It is not often that professional footballers retire from internationals at the peak of their game. When the 29-year-old Lionel Messi, widely reckoned to be the most skilled footballer today, announced after the 2016 Copa America Final against Chile that he would not wear the Argentinian shirt again, he took everyone by surprise. It is not clear if he has made the retirement call in the heat of the moment. It came after Messi failed, yet again, to win a major title with the Argentinian team; he also missed a crucial penalty in the shootout against Chile after efficient but goal-less play in regulation and extra time. In fact, Messi’s overall international record with Argentina has been good, if not spectacular. With him, the team has reached the finals of four important tournaments: the World Cup in 2014 and the Copa America in 2007, 2015 and 2016. His presence has been crucial for Argentina in all these tournaments. He is the highest goal-scorer ever for Argentina, surpassing Gabriel Batistuta, with 55 goals in 113 appearances. Yet, the reasons for Messi’s frustration are evident. His legacy is often compared with that of Diego Maradona and Pele, but his success at the international level does not match their records.
Indeed, it has been Messi’s unique burden — and a heavy one — that his relative lack of international success is often projected against his stupendous record as a club footballer. As the highest goal-scorer and chief playmaker for FC Barcelona, he has been crucial to the team’s four UEFA Champions League victories and eight La Liga titles, marking the club’s most proficient spell of winning both in Europe and in Spain. FC Barcelona’s talent pool has been wider and the team’s technical superiority has been honed over two decades, with Messi himself being a product of the club’s youth system. Argentina did not manage to consistently field a squad that complemented Messi’s unique talents as much as his club did. To his credit, he has played at different positions for his country and fulfilled various tactical roles — as a winger, forward and more recently as an midfield playmaker, the “enganche” — and performed them well. But with teams employing defensive and hard-nosed measures to curtail Messi — as Chile did in the Copa finals — it was left to his playmaking and his team-mates’ abilities to lift the squad. This has been much easier with FC Barcelona with its full complement of skilled footballers than with Argentina in the last decade.
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