Sports have an exquisite way of creating a dialogue between people, and the most popular conversations are comparing the legacies of athletes. In basketball, you have Jordan vs. Kobe vs. LeBron. In baseball, it is Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw vs. any of the greats from the past. In soccer, it is Lionel Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo vs. any of the greats from the past. One thing everyone can agree on though is that we are seeing two of the top-five soccer players of all time in the same generation in Messi and Ronaldo.
Messi vs. Ronaldo has been the most famous debate in sports for almost ten years now, because soccer is the biggest sport in the world, the duo has been unquestionably the two best at it during the span, and they play in the same league for the sport’s biggest rivals in Barcelona (Messi) and Real Madrid (Ronaldo). You cannot go wrong with either because they have both put up video-game-like numbers for their clubs while leading them to countless prestigious trophies and cementing their legacies for their clubs.
But where Ronaldo has the upper hand is in international play, perhaps giving him the better career as a whole. Messi, on the other hand, has not had the success with Argentina as you would expect from a player of his caliber. His statistics are there, involved in 105 goals in his 128 appearances (65 goals, 40 assists), but still a far cry from the numbers he is putting up for Barcelona or Ronaldo’s for Portugal.
But the main thing people will look at is the number of trophies he has won with Argentina: zero. And with Argentina’s loss to France, that goose egg remains, and his legacy perhaps took a hit, depending on who you talk to.
What people do not realize is that legacy is not singularly tied to talent. In fact, it has more to do with your resume that ties to team success. “How will you be judged when you retire?” Since winning is the name of the game, people will always look at how much you won over anything else. Thus, legacies, in truthfulness, are unfair because they are out-of-context views due to them being based on one criterion while lightly weighing in others.
You can be the most talented player ever and put up the best stats, but if you never win, your legacy will be “great player that could never win,” even if you did not have the requisite support that other great players had. It is entirely unfair, but the territory that comes with being arguably the best player ever.
Argentina is in a 25-year title drought, and all heads will inevitably continue to turn to Messi, fair or not because that is the treatment the great ones get. You are expected to win no matter what, and when you fail to deliver, you get scrutinized like no other.
It still happens to LeBron James, after winning three NBA championships, so it will naturally occur to someone who has not won yet. Messi has been compared to Diego Maradona, Argentina’s Messi before Lionel Messi came along, for his entire career. And while he may be the better player, Maradona has done something the Barcelona man has not: win a World Cup.
That is why many people prefer Maradona, even though he was not as talented. Never mind that Messi is better. “Maradona is ‘the better winner’” is the argument. And it will probably remain that way.
Messi has played in two international finals (World Cup and Copa America) and is 0-2. You can excuse him for the World Cup loss because he was playing against the best team in the world. But the Copa America loss is partially on him because he failed to deliver during both during the first 120 minutes and penalty kicks.
And 2018’s World Cup did not go as planned for pre-tournament favorites Argentina. They tied against lowly Iceland in their opener and were humiliated 3-0 against Croatia. They needed a late goal to beat Nigeria, and their defense was exposed against France, and again, everyone is looking at Messi, even though it was not all his fault.
The Argentinean does deserve some criticism though, because he was ineffective for most of the games, scoring just once and assisting twice. Unlike what a lot of people like to believe, he has support in Argentina, especially on attack. The country has countless world-class players such as Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero, Pablo Dybala, Javier Mascherano, and Angel Di Maria.
He has talent around him, so he needs to do a better job of making himself more effective no matter where he plays. And Messi missed the go-ahead penalty against Iceland, which he was ridiculed for, and still is. Playing devil’s advocate, however, Argentina’s defense was atrocious against France. They were slow, tactically mismatched, and had their miscommunications. But the back four has nothing to do with his play.
He is also criticized for not showing the passion athletes display when representing their nation. And at first glance, the argument is legitimate. His facial expressions and shoulder-sulking during the first two games make him look uninterested in playing. Instead, it appears that playing for Argentina is an obligation and burden for him, and he would rather play for Barcelona only. But that may be a mistaken assumption as well.
He carries the weight of an entire nation on his back along with sky-high expectations. He has been compared to Maradona his entire career, and when he does not deliver, the scrutiny and pressure are endless. According to his mother, it is excruciating for him because of how much he wants to deliver for his home country but cannot.
With Argentina’s early exit, you can only imagine all the criticism he will receive. Messi’s legacy could potentially take a substantial hit because this may most likely be his last World Cup, and to go out in this fashion is disappointing and will leave a stain on a remarkable career.
And the two guys he has been compared to his entire life, Maradona and Ronaldo, will always have the upper hand for international play. Ronaldo has 85 goals for Portugal (second most internationally for anyone) with 68 of them (80%) coming in competitive matches. 35 of Messi’s international goals (54%) have come in competitive play. And Ronaldo led Portugal to the 2016 Euro Cup title, which people consider the second most prestigious award at the international level.
So, Lionel Messi can collect all the accolades for Barcelona that he wants, but the goose egg in the trophy column for Argentina will almost outweigh all the success he has had and will prevent him from being considered the GOAT. Fair or unfair, that is how legacies work.
Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons
