by Adam Peacock
The punchline reiterates their obvious opinion in football’s great debate – who was better, Maradona or Pelé? It’s an argument that will rage until the end of time without truce or treaty. Brazilians acknowledge Pelé as the greatest, though his reputation post-football has taken hit after hit due to bad investments and shady dealings. The further we move away from his peak on the pitch doesn’t help, but nor does it diminish how his countrymen and women view his reputation as a footballer, which thankfully for him, retains its own status.
To Argentinians, Maradona’s countless flaws only add to the mystique, a large part of the reason he is without peer in their eyes. He is one of them. In your face, with more than a hint of the scoundrel, as former England manager Sir Bobby Robson once said. For an Argentinian, to wind up the English is an honour. With the help of his hand, Maradona won the World Cup in 1986 by himself and took his country to the final in 1990. Living like a rock star didn’t help his peerless talent, but didn’t hurt his legacy. He is Argentina’s greatest ever was and will be.
And therein lies the problem for the greatest, modern-day Argentinian footballer, Lionel Andrés Messi. He gets a line in the song of the World Cup – ‘You’re going to see Messi, he’ll bring us back the Cup’. If what they sing turns out to be true, the last line might need readjusting for future use.
What Messi has done on the football field is the envy of every other current player, including and especially Cristiano Ronaldo. Six Spanish titles, three Champions League titles, Olympic gold, most goals in a year (91 in 2012), over 350 goals for his club Barcelona and four Ballon d’Ors for best player in the world. What is missing is obvious – a World Cup. The timing is perfect. He turned 27 mid-tournament, he is at his peak and there will never be a better chance to crown his glory.
Argentinian party on Copacabana Beach by night.
The flow of people across the border is all in one direction, with some estimating 100,000 Argentinians ventured into Brazil for the month-long football celebration. Every single one of them wanted one thing from Messi. He owes them. He has already paid back one race, a world away in Catalonia, the pocket of Spain with its own strong identity and mammoth football club, FC Barcelona. As a child, Messi needed medical help to overcome a growth hormone deficiency and that meant more money than his parents, factory worker dad Jorge and cleaner mum Celia, could afford. Barca covered the bills after he moved to Spain. They gave him everything and Messi returned it with endless goals and silverware. Now it is his homeland’s turn – his blood – and his people want their return. If delivered, where it hurts Brazil more so, he will attain mythical status.
----
It starts in Brazil’s football cathedral, the Maracanã, where before the game the Argentinians rush to get in – ticket or no ticket. Those with the latter scurry over flimsy metal gates and storm the joint. With seats and stairwells full, the Maracanã literally overflowing, Messi keeps the dangerous Bosnians at bay just past the hour mark. Leading 1-0, he exchanges passes with Gonzalo Higuaín, using that famous short burst of pace to get the ball back in space. As he has throughout his career, he darts along the edge of the 18-yard box to create an angle for the killer blow, a perfectly curled shot that kisses the post and goes in. Argentina end up winning 2-1. Mood set.
Six days later in Belo Horizonte, Iran are resolute, defending with discipline and stifling their more fancied opponents for 90 minutes. Yet 30 seconds into injury time, with the match locked at 0-0, Messi finds himself with the ball at his feet just beyond the corner of the 18-yard box. Eleven Iranians stand between him and the goal. He takes a sharp touch, lightning sharp to open up his famous left foot, and before the Iranians can do anything, he’s sent the ball on a trajectory which starts outside the far post. It soars through the air, swinging in hard, obeying his wishes and drawing to the target. Time stands still as the ball spirals towards the inevitable, skidding across the inside of the side netting and nestling in the back. Messi has made the winner like only he can, but this is new territory. He’s never made his country feel like this before, a rarely-visited place somewhere beyond delirious. 1-0 Argentina. Legend growing.
To the southern city of Porto Alegre for the final Group game against Nigeria. Three minutes in, Messi arrives late on the scene with the ball bobbling in the Nigerian 18-yard box, before launching it into the roof of the net. 1-0. On the stroke of half-time, 25 yards out, he loops a free kick over the wall and Nigerian keeper Vincent Enyeama misses his cue for what should have been a comfortable save.
