Lionel Messi has been grated the last week over his greatness in the field of football. The Argentine icon has been unfairly tagged with second-place finishes of his national team at major tournaments and pushed down the pedestal of prominence occupied by the game’s greats.
It’s stupendous to win a World Cup, but not succeeding in one should not take the sheen off superlative sportsmen. Certainly not in Messi’s case.
Messi is the captain but he cannot be expected to carry an entire team. It’s simply not possible in football where the skipper is only a titular head. A captain does not get to pick the team. He does not decide the positions of players, leave alone the moves on the field. It’s the Manager who calls the shots from the sidelines. Yet, the captain is blamed when the team misfires. It is this mental burden that unnerves many a great player.
Judge Messi by his football skillset, his ability to think on his feet, his proficiency in dribbling the ball to dance past dumbfounded defenders, his knack of creating improbable angles to burst the ball into the goal, his shrewd foot-eye coordination as he reads the game on the run and threads an enchanting pass for a teammate to score, his athleticism that powers racy runs on crucial counter-attacks, the staggering swing he contrives when he curls the ball around the defenders and past a bewildered goalkeeper, his gravity defying dinks that get the ball to rise up the defensive wall and dip delightfully into the goal, of which he has no clear sight prior to the kick. He should come out flying in all of the above. That’s where his greatness lies.
The entire team should be sound if it is to win consistently, for the opposition is sure to spot your chinks and exploit them in no time. It cannot be a one-man army.
