Another record: Messi to set an unmatched Argentina World Cup mark | OneFootball

Lionel Messi as a unit of measure for the passage of time… His extraordinary longevity forces us to flip back several calendars to find another Argentine captain at a World Cup: Javier Mascherano, in the thrashing Joachim Löw’s Germany handed to Diego Maradona’s rough sketch of a national team in July 2010. Since then, power has been in Messi’s hands, with a profile that traveled from shyness to the exercise of unquestioned leadership. What never changed was his commitment, always non-negotiable. Today, Messi has strung together 18 consecutive World Cup matches as captain of the national team. Another record. And the list will grow exactly 49 days from now, when he tightens the band on his left arm and appears at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to make his sixth World Cup debut against Algeria.

Messi leads through a sense of belonging, and that is probably the most contagious method: if the best player puts the national team above everything else, the rest only have to fall in line. There is no room for disobedience there. Diego Maradona proposed the same thing, of course, though with a more pyrotechnic and extroverted profile. Messi, since inheriting the captaincy from Mascherano in September 2011, during Alejandro Sabella’s time as coach, has grown in carrying out the role.

He was never lacking in personality; he simply took on everything people demanded of him once he understood that he had to. Not before, when Ayala, Heinze, Sorin, Verón, Riquelme, Mascherano… were the ones “in charge.” Sergio Batista, champion in Mexico ’86 and Messi’s coach with Argentina’s U-23s and senior AFA team, summed it up this way to LA NACION: “When he matured, when he saw it was his turn, he started. He waited for the moment, and when he saw it was his moment to carry these boys forward, he did it. He was very smart. When he didn’t feel it, he wasn’t a leader. Maybe he thought: ‘What if I stir things up…?’ He didn’t want that, he just wanted to play football… let the others sort things out. Until he felt that yes, it was his turn.”

Messi is facing his last World Cup. And he is the reference point for a generation that grew up with his poster on their bedroom wall. Among them are several strong personalities, bloodhounds who know the art of leading. The captains of the captain. Footballers who are symbols at their clubs and wear the armband there.

Many captains

This peculiarity exists in the world champion national team: no one questions the captain, in a squad full of captains. Like Nicolás Otamendi, “the General,” a nickname born in Valencia and now commanding from the back at José Mourinho’s Benfica. “There are clubs where the armband is not on the right arm—it has happened to me—but in this case it is on the arm of someone who is a true captain and sees himself as one,” the Portuguese coach said of the Argentine. Or like Leandro Paredes and Gonzalo Montiel, emblems of Boca and River, no less, those locomotives full of urgency and tension.

Like Cristian “Cuti” Romero as well, a soldier who has worn the armband since the start of a season that has been a nightmare for Tottenham, living on the edge of relegation. When Danish coach Thomas Frank chose him last year, after South Korean Son Heung-Min left for American soccer, he argued: “Cuti is one of those leaders who doesn’t need to speak all the time; his presence and intensity already represent pure leadership.” The team’s collapse brought a couple of coaching changes, but both the Croatian Igor Tudor and now the Italian Roberto De Zerbi kept believing in Cuti Romero’s command.

“Il capitano” Lautaro Martínez joins the list through his standing at Inter Milan. Javier Zanetti, a legend of the nerazzurri club and Argentina captain on many occasions, described the “Bull’s” style to LA NACION: “Lautaro speaks as much as necessary; he is a leader who transmits through his total commitment in matches—that is his way of inspiring others. He has a great sense of belonging to the club and his teammates see that every day.”

Of course, the list does not end there. There are more. Because as French journalist Florent Torchut, a writer for France Football magazine, explains, “Argentines are important in dressing-room management because of their natural leadership character; they like to take the reins, they like to connect with people, they like to compete all the time. They push forward, they drive. They are unique, which is why there are so many captains or leaders in Europe.”

Other names

And here come the names of those who wear the armband from time to time. The vice-captains, or those who get the armband for stretches of the season. Key figures in their squads. Like Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez. Aston Villa’s captain is John McGinn, and that is beyond dispute. The Argentine goalkeeper was vice-captain, by decision of Spanish coach Unai Emery, who at one point also decided to take it away from him, probably somewhat disappointed by Martínez flirting with leaving the Villans for Manchester United last year. With or without the armband, Dibu Martínez is one of the strongest voices inside the squad.

The same is true of the national team’s third Martínez, Lisandro at Manchester United, and his resilience through so many injuries. The armband is usually worn by Portuguese Bruno Fernandes, and at times by English center-back Harry Maguire in Michael Carrick’s team, but if the Argentine defender finds continuity, he gains ground in that race. In any case, “the Butcher” enjoys everyone’s respect. And here the words—and regret—of Jamie Carragher, the former Liverpool defender and now analyst, are relevant, as he initially criticized Martínez for his height: “Lisandro is a warrior, he is a leader, and if you talk about the backbone of the team, he is fundamental.”

