“The final match will be my last game in World Cups. It’s many years to the next one and I don’t think I’ll give it.” This statement, taken from the run-up to the Qatar final, takes us into Lionel Messi’s mind at the end of 2022. Time has passed, and the 2026 global showpiece is just around the corner. Messi will turn 37 in the middle of the Copa America, so he would reach the next World Cup at 39. We say “reach” because not even Leo himself ventures to project himself for the tournament to be played in North American fields. What will an Argentina (and AFA) after Messi be like?
The pressure is getting heavier and heavier and is reflected in the words of the Albiceleste coach, Lionel Scaloni: “It’s not easy to be under the constant gaze of the whole world. We are training, he is there, and all eyes are there, and the rest of the group is here. That for 20 years…“. The cloak of uncertainty, not in terms of retirement, but in terms of when it will take place, leads us to review the names that are emerging to succeed the last king of world soccer. After Qatar, the emerging figure with the Albiceleste was Julian Alvarez, although with a somewhat overshadowed present at Manchester City and a game lacking Messi’s virtuosity. Players like Paulo Dybala and Lautaro Martinez will have to take several steps forward to shoulder the Albiceleste as Argentina finds another miracle like Maradona or Messi. In any case, the country has always been known for developing stars to build teams of hierarchy, although for now the number 10 is too big for most of them.
The relationship between Argentina and soccer is umbilical. From the Cup organized to win it, in the midst of the dictatorship, raised by Pasarella in 1978, to the one raised by Messi in 2022, passing through the Maradona epic in Mexico’s Azteca stadium in 1986. These were the milestones of a glorious saga starring heroes dressed in shorts that have made us forget, if only for a moment, the almost permanent coexistence of Argentines with the crisis. The millions who welcomed the last world champions, lived a month that, like a spell, abstracted them from the galloping inflation and the growing daily shortages, especially of the more than 40% who try to survive below the poverty line. The America Cup won in 2021 had already acted as a symbolic end to a long and painful pandemic.
Messi during the friendly match between Argentina and Ecuador on June 9 (S. Benhiyoun/SPP/Shutterstock)
THE NEW EMERGING FIGURES
The throne and the scepter awaits the new ‘albiceleste Moses’ who will lead the Argentines to the promised land, that which at least serves to anesthetize, even if the causes of the pain are still in force. Even more so, at a time of growing polarization and with this sort of economic chemotherapy, which fights the evil with numerous and admitted collateral damages. In this projection of the transition that Messi’s farewell will entail, the list submitted by Javier Mascherano for the Olympic Games, which will seek to emulate the golden harvest of Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, gives us only a few clues, such as Boca midfielder Cristián Medina. But there are other young players who are already being closely followed by the Argentine specialized press: Valentín Gómez (Vélez), Ezequiel Fernández (Boca), Juan Sforza (Newell’s), Santiago Simon (River) and, the youngest of them all, Gianluca Prestiani (Vélez).
While waiting for the consolidation of the promising players, Claudio Tapia, president of the AFA, in charge of administering the manna that arrived after the third world crown, wants to give the impression that the hypothetical farewell of ‘Lío’ does not take away the dream, at least in appearance: “We have the possibility of having not only the best player in the world, but to enjoy him. That’s what we’ll do at the Copa América, and then we’ll see. The helmsman, who must balance a market that is losing competitiveness due to the depreciation of the local currency, ends with a feint, “it is a decision that he has to make”.
It is the present of a soccer full of titles and problems, waiting for the inevitable moment when Messi says “no more”. Then will come the deluge or the appearance, as so many other times, of the star that will guide the national team to new championships and the Argentines to forget, at least for a moment, how hard it is to get up and live day by day. Messi, the protagonist of these lines, affirmed before the albiceleste debut in the Copa América that Inter Miami will be the last club of his career, adding: “All my life I have done this, I love playing football, I enjoy the training sessions, the matches, and yes, there is a bit of fear that everything is over“.
