A messy end for Lionel at Copa America

It was déjà vu all over again. The defending Copa America champions, Chile, met Argentina in a repeat of the final last year on Sunday afternoon, and after an epic battle that had both South American teams down to ten men and into extra time, it was still nil, nil. And when the penalty whistle was blown at the game at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the eyes of the world – or at least one planetary eye, the other being on the Euro Cup games taking place across the Atlantic in France – were on only one man.

Lionel Messi, considered to be the greatest football player in the world (other than the temperamental and often hard to like Cristiano ‘CR7’ of Portugal). The rub, though, was that Leo Messi has never lifted a Copa America trophy, let alone the World Cup, and until he does, he will never join the hallowed duopoly of Pele, generally considered the greatest player of all time; or that of his countryman and 2010 Argentine coach, Diego Armando Maradona.

Last year in the Copa America, Messi converted his spot kick in a final that came down to penalties. Then the subsequent Argentine spot kickers conspired to misfire ­ over the bar, soft spot kick, with Higuain being the last penalty screw upper of the final.

Arsenal’s deadly Chilean striker, Alexis Sanchez, then took a champagne spot kick that sweetly found its way to the far right corner, away from the despairing reach of the Argentine goalkeeper as the Chilean wheeled away in celebration in the same direction, ripping off his footer shirt in the process. This year, it was the great Leo Messi who messed his country’s first spot kick, blasting it well over the bar. Messi, at the end, cut a forlorn figure, shoulders hunched in the background; so much so one felt that the loudspeakers in the stadium must in fact burst into a melancholy ABBA chorus of – ‘the winner takes it all, the loser standing small, I’ve played all my cards, no more ace to play.’

In his autumn leaf-coloured beard, Leo ate his shirt, pulled it in shame over his face and then squatted in despair on the field after his team­mate, Lucas Biglia, followed his lead and blew his own big penalty, leaving the field clear for Chile’s Silvia to win the continental trophy for his country, second year in a row. And as the Chileans burst into Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ in the stands, it was for Messi and his entire team to rue the chance to redeem themselves, take revenge on the Chileans and lift the Copa America continental trophy for the first time since 1993, that he had just messed for them... Yet it could all have gone so differently. In that 4­0 victory over the USA last week, Messi chipped for Lavezzi to score after three minutes, took a sensational free kick and scored half an hour later, and in the twilight of the game, gave a pinpoint pass to Gonzalez Higuain, the villain of last year’s final, for Higuain to put the final fourth nail on USA’s coffin.

It is displays like the one in this semifinal, on top of his enthusiasm, courage, calmness and off field humility that explain why Mr. Messi is considered one of the greatest guys ever to touch a football. Pep Guardiola, the new Manchester City manager and one time coach of Messi in Barcelona has described him as ‘an instinctive genius, who loves to live with pressure, one of the best ever created, simply impossible to describe.’ Messi was not born into the tensions of global football.

At 13, he was brought to Barcelona when the club agreed to pick up the costs to treat the growth-hormone deficiency he was born with (hence his early first football nickname, the Little Flea). His first contract was written on a napkin, and at the time, he was four feet and seven inches short. He has since gained a foot, which still leaves him as one of the smallest men in world football. Some wag called Pat Sullivan said online in the Guardian that it is ‘the short distance between Messi’s head and legs that makes him think so quickly on his feet during football.’ Gerald Pique, the tall and powerful Barcelona center back – better known as Shakira’s husband to many women – played with little Messi in Barcelona’s youth academy and has said this about his first impressions of ‘Leo’ as they call him: “He was really good, but also just so tiny and small we thought nothing of him at first; because he was also quite quiet. Our youth coach said to us, ‘Don’t tackle him strong, because maybe you break him permanently!’ I told the anxious coach, ‘Okay, but not to worry. Because none of us can catch him!’”

This is a telling statement from an icon of Barcelona, because today’s football has come to increasingly rely on size and muscle and speed, as can be seen from Messi’s counter point, Cristiano Ronaldo, who stands over six feet tall, weighs 84 kilos, with a 44 inch chest, 33 inch waist line, 25 inch thighs and 15 inch biceps in circumference. Messi, with his low center of gravity, is the soccer emperor of claustrophobic spaces, with his mesmerizing skill as he slithers through airless openings on the pitch, changing direction in swift gear shift, his feet tapping the ball on each stride with evasive touches that blur, and leave defenders bewildered (‘is his left foot a ball magnet?’) before the deadly finishing touch.

When Messi scored that free kick against the USA last week, it took his country tally to 55, one above Gabriel Batistuta, and making him the all-time Argentine top scorer (Maradona, by contrast, only scored 34 for Argentina, but one of those was the solo goal against England whose thirtieth anniversary we celebrated last week, and that helped Argentina win the World Cup in 1986). Messi, on the other hand, went quite mad in a rare display of pique (not to be mistaken with his Barca teammate) in the July of 2014 after Mario Gotze had scored that extra time chest-­ leg volley (after a cross from then Chelsea’s Andre Schurrle) that downed Argentina and had Messi throwing his ‘loser’s’ medal away to the crowd.

Maradona, rather unhelpfully, told the Albiceleste (Argentine team) this week not to bother Boeing­ing back to Buenos Aires without the Copa America Cup – that was how much expectation was in the air in Argentina on Sunday. After losing his fourth final with Argentina, it was a disconsolate Messi who announced his international retirement to the world with the words: ‘For me, it is over! I have done all I can , and it hurts not to be a champion.’ The Argentine novelist Eduardo Sacheri had said ‘until Messi wins a World Cup, he does not stand a chance being compared to Diego (Maradona)!’

The World Cup in Russia is still two years away, and it now seems the little Flea to will never win the ultimate trophy in the land of the Moscow bear, which does not bear the tears of strangers. Thierry Henry, Messi’s former teammate in Barcelona (and now an Arsenal FC legend) once said that ‘with Leo, the best thing is not to talk about him; it is to watch him.’ We watched. And when his moment to begin his first giant step towards Argentine immortality arrived on that penalty spot in the MetLife, Leo Messi stepped up – and forever booted his chance at country legend away into the night sky over New Jersey.

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Tony Mochama is Kenya’s most ardent Chelsea FC fan, and ‘polite’ barroom hooligan.