Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi: Twin legacies, linked but different

ICONS: Coach Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi during the 2010 World Cup. (AFP Photo) The greatest triumphs sometimes follow the greatest lows. Ten years ago, 29-year-old Lionel Messi – with eight La Liga titles, four Champions Leagues and five of eight Ballon d’Or awards under his belt at the time while playing for Barcelona – decided he was done with the pain.“It’s up to me, that’s it. I tried so hard, but it just doesn’t work,” announced Messi, devastated and his psyche shaken when ‘the end’ came with a missed penalty in the Copa America final defeat to Chile in New Jersey, extending his personal woes to four final defeats with the national team — at the 2014 World Cup in 2007 and now three in the 2007 World Cup against Germany 2016). “It hurts not to be the champion of Argentina,” he let everyone know his frustration, his face betraying the melancholy of a tortured soul.The world received the news with shock and awe, with some dubbing it “Mexit” and many urging him to stay as social media was immediately flooded with the hashtags #NoTeVayasMessi and #QuedateMessi. Diego Maradona also supported his protégé, urging him to “fight against all those who abandoned him”.When La Albiceleste assembled for World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela two months later, he was back in the mix, saying he loved Argentina “too much” to stay away from the team. The rest, as they say, is history. Finally, in 2022 – crowned with peace of mind in the colors of La Albiceleste – he won between two Copa America titles (in 2021 and 2024), and the legend of Messi was born in his birthplace of Rosario, elsewhere in Argentina and around the world.Yet the burden of being Messi in Argentina’s psyche has always been complicated and delicate. His fate has remained linked to Maradona ever since the boy from Rosario decided to move away from Argentina and carve out his legacy as a Barcelona player. The result is a rich portrait of the union of two world champion winners, always revolving around the axis of their own fragility. With England re-emerging on Argentina’s horizon at the World Cup, the question remains: What can Messi and his Maradona legacy be?When the two nations met four decades ago, it sent seismic waves through world football as the game, national identity and the lingering shadow of war converged in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup at the Azteca Stadium. It was a match in which Maradona’s magnum opus was played with every bit of Argentine charm and mischief. The ‘Hand of God’ goal was laced with deception, bringing to the fore the rivalry and prevailing mistrust between the two teams four years after the Falklands War. Maradona’s second came as a moment of catharsis.Yet the 1986 quarter-final may not be as wild and emotionally turbulent as Messi, born three years after the Falklands War, is willing to endure on the way to fulfilling his destiny in Lusail in 2022.Messi’s march towards becoming the master of his legacy is largely devoid of the Maradona paradox, and so he might be more at ease in reconstructing the second spell of his mentor’s Aztec magic.It is true that the second semi-final at the Atlanta Stadium now does not follow any tangible Malvinas concept, but it comes with its own tangible psychological space. It’s “special” for Messi as it’s his first game against England, giving us a glimpse of how a generation hasn’t seen La Albiceleste cross swords with the Three Lions since 1986.For Argentines, Maradona will always be a rebel and a redeemer. Unknown and accidental manager Lionel Scaloni inherited a team in a state of evolution after the 2018 World Cup and got Messi to break free from his ‘savior’ complex and unleash a whole new set of players with hunger and a prevailing we-play-for-Messi mentality. The other day, Leandro Parades said: “We also play for him because we don’t want the day to come when it will be his last game with us.”Pablo Aimar, Scaloni’s assistant, was also hailed as the next great No. 10 after Maradona and failed to get the nation over the line.Together they suffered and made Argentina great again. Maybe in a slightly un-Maradona way.