Messi cannot be more serious: “This group is crazy”

Argentina is a single burning throat. The albiceleste background roars and Lusail trembles when his song manages to infect the rest of the stands. There is also a major festival in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Rosario, La Plata… The two-time champion celebrates seeing herself just one step away from the third star. The first was embroidered by Kempes, Maradona the second. No one doubts who is responsible for sewing what may be to come. The stands vibrate with a colossal Leo Messi who offers the best version of him to end Croatia, the penultimate obstacle. The Argentine gives himself another chance to lift the World Cup and changes the seriousness of the beginning for a huge smile at the end. “This is very exciting, I’m enjoying it a lot,” he would say at the end, exalted after a goal, the fifth, and an assist, the third. “Losing the first game was a very hard blow, but the group showed again how strong it is.”

Messi jogs a lot, but hardly runs in Lusail. He looks for empty spaces on the grass and forces an extra effort from the Croatian coach to assign him a marker. In the end, it is Gvardiol, a fabulous center-back project, who has to dance with Leo. He too suffer it. Despite his good game, he ends up being a victim at the hands of the genius.

A blow between the two leaves Messi sore, who insistently touches the back of his thigh. “At times he was tired, he couldn’t even lift his legs,” he would admit later. Argentina swallows saliva, because beyond the blow, his star goes unnoticed during that first insipid stretch. When the match is finally uncorked and Julián Álvarez is brought down in the area, Messi knows that his time has come. He starts his routine oblivious to the protests of the Croatian players. He escapes from the world without wanting to look at the goal or at Livakovic, the penalty goalkeeper who stands between him and glory. Only when Orsato whistles does he direct his sight to the squad and there he places the ball with a devastating left foot.

Messi scored his first goal in a World Cup more than fourteen years ago in the German stadium of Gelsenkirchen, the scene of his debut in a match against Serbia. Last night he added the eleventh, which already places him alone as the top Argentine scorer in the history of the World Cups. Gone was Batistuta.

Released, Messi participates after the best minutes of Argentina against a disoriented Croatia. Even stumbling, he initiates the counterattack that leads to Julián Álvarez’s goal. And then, yes, he smiles with enthusiasm. He applauds the stands, also his own journalists, when he escapes Perisic’s pressure. And he turns those handclaps into a standing ovation on the last play of the first act, when he drives past up to three Croatian defenders before being tackled. “Messi, Messi!” He rumbles again from the bottom of the Dibu Martínez.

the best trick

Leo is seen enjoying. On a wall with Julián Álvarez he touches his second goal, but Livakovic stops the cross whiplash. It won’t be the last, because the magician saves the best trick for last. After a throw-in, the ball comes to him with an open field and, yes, he runs like hell. Gigantic, this time he eats Gvardiol, the center-back unable to overcome the two bankruptcies he makes. Then he slips the ball between his legs for Álvarez to finish it off into the net. The jubilation in the stands is absolute, but Messi asks for more and raises his arms in true Simeone style.

The game ends and the celebration is double for the captain, who dances with his teammates and accompanies the stands in their songs. With this match he equals Lothar Matthaus’ 25 World Cup appearances. In the final he will show off that solo record.

«We said it at the beginning; that people trust us. This group is crazy and we are going to give it our all in the final”. Eight years after losing to Germany at the Maracanã, Messi will have a second chance to win a World Cup, the only thing they can still blame him for in football. Seeing him, Argentina can only trust.