. Another split-second to play the pass. Another couple of beats to wait for the space to open up. Another year to mount a challenge. Another World Cup to fight. And here, on a bright warm day in November, with the clocks striking 13 minutes of injury time, there were still a few more seconds for Argentina to make things right.

Messi advanced down the right channel, nudging the ball along with impatient taps of his left outstep. A little space had opened up in front of him in the Saudi Arabia midfield. Ángel Di María was making the overlapping run on the right wing. In between him and the goal stood three defenders. Briefly, thrillingly, you could see the cogs whirring as Messi contemplated taking them all on and saving the match on his own. Instead, the pass went sideways to Di María and the cross went nowhere. There is always more time.

Not here, perhaps, but later. There are two games remaining in this group, processes to be trusted, faith to be kept. Even after a disaster on this seismic and stunning scale, the methods that brought Argentina to Qatar as one of the tournament favourites on a run of 36 unbeaten games must remain intact, if only because they have little other choice. The stakes were always this high. The margins of failure were always this punishing.

Argentina’s fatal mistake here was in deluding themselves otherwise. The 21st century’s greatest World Cup shock did not immediately portend itself. As Saudi and Argentinian fans converged on the giant golden boat of the Lusail Stadium under cloudless midday skies, the atmosphere was almost festive: selfies on the metro, hugs on the concourses, Saudis wearing Messi shirts, Qataris wearing Messi shirts, Australian tourists wearing Messi shirts.

Nothing that unfolded in a vivid and entertaining first half seemed to shake that air of informality. It was 1-0, but the ball had hit the Saudi net so many times that it didn’t feel like a 1-0. In truth what was happening was that Hervé Renard’s immaculate defensive line was perfectly disrupting Argentina’s buildup, forcing them to go for a little more, to play the pass a little earlier or later than they would have liked. This was how Argentina scored – or didn’t score – their three offside goals.

'Messi, where are you?': Saudi fans celebrate shock win over Argentina – video — ‘Messi, where are you?’: Saudi fans celebrate shock win over Argentina – video

Nobody seemed overly perturbed at any of this. There was, after all, always more time.

What of Messi? Well, he got his goal, a delightful confidence trick of a penalty in the 10th minute. But for the most part he too was easing himself into the tournament, sniffing the air, trying to keep a lid on things. We already knew this about him, of course: the way he likes to spend the opening minutes just walking and watching, getting to know the shape and heft of the game, working out where the spaces might open up. Messi is probably the only guy in the world who actually reads all the terms and conditions.

But at the same time Argentina seemed to soften a little, convinced that all they needed to do was to manage the game through to its inevitable conclusion. More and more their attacks began to break down, or dissolve into harmless spells of possession. Meanwhile the precise physicality of the Saudi defensive rearguard was beginning to disrupt them. Every single Saudi outfield player made at least one tackle. Eight of them blocked a shot. They attacked bravely and directly, Firas al-Buraikan and Salem al-Dawsari striding up the flanks like lone soldiers sprinting across no-man’s-land. Slowly and by degrees, Saudi Arabia were beginning to sharpen the game to a point.

Even so, when Saudi Arabia’s equaliser came it still felt like something of a miracle, and was greeted as such by a deafening wall of Saudi pride and Saudi songs, Saudi men and more Saudi men. Certainly Argentina seemed stunned by the violence and suddenness of the assault. Rarely, if ever, can they have played a World Cup game in a neutral stadium and felt so thoroughly outnumbered, out-chanted, outmatched. And it was in those infamous few minutes that the game was lost. Eardrums still stinging, hearts still pumping, heads still rattling, Nawaf al-Abid tried a curling shot, Di María and Leandro Paredes lunged hopelessly at the rebound, and Dawsari fired the ball into the top corner to screams of anguish and disbelief.

