The last 24 hours have been a lot! Many pundits are calling the World Cup Final the greatest ever played. The sea of supporters in Buenos Aires was breathtaking to behold. And finally, the debate on football’s GOAT can finally be put to rest.
One thing that stood out to me was the commentary on the changes Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s coach, had to make in the group stage to allow Messi to play at his best.
Messi, the star player of this year’s World Cup, is 35 years old. Despite being past his prime, he’s still capable of delivering moments of magic—which he did throughout this World Cup—to carry his team to victory. What many don’t realise is the trade-off the team has to make for Messi to deliver those moments of magic.
Messi moves around the pitch at barely more than a walking pace. He rarely defends, and he’s often not seen in any passage of play for 3-4 minutes at a time. But then he turns up, out of nowhere, and creates or makes a play that no one else can.
For Messi to play this role, he is surrounded by a midfield of players in their early twenties who do a tonne of grunt work—running, defending, and covering, so Messi doesn’t have to.
It was fascinating to learn that these young players didn’t feature in Argentina’s group stage loss to Saudi Arabia, but became fixtures in their starting line-up as the tournament progressed. A masterstroke from the Argentine coach that let Messi be Messi.