World Cup Day 9: What Leo Messi Is Missing

6/22/2018

Andres Iniesta, left. Lionel Messi, right. Barca teammates, in their respective old ages, are having different World Cups.

The benign man-in-the-moon face of Andrés Iniesta has aged, showing new crevices and patches of gray through our telescope. He has already left Barcelona, to play a stint at Vissel Kobe, which is in Japan, not Catalonia.

He is leaving a calling card in this World Cup, the knack of completing passes and creating goals at the height of competition.

Take a good look at Iniesta, before his lunar orbit takes him across the world.

Iniesta – 5 foot, 7 inches – has been the engine of one of the great clubs of the world, playing a few matches for Barca in 2002-3 and becoming a regular in 2004-5, and also helping make Spain the World Cup champion in 2010, with his goal in the 116th minute, four minutes from the dreaded shootout.

Iconic players do not always win World Cups, even players of great style and imagination. Just a few names off the top of my addled brain: Sócrates, Platini, Baggio. Any given World Cup can be the Last Chance Saloon in the western movies. In that chippy 2010 final, Iniesta stopped passing for a moment and poked a goal past a Dutch keeper.

In a game or five he will bid adios (or adéu, in Catalan) and go to Japan. But first there is this World Cup.

Iniesta helped Spain make 803 passes in its first 90 minutes against Portugal, a draw because of Cristiano Ronald. Iniesta then helped Spain make 789 passes in a victory over Iran. One of those passes found Diego Costa in front of the goal, and with the help of a pinball exchange with a frantic defender, Costa scored. Iniesta then came off early, to rest his 34-year-old body. Spain plays Morocco on Monday.

The best way to appreciate Iniesta is to see what Lionel Messi is not, without him.

Messi is one of the great players of our time, a scoring weapon, who intelligently finds the right spot, or has the right spot find him. However, to appreciate Messi, one must also appreciate the player who was almost always there in his club years at Barca.

Messi first played for Barca in 2004-5 but became a regular in 2006-7. Many of his goals were set up by the tiki-taka style, with its Dutch roots, adopted by Barca and also the Spanish national team.

On the current Argentina team, there is no dark Maradona will to cheat and win, no style, and no Iniesta. Argentina went down hard, 3-0, to Croatia on Thursday. Croatia came out nasty, and Argentina had no answer but to get nasty back.

In all that foot-stomping and spine-jangling, poor Lionel Messi looked lost. His most definitive move all day was bolting off the field and into the runway after the final whistle.

Argentina’s next match is Tuesday against Nigeria. Barring some statistical madness, Argentina and Messi will then be done. He turns 31 on June 24, and this could be it for him in the World Cup.

Lionel Messi will always have Barcelona -- and, dare I say it, Andrés Iniesta.

* * *
A very knowledgeable and layered look at Messi and Argentina, from Rory Smith, the British expert now writing for the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/sports/world-cup/argentina-lionel-messi.html

John McDermott

6/22/2018 11:47:50 am

Another player who makes it possible for Messi to Messi for Barça WAS on the field last night-unfortunately Ivan Rakitić was playing for Croatia and teamed with Luka Modrić to destroy Argentina.

As for truly great players who never won(or in some casess never played in)a World Cup, Holland’s Johan Cruyff tops the list. Northern Ireland’s George Best and Wales Ryan Giggs come to mind. Not to mention twoof the greatest Italians ever-Maldini and Baggio. A young Franco Baresi was a part of the 1982 Italy team which won the World Cup, but did not play.

George Vecsey

6/22/2018 01:14:11 pm

John, totally agree. I like Rakitic, versatile and tough.
I was going to do a riff on Modric goal but don't like to go on too long.
Modric reminds me of Mike Bossy, the sharpshooter on those great NY Islander hockey teams -- plus, Bossy is one of the nicest guys I ever covered. Bossy once shot a goal while flying sideways. A real artist. Modric played two defenders, juked them both, and then fired. One of the great goals.
Those are great lists, who never played in a WC and who never won one.
Did you see Sigurdsson miss a PK late for Iceland? Defender Balugna consoled him, very nice. I looked it up: Sigurdsson is Everton, Balugna is Brighton & Hove. Very collegial touch. GV.

Brian Savin

6/23/2018 08:29:09 am

This seems to be confirming some old farm wisdom in my part of the world: When two oxen have been harnessed together as a team for many years, and one dies, you might as well shoot the other. It will never work well with any other.....

The opening minutes of Belgium/Tunisia this morning looks like something from the NBA!

George Vecsey

6/23/2018 10:52:02 am

Brian, you could also say this is a reminder that the level of football is higher at top of club competition than in national play. That would back up your earlier comments about a lucrative plan for a club world cup. I am against it -- but any team that can recruit strikers, keepers, playmakers, etc.,-- including doubles for two games a week -- is liable to be superior to almost any national team. And style of play more cohesive. Imagine, a Spaniard and an Argentine (and players from other nations) teaming up for Barca, or importing a portuguese star to lead Real madrid. Still not a good reason for diminishing the World Cup....but Iniesta and Messi together was a glorious pairing.,

bruce

6/23/2018 12:09:13 pm

george,

loved those dutch teams of cruyff and neeskens.

could've won the 1974 world cup, but scoring in the first minute or so of the final in west germany vs the home team might've thrown them off their game plan.

think it made them a little more conservative than the might've been otherwise.

not sure if it's right, but always felt that way to me.

the dutch remain my favourite team. i was disappointed in their hacking away vs spain in the 2010 final.

bruce

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

World Cup Day 9: What Leo Messi Is Missing

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