WC quarters: Dream of back-to-back titles still distant for magical Messi

The record which beckons Lionel Messi – ahead of gritty quarter final opponents (Switzerland) on Sunday morning IST – is that of Pele’s feat of winning back-to-back World Cups. But then, the ‘King’ was 17 and 21, respectively, at the time of his conquests in 1958 and 1962 before adding a third one in 1970.

Diego Maradona, the man who inspired Messi’s generation of footballers in his own country, made the 1986 World Cup his own at the age of 26 – a benchmark when a footballer is supposed to be at his peak. Four years later, he plodded along with a niggle and an average team to the threshold of doing an encore before Andreas Brehme’s penalty knocked Maradona’s dream over in the final. Neither of the two Colossus of the game, hence, won their first trophy at 35 years – that too in one’s fifth appearance - and again looked capable of retaining it four years later despite being a doubtful starter.

While one will know only on 19 July as to whether Messi will be the last man standing, the most amazing aspect of his story in the ongoing World Cup is that of his longevity and hunger. If one thought that the long serving Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni would be content to use him sparingly – and that too in tight matches – then the genius from Rosario surprised all and sundry with his game time across the five matches so far. The two games where he was not on the pitch fulltime were in the group stages: being substituted in the 80^th minute against Algeria after completing a hattrick and against Jordan, when he struck after coming in as a substitute.

If there was a legitimate argument that the reigning champions’ route to Round of 32 was a relatively easy one, the La Albiceleste then survived two serious scare in the knockout stages – first against an unfancied Cabo Verde and of course Egypt. The 3-2 win against Egypt for a ticket to quarter final saw one of the most sensational recovery acts by Argentina with Messi playing his part in it with his eighth goal, but the inconsistent supervision did cast a shadow on their show of character throughout this week.

It was nothing short of a jailbreak for the Argentines – and the tears of relief from Messi as well as Scaloni showed they had possibly given up on the hope of living for another day. ‘’The situation was challenging as it’s tough to make a comeback after being 2-0 down in a knockout game. It was Romero’s goal which gave us hope that we could still make a match of it,’’ the maestro admitted after the game.

Interestingly enough, the Argentines are no strangers to the art of bouncing back as during Qatar 2022, they had lost the lead no fewer than four times, including twice in the final against France. While the diehard Messi fan may look for a good omen in such a precedent, but clawing back against a well organised, disciplined Switzerland side after losing a lead may prove all that much harder. The camp ought to have done a serious soul searching on how to repair a porous central defence – not to speak of their reliance on the Messi magic to bail them out time and again.

The controversy over refereeing against Egypt, which led to allegations from Egypt’s head coach that the encounter was rigged was not the only off-the-field row they had to contend with over the past week. The Argentinian federation (AFA) is reportedly under investigation by the FBI for alleged mishandling of its commercial agreements in the United States. The federation has denied any wrongdoing and Tomas Regalado, an AFA ambassador in North America, said last week: “Investigative measures alone do not determine responsibility or guilt.”

  The Swiss camp, meanwhile, have been candid that their thoughts will be preoccupied with the way they can stop Messi throughout the 90 minutes. Captain Granit Xhaka had no qualms about admitting: ‘’I don’t know if we can stop him (Messi) over 90 minutes. It’s going to be very difficult. We have to be smart. We’ll have to be compact, close the gaps and not give him too many spaces. We will try, obviously, to play in possession when we have the ball and he won’t be able to act as much. We’ll just try to play our game and not allow him to play the ball.’’

 Much as Xhaka played down their chances, the Swiss have historically proved to be a hard nut to crack. In the last World Cup meeting between Switzerland and Argentina in 2014 in a Round of 16 game in Brazil, Argentina had to wait for a 118^th minute winner from Ángel Di María's 118th-minute winner - assisted by Messi.

And it won’t be a comforting thought for Messi’s men!