Argentina win 3-2, but Nigeria still progress. Enyeama later remarks, ‘He’s so good, and I’m so shit!’ and everyone laughs, but doesn’t disagree.
By the end of the Group Stage, Messi has four goals and three Man of the Match awards. As a team, Argentina aren’t playing all that well. The point is lost in a sea of superlatives that the little number 10 is bathing in. After the best World Cup Group Stage anyone can remember, he is the undoubted star among esteemed company.
Maradona keeps the comparisons coming between himself and Pelé. Neymar is Pelé. Messi is Maradona. Wonder what argument he is taking with that analogy?
Now all Messi has to do is win it.
----
It is the Round of 16, the same point from 1990 of which the Argentinians sing today. The opponent is not Brazil and in 24 years they won’t sing of the match with Switzerland, not that it is any less significant as São Paulo is invaded. All to watch one team, pray that one man continues his mission, and none of it has to do with the leader of the Catholic Church, who also happens to be Argentinian. Pope Francis is the conduit between his nation’s requests and whether those prayers are answered.
Leo Messi’s teammates haven’t been blessed with the same talent, but the gap between their best and their opponents will determine how far Argentina go. And the others have some task just keeping up. If there is a better sight in football than Messi running with the ball, it’s an even better secret. It is glaringly obvious what he is going to do – either keep it under control while running at full pace, or feed it to a teammate in space so he can move into a more threatening position to get it back – yet it is near impossible to stop.
Switzerland remain alert and organised to both threats and show glimpses of knowing where Argentina’s soft spots are when the Messi danger is averted. The Swiss are made up of players from backgrounds scattered across Europe’s troubled spots. A generation stitched together, a large part of the fabric from the Balkan region torn to shreds before many of them had been thought of, let alone born. These men grew up with adversity and know how to deal with it.
At 0-0 and the game tumbling towards extra time, Messi flicks the ball away from one defender and is soon corralled by another two on the touchline. He slows, waits, then somehow bursts between them like they are befuddled, clumsy henchmen in a James Bond movie. Now he’s travelling at warp speed towards more Swiss defenders pondering, on the edge of their 18-yard box, what they have done to deserve this. He has mercy but it’s down to his instinct as a player, rather than kindness as a human being. Approaching his next opponents, he passes to teammate Rodrigo Palacio, who is in a great goal-scoring position. However, Palacio is mortal, not Messi, and takes a heavy touch, the moment fizzling out with the ball over the by-line.
At the end of a scoreless 90 minutes, Swiss midfielder Gokhan Inler, another multi-millionaire, tries to be friendly by putting his arm around Messi to thank him for the contest so far and what is to come. Scowling, Messi shrugs the arm away, without words or eye contact, and stalks over to his team to prepare for the 30 minutes ahead. Desire is raging inside Messi, who usually plays the game with a look that gives all the intensity of a toddler waking up from a nap. Not today. He is in another zone, driven by what his nation needs and expects, a place only people like Maradona and Pelé know. He belongs. With three minutes remaining in extra time, penalties beckon, but again Messi has found space with room to run. The Swiss, so vigilant until now, have lapsed, and the litt
le legs of the best player in the world are firing as quickly as they have all match, carrying an entire football-mad nation towards goal.
He glides past the sliding challenge of Swiss defender Fabian Schar without breaking stride or losing control. Four other defenders encircle him, but they may as well be canoeing on Lake Geneva, because Messi has the freedom of a few metres – miles in his terms. Instead of going for individual glory, for the 3,537,324th time in his career, he chooses the correct option, rolling a pass into the path of an open teammate. Angel di Maria, the Argentinian closest in terms of ability to Messi, receives the invitation to win the game with a beautifully-placed shot across the keeper. The heaving São Paulo stadium, with its temporary stands at either end worryingly flimsy, gets a structural test only an earthquake could match. Nearly 60,000 Argentinians go completely spare. The stands and Argentina survive as the legend continues to grow beyond anything it has been before. Perhaps even to Maradona status.
