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World Cup 2022: Lionel Messi can lead Argentina to glory in Qatar

By Liam Kelly

Football

Wed December 21, 2022 · 2y ago

Happy? Sad? Romantic? A last dance should be all of those things.

Article published before the start of the World Cup

Argentina and Messi deliver for Sporting Life followers

Victory for Argentina and Lionel Messi's clinching of the Golden Ball saw Sporting Life followers land 7/1 and 12/1 antepost winners respectively from our outright and player of the tournament previews
It follows the Sporting Life team's correct calling of Italy to win Euro 2020 at 11/1

Far from the only person to be clamouring for sports content at the beginning of the pandemic, my itch was scratched by a docuseries chronicling the rise of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls through the lens of their 1997/98 season.

The Last Dance, which takes its name from a label coined by coach Phil Jackson to describe the final campaign of the Bulls’ 90s dynasty, was an imposing portrayal of one of sport’s iconic athletes.

At this World Cup, another icon is performing his own last dance — an Argentine Tango that will thankfully eclipse Strictly Come Dancing season, if you will.

Lionel Messi is bidding to win his nation, one he represents with absolute distinction, a World Cup that he has confirmed will be his last.

Final step in a last dance

There’s not much more that can be added to Messi’s legacy. The 35-year-old magician has been the best player of his generation and won it all at club level for Barcelona, leaving only the international stage to conquer.

Having added a Copa América to his collection, beating rivals Brazil in the Maracanã last year, a feat that even Diego Maradona did not achieve, this is the final step in his quest.

To add to the narrative, despite already appearing in a World Cup final in 2014, this might be Messi’s best chance to win the coveted competition.

Their 2021 Copa América win showcased the battle-hardened nature of this Argentina squad, coming to a clearly exhausted Messi’s aid in moments of need, a trait that had previously been missing.

Perhaps more crucially, Messi has subtly returned to the type of form where you could easily argue he is the best player in the world entering this World Cup.

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His move to PSG certainly elicited an unfulfilling feeling, and a prospective spell with Inter Miami gives off significant Jordan-Washington Wizards vibes, but Messi has built up to the big dance by getting back into a groove.

Now, this was originally slated to be an analytically-driven look at Messi, focusing on his seriously impressive campaign thus far, but it’s both simple and difficult to describe him with data.

Simply put, if football was played on a spreadsheet, Messi’s position throughout his career would be far less fluid than the reality we see from him on the pitch.

You would often find the little magician as an outlier in almost all data visualisations displaying attacking output — heading a table or sticking out like a sore thumb in the top right corner of an x-y axis graph for example.

Here’s one I stupidly created in MS Paint that was entirely believable in seasons past (much more time was spent on this than necessary, I might add)...

Indeed, the Argentinian was so productive that a secondary, Messi-less graph was sometimes required to exhibit how good his contemporaries are actually doing.

Ultimately, Messi had no equal.

Last term was a very underwhelming one for Messi, though. A quiet campaign left many wondering whether the magic was fading, understandable after punctuating each week with breathtaking performance after breathtaking performance for over 15 years.

If the World Cup is a fixed point in my concept of time, Messi was a fixed point in my weekly enjoyment of football. Losing that in a largely unwatched Ligue 1 season would have been unfortunate.

Messi's back

However, a year of doubt has been supplanted by the realism that Messi's minutes are again unmissable, gracefully ploughing through the idiotically labelled 'farmer's league'.

Still got it. pic.twitter.com/uVkp3GNw8z
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) November 8, 2022

To be both the creator and the end-product is Messi’s genius. Goals & assists, expected goals & expected assists, passes into penalty area & shots — tables and graphs he is once again belittling with his utter dominance.

And yet, there is also immense difficulty in explaining Messi through data. Watching him work is unmitigated beauty, so much so that I don’t want to use a single statistic in this piece.

There are movements, touches, passes and finishes he produces that can never be attributed a number, only witnessed in complete awe.

If you've managed to catch a PSG match this season, those alluring features left uncategorised in data are back, too.

Is there anything that tops this for a World Cup wish list?

The greatest player to ever play the sport is entering the tournament performing at a best-player-in-the-world level, looking to emulate Jordan's last dance by lifting the trophy — a journey that will undoubtedly be happy, sad and romantic.

Agonisingly, those emotions will be crammed into a four-week stretch as Messi leads an Argentina squad capable of nailing the choreography into the final step.

Time to tango.