The skinniest Messi we’ve ever seen | Blog – Vassilis Samprakos

Vassilis Samprakos details Messi’s best World Cup story.

This song, “Guys, now we’re excited again,” which Argentines have been singing non-stop since the start of the tournament, has already become the soundtrack to the World Cup. But how did this song “Muchachos, ahora nos volvimo ‘a ilusionar” with the melody of a song first sung by “La Moscas” in 2003, become a hit today?
At first it took cover, that is, changing the lyrics of the original song, which read “Muchachos, Esta Noche Me Emborracho” (“Children, tonight I’ll be drunk”). Performed by the theologian Fernando Romero, to make the new motto of the Argentine national team by winning the Copa América, Romero wanted to put Leo Messi’s Argentina success in the Copa América into the lyrics, so he created a new song, which was recorded by the same band, for 19 years. After the first song, put it before the World Cup.

“I was born in Argentina, the country of Diego and Lionel, to children from the Falkland Islands, whom I will never forget,” are the first lyrics. He didn’t want more Messi to “make him his”. And when, a few months before the start of the World Cup, he appeared on an Argentine television station and announced that “This is my favorite song”, Argentine football fans did not just “hug” him. And now on the lips of not only tens of thousands of Argentines who are in Qatar, but on the lips of all Argentines. Fans watched the players sing it in the dressing room after beating Mexico in their Group B match, and they haven’t stopped singing it since.

So far, this story, with this background music, is a World Cup video. It is the story of that time when Messi, in his last dance at the World Cup, traveled with the greatest faith in his team’s abilities, with the greatest determination and the “courage” to manage the responsibility. As we understood from watching him on his way to winning the Copa America, Messi believed in Lionel Scaloni’s playing model and the choice of players to present it. And when, at that tournament, he made sure that the plan “worked”, Messi was excited. When he reached the conquest, he was released.

Today it seems like a detail, but if the World Cup was held as scheduled, that is, last summer, no one knows if Messi would have had the time to prepare himself well, given that he suffered a lot during the previous season both with separation. Barcelona and moving to Paris, as well as the Corona virus and infections. As if the ball had been shocked by the ball, Messi took the time to shake off the weariness of that date and found himself, from a football perspective, as evident since the start of the current season in what he did with PSG.

However, Messi would not have found his happiness in Qatar if he had grown tired of the ravages of age, that is, if Scaloni had not taken an interest in creating a playing model based on this assumption – that he must “protect” the 35-year-old Messi. Scaloni sought to figure out how to prevent Messi’s passive attitude from affecting his team’s defensive function, and when he found players with the credentials to fill the gap left by Messi’s attitude, the plan began to work.

In the semi-finals, the Croats had the idea of ​​leaving space for Messi to easily connect with the ball, thus asking for it a lot, with the vision of attacking him directly to regain possession and go on the attack immediately. To take advantage of the empty space on Messi’s back. Perhaps Scaloni expected this, which is why he made sure to fill his squad with four midfielders who were ready to run to cover the spaces at the back of Messi. Regularly adapting to the match situations created by Croatian tactics, Argentina are now in the final.

Skaloni He is not the one who invented the “Messidependencia” to attack developmentGive the ball to Messi outside the area and he will make it. But he is certainly the first Argentina coach to succeed in combining the application of this principle of play with the balance of his team in the various stages of the game. In other words, he is the first to find the way and the players who will follow him in this way in order for Argentina to keep Messi resting in the defense phase without “eating” the phases because he defends with one player less. What Louis van Gaal cited as Argentina’s weakness, Scaloni has so far found a way to cover it up without incurring a cost to his team.

For this to happen, it was necessary, among other things, to fill the squad with Messi’s “children”, that is, with footballers who were in their childhood the previous time Messi reached the World Cup final. This is what makes this fairy tale written by the Argentines of Qatar shine even more. The time when he went “with the young” and not with the “old” It seemed as if Messi believed more than ever in his chances of success, and he became the person who attracted the “young people” and led them through the full test. They began to live from the first day because of the accident in the match against Saudi Arabia. What the most experienced coaches and most experienced teammates fail to give him, Messi seems to have found it from a first-time coach and from several footballers who are currently experiencing their first World Cup experience. As long as the “juniors” make him a leader, we’ve never seen him before. For these and perhaps other reasons that will appear later, Messi did not go to Qatar under pressure; He went into the World Cup more relaxed, free-spirited and “sassy” than ever.

If we hadn’t lived in the time of the Five Changes, Scaloni might not have found a way to “protect” Messi without incurring an injury to Argentina. But we said, even now, it seems as if the universe has conspired to have a happy ending in the World Cup, which is Messi’s last dance.