----
On another warm Rio night when the temperature doesn’t get close to dipping below 20°C, dusk is turning to darkness on Ipanema Beach. Tourists in every national jersey are going every which way along the plush promenade – to dinner, north to the next beach, Copacabana, or right here to one of the countless beachfront cafés to lose themselves in the bottom of a caparinha for the 33rd night in a row.
In near darkness on the cooling sand, four Argentinian lads in their 20s are trying to kick a ball into a bin some 20 metres away. The task is difficult enough without the fact they’re still on the sleepless high from the night before and addled by Fernet and Coke. Fernet, Argentina’s spirit of choice, is an Amaro, a 45-per-cent-alcohol explosion of bitter aniseed, which fights with success through the sweet battery acid mixer that is Coke. Immune to its disastrous morning-after effects, the four boys are back in Rio after the Switzerland match in São Paulo, far removed from their normal lives in Buenos Aires. One makes wallets, one works for a telecommunication company and the other two work in a bank. Despite their steady jobs, they’ve saved like never before and will go heavily into debt to enjoy themselves on their 10-day adventure. They stay in a hostel in Rio, visited for a matter of minutes after the trip to São Paulo, before they come down for an afternoon on the beach. Fernet is fuelling their trip, along with a high-octane, clean-living guy from Rosario. They love Leo Messi, but Maradona holds mythical status even though they were all in nappies when he won the World Cup in 1986.
‘Messi will never be Maradona, even if we win here,’ one offers bluntly.
‘It’s true, we can’t win without Messi. But he can’t be Maradona,’ says another.
They go on to explain Maradona is everything they want from a sportsman. Ability, ego, a whatever-it-takes-to-win mentality, imperfections as a human being. Messi can do something about the first point, but the other three are impossible. They may very well exist, but if they do, they have been expertly hidden behind a wall of shyness and family protection. And that is a big if. What the world sees is what these four Argentinians believe and love, but not revere. They see the wizard who gets kicked and fouled but never reacts. Never dives. Rarely takes to football’s dark arts to coerce the referee into a decision that shouldn’t be made. Messi’s life is football, not tabloid, and he never speaks of himself in the third person. To the boys from Buenos Aires, he’s a brilliant player who might win them a World Cup. And they stress … might. If it were someone else, they’d be sure.
----
The next two games endorse the instinct of the Fernet Four. During the quarter-final against Belgium, and then the semi-final against the Netherlands, Leo Messi is no Maradona. He is out of gas. Tank, empty. He tries but can’t break the shackles of systems designed by the better teams to nullify his greatness.
Nevertheless, sheer will gets the Argentinians past the Netherlands in the semi-final, 120 minutes of both sides playing with fear of losing, rather than exploring the possibilities and associated risks to win. It is the first ever goalless World Cup semi-final. Sergio Romero, the Argentinian keeper, wins the shootout but late in regulation time, Javier Mascherano, the combative general of their midfield, denies Arjen Robben by throwing himself in the path of a point-blank shot and, in the process, tearing his anus.
Critics start to do the same to Messi’s performances. Dad Jorge is quoted in a Brazilian newspaper as saying, ‘Leo said it looks like his legs weighed 100 kilos. He was very tired.’ Spanish journalist Guillem Balague, the only person to write an authorised biography on Messi, said Jorge denies that quote. Didn’t happen. Completely false. Who to believe? A Brazilian paper looking help bring about the demise of their great rival, or one of the few journalists the Messi family trust?
So it is left to perception to define what is wrong and even though the quote is renounced, the point remains valid. Messi appears cooked. His greatest asset, that burst over five metres which leaves defenders behind like fly-ridden carcasses, is absent. Months before, he worked hard to retrieve his season after numerous hamstring complaints, perhaps the sheer will required for that has sapped him. Still, he gets one more chance. The Germans are waiting. As is the world.
