LUSAIL, Qatar — If Lionel Messi is to finally lift the World Cup, he is doing it the hard way. Genius can take you only so far, especially if your team is as flawed as Messi’s Argentina, but the fairy-tale story can still have the perfect ending.
It might even happen with the ultimate pay-off line of Cristiano Ronaldo being on the other side with Portugal (should they emerge from the side of the bracket that includes France, England, and Morocco) when it does. But let’s put the brakes on the fantasy, for now.
After 80 minutes of the quarterfinal against the Netherlands at the Lusail Stadium, everyone watching could have been forgiven for getting carried away with the Messi narrative — that Qatar 2022 would end with the 35-year-old getting his hands on the one major trophy he has yet to win.
Messi had produced his best performance of this World Cup — and it was magical — to put Lionel Scaloni’s team 2-0 ahead and seemingly cruising into a semifinal against Croatia on Tuesday. The Paris Saint-Germain forward had created Nahuel Molina‘s first-half opening goal with a pass of sublime quality before doubling Argentina’s lead from the penalty spot on 73 minutes.
The closing stages should have been on cruise control, but Wout Weghorst scored twice — an 83rd minute header and then by finishing off one of the best and cleverest free-kicks you are likely to see, 11 minutes into stoppage time, to draw the Dutch level. And that wasn’t in the script. Messi’s story really shouldn’t have been turned into a nightmare by a giant centre-forward who was signed by Burnley to keep them in the Premier League last season. A task he failed to manage, scoring just twice in 20 games.
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It ended a bad-tempered game, with 11 Argentina bookings, two mass confrontations between both sets of players and some provocative, goading celebrations at the end by Argentina in front of their beaten opponents. But there is so much emotion and desperation in this Argentina team, maybe in Messi, so the ugly scenes in victory might just be understandable.
And when the dust settles, perhaps this World Cup needed an Argentina win, despite the negativity at the end. Afterall, football at the highest level should be about moments of fantasy, of images that last a lifetime, and Messi delivered one of those with the stunning reverse pass to Molina.
Prior to Messi’s game-changing contribution, the Dutch were threatening to suffocate this encounter with their passive, risk-averse football. Coach Louis van Gaal has bristled at criticism of his tactical approach from the Dutch media — one reporter told the Netherlands coach that watching his team was like “grinding teeth” — but it had taken them to the brink of a semifinal clash with Croatia (who earlier ousted Brazil on penalties in an equally memorable match), so Van Gaal cannot be criticised for attempting to get the most from his limited squad.
But just imagine a World Cup semifinal between the Netherlands and Croatia on Tuesday, with Messi watching from afar and Argentina and their incredible supporters back home, still waiting to end their 36-year wait for a third World Cup triumph. That is not what this World Cup needs. It needs the Messi factor and his ongoing pursuit of the achievement that would give him equal status with Diego Maradona in Argentine hearts.
It needs Argentina’s thousands of fans to fill stadiums with their colour and noise, it needs a South American giant to chase a first World Cup since Brazil in 2002 and it doesn’t need the Netherlands playing football out of an outdated manual, as Messi said after the game of “long balls to tall players.”
