It's time for James Rodriguez and Lionel Messi to shine, but Radamel Falcao should be dropped

Jose Pekerman couldn’t put it any simpler, as he prepares for what is probably the most difficult challenge in world football tonight. “Leo Messi is the question that everyone asks themselves when playing against Argentina or Barcelona,” the Colombia coach said, on the eve of his side’s Copa America quarter-final with the competition favourites.

That may be the case in the vast majority of matches, but it is not quite the case in this one. There are other questions that are right now more pressing, and may more profoundly condition this game. One of them, in fact, has been repeatedly posed to Pekerman himself: will he finally drop Radamel Falcao?

It is the issue that has defined Colombia’s entire tournament, and meant it has been nowhere near as thrilling as their 2014 World Cup. Although Falcao himself has been nowhere near his best form, Pekerman is one of the few people convinced he can recover it. That would be someway admirable, except for the profound effect that faith has on the rest of the team.

As became so apparent in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers before the unfortunate cruciate injury that effectively created these issues, Falcao cannot play as a lone striker. Incorporating him has required Colombia to deviate from the 4-2-3-1 that proved so devastating in the World Cup.

That in turn has removed James Rodriguez from where he is most dangerous, right in the centre controlling things, and also removed the pace and purpose from Colombia’s game. Because of Falcao’s presence - and the theory that Pekerman doesn’t really rate Jackson Martinez in the way so many others do - the side don’t have attackers running off James’ brilliance in the way they did last summer.

It is no surprise that Colombia immediately improved when they took off Falcao against both Brazil and Peru. It is a surprise that hasn’t affected Pekerman’s thinking. All indications are he retains absolute faith in the striker. As such, we may have to wait to see James at his most sensational. That, however, gives rise to the other grand question about this match.

For all the fair expectation that James and Messi would dominate and decide this Copa America, that hasn’t been the case either. The No. 10s have been far from perfect. Yet, if Pekerman’s solution to that should at least be obvious, Argentina’s is not. Manager Gerardo Martino might have imposed the type of rigidity he was also guilty of at Barcelona, but the struggle for the team to strike a balance between sufficient defensive protection and maximising that attack is a long-running one.

It was the central dilemma of their run to the World Cup final and there was always a sense that Argentina were only just about holding it together. Javier Mascherano so bluntly talking about how he almost “opened his anus” with a last-minute challenge in the semi-final against the Netherlands only emphasised this.

Of course, there is one grand difference with Brazil 2014. Good as Messi was in that tournament, it was all still rather minimalist, as if his fitness problems dictated that he had to pragmatically decide when to try and apply his brilliance.

That has not been the case in the intervening 12 months. We have seen Messi at maximum level, dominating every aspect of play in blurs of energy, but we have not yet quite seen it at the Copa America.

The wonder is whether he has been holding himself back after a long club campaign so he can properly explode in the latter stages of the Copa America, or whether it is something deeper with Martino’s system. It is by now well known that Messi sees this tournament as a personal mission, that he couldn’t sleep after the side let a 2-0 lead slip against Paraguay, and spent most of the night pacing up and down.

If he manages to distil that drive for the first really consequential game of the competition, then the system is probably irrelevant. The irony, however, is that is the Messi question is one that Pekerman may well have at least a potential answer to.

The last time Colombia faced Argentina, back in 2013, their coach put Alexander Mejia directly on Messi and it brought a battling 0-0 draw. Now, Carlos Sanchez is suspended, and there is only one man to replace him: Mejia.

It would be oddly in-keeping with these teams' Copas if the stand-in defensive midfielder became the stand-out player. The feeling, however, is that it can't stay like that. It's time for the stars to pose some big questions of their own.