----
One hundred thousand Argentinians flood Rio for the final, to be held where they started the tournament a month before against Bosnia, the Maracanã. Near the football shrine in the north of the city, campervans and tents swarm to another institution, the Sambadrome, the focal point for Carnaval where an explosion of colour and music attracts worldwide attention each February. The vast concrete stands are empty at the moment, but underneath and along the runway – the path for Brazil’s great party – is a sea of sky blue and white. Smoke from portable barbeques fills the air, jerseys of River Plate, Boca Juniors and every other Argentinian football club hang from strings tied between cars to dry and yes, everyone is drinking Fernet and Coke. What a galling sight for the locals. Two monuments built to showcase the two great Brazilian pastimes – football and samba – have been overrun and occupied by their most bitter rivals. And don’t they let them know it. Two days before the final, on a wet evening well past midnight, the raucous visitors belt out ‘Bad Moon Rising’.
Que estás llorando desde Italia hasta hoy.
A Messi lo vas a ver, la Copa nos va a traer,
Maradona es más grande que Pelé!
Their song is their version of fact. Except one of those seven lines will always be false. Messi would not bring back the Cup. Germany neutralise him and even though he would controversially win player of the tournament, the expressionless glum that besets his face upon receiving the award says it all. Individually, Messi is the best. Yet he can’t drag the rest along with him. Argentina remain without what they crave. The punchline will always be reserved for Maradona.
9.
WINNING
Late afternoon on another spectacular Rio winter’s day and a middle-aged German man and his daughter are in a blind panic. Among the sea of humanity strolling along Avenida Atlântica, Copacabana’s spectacular beachfront promenade, they stand out because of a unique mode of transport that would turn heads at Carnaval. It’s a campervan, around 20 years old, but it’s hard to be sure because the vehicle’s body is covered entirely by a giant fitted sheet made of flags. It’s a livery of the World Cup, all 32 nations, including Australia which sits directly above the only part that isn’t covered – the front windscreen. Germany’s flag, of course, has pride of place just below the windscreen, but that’s not important right now to the man peering desperately through the glass. He can’t find a damn spot to park, which is no surprise because getting a prime position on Copacabana is like finding water in the Sahara. For a German, this disorganisation, this inability to solve a problem rationally and comfortably, is hell on earth.
After another frenzied conversation about what to do next, his daughter, who has disembarked to search on foot, is almost out of ideas. So she stands, waiting for a miracle, while Dad takes the moving flag display for another lap, hoping for that mi
racle. Suddenly, a spot better suited to a small sedan becomes available in prime location, right in the middle of the mayhem. The mobile flag display is expertly eased in and at last, Michael Spoo and his daughter Jana can relax. Stuff the poor owner of the silver Ford Fiesta next to him, who’ll have to be made of rubber to get into their car, the Germans are organised again.
German fan Michael Spoo with his daughter Jana in front of their unmistakeable van. They’ve just found a prized spot to park at Copacabana Beach.
After 35 years as a carpenter in Dusseldorf, in which the last 10 years were ‘good’, Michael decided to move to South America, buy a van … and drive.
‘I love driving, and in South America the people are very special,’ he explains. ‘In Germany is all correct, here it is different. Yes, there are a lot of problems, Brazil and Argentina, a lot of poor areas, but it is good to feel to it.’
Michael has been on the continent a few months, living in the van and relishing the experience of a lifetime driving around Brazil following his beloved Germany.
‘I [started] from Buenos Aires, where I bought the car, then I go for 5500 kilometres to Salvador [Germany v Portugal], then to Forteleza, 1300 kilometres [Germany v Ghana], then to Recife, 800 kilometres [Germany v USA].’
A total of 7600 kilometres to see his team top Group G. Success, however, presented a problem. The Round of 16 match would be in Porto Alegre, a 51-hour drive. Just four days in between games proved too much, even for Michael. So he drove 1200 kilometres to Salvador, hopped on a plane, witnessed his side squeak past a brave Algeria, then flew back to Salvador to fetch his wheels.