What did Argentina have left? As the tackles continued to pile in, as the crosses rained down on the goal of Mohammed al-Owais, as the Saudis in the crowd shredded what was left of their nerves, perhaps this is what will concern Lionel Scaloni most. The blend of urgency and composure that characterises all the great teams was entirely absent here: too bloodless in the first half, too confused in the second. The withdrawal of Paredes unbalanced them in midfield, and short of giving the ball to Messi they were bereft of ideas in the final third.

This is not a team that have gone stale overnight. But whatever serenity, stability or momentum they had built up over the past three years has been shattered. Every remaining minute of their World Cup will now be played with a knife between their teeth, which could ultimately forge them or break them. Messi’s own international career has never felt closer to oblivion. There is still time. But it is swiftly running out.

Lionel Messi denies injury and basks in ‘special moment’ of his final World Cup | World Cup 2022

Once more with feeling. On the eve of his fifth and, he admitted, final World Cup, Lionel Messi described himself as standing before a “last chance to get what we all want so much”. But far from feeling the weight of expectation, the pressure of time running out, the Argentina superstar insisted he is enjoying this “special moment” more than ever before. Despite photographs circulating that suggested he had a heavily swollen ankle and trained apart from his teammates, Messi also walked into the room, winked, and insisted he is in perfect physical condition.

“I feel good,” the 35-year-old said. “I arrive here in a good moment, personally and physically. I heard [talk] that I had trained apart because I had a knock but there’s nothing strange there, it’s just a precaution. There’s no problem. It’s a different moment in the season [to stage a World Cup], with fewer games. I didn’t prepare in any special way. I got in good shape, got a run of continuous games and I felt comfortable all the way up to arriving here.”

“This is a special moment, surely my last World Cup, my last chance to get what we want so much,” Messi continued. “I don’t know if this is the happiest moment but I do feel very good, and more mature. I try to live everything to the maximum, to live this with intensity and above all to enjoy every moment.

“Today I think I enjoy it all much more than before; before, I didn’t think about it, I just played. Every three days there are games and I didn’t have time to enjoy, just to think about the next match, to prepare, keep winning. Sometimes a lot of the important things go unnoticed; now I am more conscious of that. Age makes you see things differently, to give greater importance to those small details, things I maybe didn’t realise before. I focus more on that now.”

That was a message Messi said he was trying to pass on to the rest of an Argentina squad in which 19 of the 26 players will be playing their first World Cup. It is a process aided by success. Winning the Copa América, their first trophy in 28 years, was a liberation for the team and for their captain, and Messi likened the atmosphere in the current squad to that in the team that reached the World Cup final in Brazil.

Lionel Messi

“We come from having won and that brings tranquillity, decompression,” he said. “It allows you to work differently. People are not so anxious, so on top of the national team, hanging on results, but rather enjoying the moment. This reminds me of 2014: a very similar group, very united, clear about what it wants. It gives us confidence to come here in this form.”

“What keeps me trying is that hope, that enthusiasm. Don’t think about what could have been, try again. And enjoy it. It’s hard to make them see it that way and to just enjoy it at their age; I didn’t realise when I was that age. Let them enjoy it. The World Cup is special and you never know if it will happen again. It’s the greatest experience there is.” For him, it will be the last.

“I enjoy working with him when I can,” said Argentina’s head coach, Lionel Scaloni. “And I hope everyone can enjoy him. It’s wonderful to see him play and wonderful that he can play a World Cup. Every eulogy falls short.”

Lionel Messi’s World Cup swansong might just be his best shot at glory | World Cup 2022

In the summer of 2016 Diego Maradona and Pelé were sitting in the Palais-Royal in Paris as part of a promotional event organised by a Swiss watch company. Afterwards the pair held a press conference and before long the topic of conversation turned to Lionel Messi.

“He is a great person,” Maradona said, “but he has no personality. He doesn’t have the personality to be a leader.” Pelé agreed. “He’s not like we were back in the days,” he said. “In the 1970s we had really good players like Rivellino, Gérson, Tostão. Not like Argentina now, which depends only on Messi. Messi is a good player, there’s no doubt about it. But he has no personality.”

