For ten years, Argentine football was haunted by a simple and singule question: where best to play Lionel Messi in the national team? The diminutive Argentine is a winger, a playmaker, a striker and a false number nine. He shapes the team around him, often sculpting and moulding FC Barcelona with regal zest, playing football the modern way – with pace and precision.
Yet a legion of coaches and football thinkers – Alfio Basile, Jose Pekerman, Diego Maradona, Sergio Batista, Alex Sabella and Gerardo Martino – could never manage to extract Messi’s genius for the national team. But today, the query for the Albiceleste is very different: what do they do without Lionel Messi?
The conundrum adds intrigue to Argentina’s Olympic football campaign. In general, Olympic football has little importance, but South Americans bestow it with an end-all significance that stems from a historical, economic and social inferiority complex when faced against Europeans. The Olympic tournament represents the chance to defeat the Old Continent, a theme continuously repeated in the manic coverage in the Brazilian and Argentine media.
A bit of a mockery
Yet, in all, the tournament is a bit of a mockery, without a streamlined qualification process and without coherent squads. The law of 23 was the accepted compromise for the tournament. The calendar doesn’t allow for another full-fledged international competition that, in turn, would prove an alternative World Cup. The three over-aged players guarantee a good box office. Argentina, together with Colombia, South America’s representative at the tournament, won the right to participate at the...
Continue Reading