Lionel Messi's pain, Argentina woe show power of international football
Messi missed his penalty in Argentina's latest defeat in a major final. Where does he go from here?
EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey -- Has an era ended with a penalty that Lionel Messi sent high over a New Jersey crossbar?
Many
Argentina fans had an air of resignation as they came away from MetLife
Stadium, but there were stronger emotions boiling over in the dressing
room. Anger, revolt, disbelief and profound sadness must have been more
prevalent. How much of this can the players take?
Messi announced his retirement from international football
after the game. Others might follow, or they might rethink. It is still
too early to tell. After last year's defeat, Javier Mascherano (who had
just lost his fourth final) was said to be contemplating international
retirement. But it proved to be a five-minute storm -- until now, a
fifth failure at the final hurdle.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. Messi has just
turned 29, a year older than Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria and Gonzalo
Higuain. On the one hand, Messi is clearly fed up with the Argentine FA, and on Friday, he promised to discuss this matter in the future. Why bother playing for them?
On
the other, there will surely be changes within the AFA, and moreover,
Messi has little time left to win a title with his country. The cold
light of day might be painful, but it could cause him to reflect that
trying to win the 2018 World Cup and the following year's Copa could be
preferable to an old age spent regretting his absence from the
international arena.
Argentina, of course, have lost three finals
in three years: two on penalty shootouts and one by a single goal. All
went to extra time. The striking thing is that a generation that stands
out for its attacking brilliance has failed to score a single goal in
six hours of cup final football. How can this be explained?
Especially
the previous two years, Argentina have been victims of end-of-season
tiredness. This time around, the problem seemed more psychological. From
the moment Higuain rolled his early chance wide after a mistake by Gary
Medel, a feeling of "here we go again" appeared to take hold of the
players, who snatched at every second-half opportunity and wasted some
good situations.
Lionel Messi can make good on his threat to stop playing for
Argentina, and his place in the pantheon of the greats will be
untouched. He has scored more goals than anyone else for his national
team. Moreover, in the UEFA Champions League, which these days displays a
higher standard of play than the national team, he has been magnificent
in season after season. At club level, he has won all that there is to
be won.
Yet he sent that penalty high into the New Jersey air. How
to explain this miss? How different would the shootout have been had he
scored? The pressure would have been on Chile. Instead, the pressure
got to Messi.
In a way, this is a tribute to international
football. It might have lost plenty of ground to European club football.
But it still has an unrivaled power to make people feel represented. On
Sunday, the pressure of that power proved too much for Messi.
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