As ever the internet lapped up this content for a few hours before moving on to the next thing. And yet in a glib sort of way Pelé and Maradona were simply giving voice to a common view at that point. The key term is “personality”, the idea that somehow the greatest footballers do not simply lead by exemple. Sometimes – if only for reasons of theatre or self-justification – leadership needs to be imposed, to be made visible and tangible.

And over the years this is perhaps the one area of the game in which many have accused Messi of being deficient. Often these criticisms are even expressed in the guise of praise. “[Javier] Mascherano’s impact as a leader is more important inside the squad, and Messi’s leadership is more important on the pitch,” the former Argentina manager Tata Martino said.

“He is a silent leader,” said Jorge Sampaoli. “He has a lot of personality when playing,” insisted Sergio Batista. “Maybe he is missing a little bit in the group. But when he talks in the changing rooms, they listen.” All three of these men, along with Maradona, have managed Messi at international level and presumably had some idea of what they were talking about. And yet none of them was in the Argentina dressing room at the Maracanã before the Copa América final against Brazil in July 2021, when Messi gathered his Argentina teammates in a circle and gave a speech.

“Forty-five days we were locked up in hotels,” Messi said. “Forty-five days without seeing our families, guys. All for what? For this moment. So we’re going to go out there and lift the trophy; we’re going to take it home to Argentina. And I want to finish with this: coincidences don’t exist. This cup was going to be played in Argentina, but God wanted it to be played in Brazil, so that we could win here in the Maracanã and make it more beautiful for all of us.”

For a public that has spent 16 years watching Messi from a distance – expressive and yet mostly mute, a silent blur of limbs and colour – there is something strangely stirring about this oration, filmed as part of a forthcoming Netflix documentary. Argentina would win the final 1-0 and, while hindsight can tell any story you want, Messi’s teammates were quick to attribute their victory in part to his inspirational leadership. “Messi spoke before each game,” Ángel Di María would later testify. “But this last speech was different. He lost his mind.”

This is Messi’s fifth World Cup. And of course there has been a lot of the usual talk about whether he “needs” to win it for his legacy, a lot of the usual hot air and spume about his duel with Cristiano Ronaldo, football discourse reduced to the level of a pub debate. Within Argentina, however, something seems to have changed. After more than a decade of treating Messi as a vessel for their expectations Argentina are finally beginning to ask not what Messi can do for them but what they can do for Messi.

Perhaps the turning point in this respect was the 2019 Copa América campaign, in which Messi was an uncharacteristically vocal presence. He complained about the poor quality of the pitches, described the refereeing as “corrupt” and insisted that the “whole thing is set up for Brazil”.

Having been criticised early in his career for his meek rendition of the national anthem, here Messi sang it loudly and passionately. Nobody ever doubted how much Messi cared. But here, perhaps, was a recognition by him that it needed to be shown, not simply known.

Now, under Lionel Scaloni, Messi’s final shot at World Cup glory may just be his best, too. The retirements of senior players such as Gonzalo Higuaín and Sergio Agüero have allowed Scaloni to build a more balanced side, in which the midfield is set up to give their captain the ball closer to goal.

After a rotten 2021-22 Messi himself is showing some of his best form for Paris Saint-Germain this season. And for an Argentina team who have not lost in three years, star-laden bombast has been replaced by a quiet resolve, a determination not simply to treasure the result but to relish the journey.

And really, perhaps this was the way it always had to happen. The godlike Messi of the 2010s always felt a slightly uneasy fit with the bespoke demands of international football, where teams need to be built rather than bolted together.

Meanwhile, for a player who essentially emerged fully formed as a child, perhaps Messi needed to go on his own voyage of emotional development, to learn the stickier parts of a game that had always come so naturally to him, a process that from the outside seems to have turned him into a humbler and wiser man. And so, a first World Cup, at the age of 35, completing one of the most fantastical story arcs football has known? As Messi put it in the Maracanã locker room, there are no coincidences.

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