Messidependencia has made it to the World Cup along with the 150,000 Argentinians who have started arriving in the city of Porto Alegre for Wednesday’s match with Nigeria. It is a word that periodically appeared in Catalonia and now it is back again here in Brazil, with Argentina’s manager, Alejandro Sabella, admitting that, yes, his side do have Messidependence.
Two wins secured by two Messi goals after two relatively poor performances have provoked mixed emotions among Argentina fans. Messi, who turned 27 on Tuesday, has now been embraced as never before. But there is concern at the way this team rely on him.
His superbly taken goals were the kind of moments they dreamt of; narrow wins against Bosnia and Iran were not. And Sabella agreed that there must be improvements. But he also admitted that relying on the four-times Ballon d’Or winner is inevitable.
“Whenever there is a player like Messi, there’s a dependence,” he conceded. “We are trying to improve but dependence always exists. We have to try to take the pressure off him between all of us because we are a team. But for a great player there is always pressure at a World Cup.”
Porto Alegre was packed with Argentinians on Tuesday night, with camper vans parked up all the way along the routes to the Estádio Beira-Rio. This is the host city nearest to the Argentina border and they have arrived in huge numbers, chanting Messi’s name. They want to see him play and, asked if he might be tempted to rest Messi with qualification already secured, Sabella said: “No. If he is OK he will play.”
It was not always this way but the Barcelona player has steadily won them over. The days when he did not perform for his country as he did for his club appear to be behind him. “Recently Leo has played very well with the Argentinian national team, just as he had elsewhere,” Sabella said. “He has been decisive in these two games and the fans idolise him. He has earned that and we will try to make sure it stays that way.”
“We have to improve as a group, starting with me,” Sabella continued. “We have to have greater mobility to find space. I am not worried but I am looking for ways of improving collectively. Against Iran we did not lose our balance in the first half [but] the need to win a game to qualify sometimes means you become unbalanced. We will almost certainly play a 4-3-3 but I do not want to give the line-up yet as I want to wait and see how the players recover.”
Messi did not score at the last World Cup, at least in part because of Vincent Enyeama, who denied him with a couple of superb saves when they met in the group four years ago. The Nigeria goalkeeper will stand before him again on Wednesday night.
Here Enyeama insisted: “He is one of the best players on the planet but I am never afraid of football. And this is Nigeria versus Argentina, not me versus Messi.”
