Argentina’s debut against Saudi Arabia: Leo performs in the name of Maradona at the last
Who knows, maybe she would have liked to lift the most beautiful cup looking into his eyes. And he who knows, maybe Diego he would have given him a big hug, from father to son, from God to God, sanctioning the definitive handover in the history of football. Leo Messi and Diego Armando Maradonainstead, they are in fact always spun smoothly like parallel tracks. On the one hand the best everthe man capable of winning by himself or almost a Worldthe Mexican one of 1986. On the other hand, the designated heir, the Flea mad girl who has surfed over the last twenty years of football breaking every record. In the middle Argentinaa gigantic and warm country capable of raising the two greatest champions ever. Ronaldo permitting or, to put it differently, despite Ronaldo.
Ready for the last dance in Qatar, Leo Messi has aged together with one of the many photographs that portrays him together with his myth. Diego is gone, consumed by an exaggerated life. Leo, on the other hand, has to take everything on his shoulders again: Argentina and the suffocating anxiety of not being able to fail the last round of his footballing history. Because you may have won everything like him, but if you didn’t put the world Cup you will never be the best. And Messi, in some ways, has the right to become one.
This is neither the right place nor the time to reopen a debate that has no concrete resolution. It’s not the right day to wonder if the greatest was Maradona or if, in fact, it is Leo. It is the day, however, of the appointment with history, of the first step on the moon of a World Cup that Messi can only win. He, his Argentina, and a team so strong that it shouldn’t have rivals but that it does have rivals. But it’s today or never. Either he wins this time or he will close with the World Cup without ever having placed his hands on the most beautiful cup. Then, of course, who knows what thoughts he may have. Him, the myth of Diego and a wonderful book to be stamped with a happy ending.