In March 2023, months after Argentina’s coronation in Qatar, Lyon were in crisis in Ligue 1. Their coach at the time, club icon Laurent Blanc, said of Nicolás Tagliafico: “Nico is a great player and good players know exactly what to do. He is a warrior, and if everyone were in as good shape as he is, we wouldn’t be in such a bad situation.” He held him up as an example, yes.

Tagliafico is another of the captains who sometimes wear the armband and sometimes do not. Number 1 is French midfielder Corentin Tolisso, developed at Lyon, but if he is absent, the Argentine left-back takes on the responsibility. And also in France, Leonardo Balerdi served as captain at Olympique Marseille until coach Habib Beye arrived in February this year and changed things, choosing Danish midfielder Pierre-Emile Højbjerg without much explanation. But Balerdi’s influence is not in doubt.

As is Enzo Fernández’s importance at Chelsea, beyond the ups and downs of recent weeks and the sanction imposed on him by coach Liam Rosenior, who has since been dismissed amid so many poor results. Chelsea’s captain is usually the English defender Reece James, a product of the club’s academy, and most of the times he has been absent for one reason or another, Enzo has been the one wearing the armband. A similar leadership role that, in another league, in Spain, Juan Foyth occupied at Villarreal whenever injuries allowed him to. A ruptured left Achilles tendon will keep the former Estudiantes de La Plata defender out of the World Cup.

And if all of them were not enough, Ángel Di María, who used to wear the armband when he was still with the national team and Messi was absent, adds another name for LA NACION: “Rodri [De Paul] was a fundamental piece of the whole national-team project. The life he gave back to the national team! As they say, he is not only the ‘little engine’ on the field, but off it too. In the group dynamic, in the bonds of friendship, in that positive atmosphere. Without wearing the armband, he is a captain.”

All of them placed themselves under the command of the hegemonic captain. Because here appears an interesting nuance developed by Sebastián Beccacece, current Ecuador coach: “Leo leads them from humility after being above everyone else for 20 years, and he gets angry when he loses—that is wonderful. The hunger they show, despite being full, comes from their leader. These boys admire him, but from a place of closeness. And another important thing around him is that he harmonizes leadership: the leader is not in dispute, it’s him. The undisputed leader brings a lot of order; for us coaches, that saves a lot of time,” he says in conversation with LA NACION.

It is clear that Argentina have captains to spare. What will happen when Messi no longer plays for the national team? The successor to the armband will then become a matter of much debate. There are vehement, determined, committed players. Sometimes to the limit of the rules, of proper conduct, as has happened with Cuti Romero, with Otamendi, with Dibu Martínez and also with De Paul.

There lies a danger, but Roberto Ayala, one of Lionel Scaloni’s assistants, offered LA NACION a clarification: “At a World Cup, one excess and you are out. If we say matches can be decided by details, then you have to be smarter. Today there is VAR, everything is seen, you have to be careful. Better to swallow it a bit and be sharper. Courage is shown by beating the opponent. Playing better—that is where we have to be smarter. We have players with that character. A character, by the way, that has also taken them to where they are. We cannot repress ‘that Indian’ they carry inside because it is very positive, but careful, careful, up to a point, up to a limit. And another thing I tell them: ‘If you get sent off, you will give another teammate a chance. Do you like being a starter? Well, remember that if you get sent off, you lose that starting spot.’ We talk to them, we stay alert.”

In Argentina’s World Cup history, the defining trait of its captains has been precisely that fire, their bravery. That gift for leading through intensity. A tradition that recalls the temperamental Pedro Dellacha in Sweden ’58 and the aggressive Rubén “Hacha Brava” Navarro in Chile ’62. Later came Ubaldo Rattín, a leader and boss in England ’66. And in the same line of stoicism and grit appeared the “Marshal” Roberto Perfumo in Germany ’74, culminating in the era of the “Kaiser” Daniel Passarella, the “Great Captain” in 1978 and 1982, the first native Argentine footballer to lift the World Cup. Until Maradona established his reign under one commandment: nothing could be more important than the national team. And the heirs followed him—Ruggeri, Simeone, Sorin, Mascherano… with their stamp of personality in the service of the national cause, with the excesses football allows and that become even more exaggerated at World Cups.

Then came Messi’s years, traumatic and golden, because if there was one thing he forbade himself, it was giving up. But who was Argentina’s first World Cup captain? “Nolo” Manuel Ferreira, a refined, cerebral Estudiantes forward, who wore the armband in the debut against France on July 5, 1930. For the next match he handed the armband to goalkeeper Ángel Bossio because he had to return to Buenos Aires to take an exam in his notary studies. Ferreira passed, crossed the River Plate again, and resumed the leadership until the final against Uruguay.

How times have changed, that record which also seems to bow to Messi. The superstar will be Argentina’s captain at a fourth consecutive World Cup, taking sole possession of another mark he currently shares with Diego Maradona. And he will once again lead a pack of hungry wolves. He does not play just because, and his court of “lieutenants” knows it. If the leader and captain goes forward, everyone else goes with him.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.