When the final whistle went, ending the Copa America final at the Maracana on July 10, the first thing the victorious Argentina players did was to dive onto Lionel Messi as if he had just saved the winning penalty. They then threw Messi up into the air as if he was the coach who had masterminded the campaign. And when it came to lifting the trophy — for the first time since 1993 — it was Messi who collected it, jumped onto the platform to share it with his players, and then carried it over to the few thousand Argentina fans allowed into the stadium.
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Never in the history of international football has any team triumph been about an individual as much as this one was about Messi. Even as the fourth Copa in seven years, it felt like one of the most significant tournaments in modern football, one that will forever mark the careers of every Argentina player involved.
This summer was the end of Messi’s long and painful wait. His team-mates remembered his tears in the Maracana after the 2014 World Cup final. The sight of him aghast as his team-mates missed their penalty kicks against Chile in the Copa final of 2015. Or Messi himself missing in another final shootout against Chile in 2016, which prompted his brief international retirement.
This was Messi’s quest to win a trophy for Argentina and it was only this year, at the age of 34, that he finally completed it. He described it afterwards as removing a thorn from himself. His team-mates were honoured to help him pull it out, just as they are now determined to give him one more shot at the World Cup.
This, in short, is why Giovani Lo Celso, Cristian Romero, Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia are so desperate to be part of this quest, even if it risks upsetting their clubs. Some things in football mean more than playing for your club in early-season league matches, and this is one of them.
Because the love and the gratitude between Messi and his team-mates go both ways. When Messi returned to Barcelona after winning the Copa, he soon agreed to a new five-year deal with Joan Laporta to keep him at the Nou Camp on a reduced salary. As Messi’s mind turned to the new season, he had one thing on his mind: bringing Romero to the Nou Camp.
Over the course of the Copa America campaign, Messi fell in love with Romero. The 23-year-old centre-back only made his Argentina debut in June of this year but by the time of the Copa, he had made himself hugely important to Lionel Scaloni’s team. He came into the team to anchor the defence for the crucial 1-0 wins over Uruguay and Paraguay. But he picked up a knee injury and missed the last group game against Bolivia, the quarter-final against Ecuador and the semi-final against Colombia.
Even though Romero was not fully fit, he was desperate to play in the final against Brazil, and so Scaloni brought him back in for German Pezzella. And Romero, despite his injury struggles, helped to get Argentina — and Messi — over the line to win the game 1-0.
So when Messi went back to Barcelona, he was persistent in asking Laporta and the board to sign Romero, desperate to get his aggression and physicality into the Barcelona back line.
But it was Tottenham who were leading the chase to sign him. Spurs’ new managing director of football Fabio Paratici had first signed Romero — for Juventus from Genoa — in 2019. Tottenham initially offered €40 million (£34.3 million) and were dragging their feet on meeting the asking price of €50 million (£42.9 million). At this point, Spurs’ biggest rival to signing Romero was Messi himself.
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When Tottenham finally decided to meet the valuation to sign Romero, no one was more relieved than the Barcelona staff who no longer had to handle Messi begging them to sign him. (A few days after Spurs signed Romero, Messi ceased to be Barcelona’s problem altogether, when they had to withdraw the contract offer and allow him to join Paris Saint-Germain.)
There is a profound bond between Messi and his Argentina team-mates, one forged in their shared triumph this summer. Some might think that the fact that it is all about Messi diminishes his team-mates and effectively relegates them to bit-part roles. But the opposite is true: the players feel lifted to be part of an experience bigger than themselves.
For years, the Argentina team had been trying to help Messi win a trophy but suffered three final defeats in three years. But this time, they finally did it. And now their attention has turned to another crucial challenge: to get Messi to Qatar. He turns 35 next year, making it his last World Cup as a top player. And the Argentina team sense that it will not just be their country, but the game as a whole, that will be diminished if he is not there. Getting Messi to that World Cup is a genuinely sacred task.
Together, it explains why Romero, Lo Celso, Martinez and Buendia were so desperate to be there in South America this week to help Messi get there. Even though all 10 countries in the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying group are currently on the UK government’s red list. And even though the 20 Premier League clubs had said last month that players would not be released to go and play in South America, because of the obligation to do 10 days in hotel quarantine on their return.
But Martinez, Buendia, Lo Celso and Romero were insistent that, right now, Argentina comes first. They were desperate to go and contribute to the national effort, no matter how logistically difficult. They had seen how freely rules had been bent for other people, whether that be UEFA and FIFA officials and sponsors flying into the UK for the final stages of the European Championship, or the Copa America being staged in Brazil despite all the medical evidence suggesting that it should not. And yet when the players want to fly to South America to play a World Cup qualifier, and then fly back to the UK to play for their clubs, no one bends the rules so that they can do so. (It is worth waiting to see how the same issue is approached by the Premier League clubs at the Africa Cup of Nations next year).
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With the players so desperate to go, Tottenham and Aston Villa made brave and empathetic decisions to reach agreements with the players about their participation, so that they could play two of the three games, return to Croatia to train, and minimise disruption to their clubs’ seasons. The clubs should be applauded for trying to find a middle way.
Clearly, the bizarre events in Brazil on Sunday night have thrown this whole international break into disrepute and shame. They also underline again how willing governing bodies and even governments are to use players as a political football. There were so many points at which the issue of the players’ involvement could have been addressed, allowing the match to be played in full.
Given the sight of Brazilian health officials chasing the Argentina players across the pitch, it is understandable that the Premier League clubs would regret allowing their players to get dragged into this unseemly circus. Once the players had insisted on going, the clubs would have been desperate for them to come back without incident, but that ship has now sailed. Of course, the clubs wish that none of this had happened.
But to hammer the four English-based Argentinian players for just wanting to play football for their country feels like a failure of empathy. Yes, the clubs pay their wages. Yes, they will miss games. And yes, it is right that they should be fined for doing so.
But ultimately, people have obligations to things bigger than their employers: their families, their communities, their sense of their place in the world. All that the Argentinian players have done this week is to try to answer a bigger call, to try to write themselves into the margins of the story of the greatest footballer of all time. They deserve our understanding, even if we withhold our approval.
(Top photo: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)