Jun 20, 2024, 06:13
“The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.”
He June 26, 2016 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Lionel Messi fell to the ground. And, what is worse, he saw himself there, broken and troubled after the ignominious defeat. He felt that destiny, which is Creole, just and avenging, would forever deny him what he most desired. For once, the man capable of anything suffered. Because he clearly saw his own limits.
At the same time a simultaneous and indivisible event occurred. A new Lionel Messi took his first kick. The first shot at the bow of a reborn man. The lighting was imperceptible at the time, but today it is very clear. It has been illuminated by the metal of the trophies. Because There, on American soil, the American champion was born. The intercontinental champion. The champion of the world. The taste of the earth, as if it were a magic potion, turned the sad fallen gladiator into a victorious hero.
Bruce Springsteen released their most emblematic album in June 1984, exactly 40 years ago. When Born in the USA (Born in the United States) arrived at the punts, Messi was not yet born. It reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 list, but its success exceeds that modest numerical recognition. Because the album became an identity feature of the American people. The song that gives it its name is a patriotic anthem and also a protest song. It is the cry of a man who fights. And from that fight, he grows.
Messi fought. And he grew up. Perhaps he did it without realizing it, as if it were the only possible way forward. His story in the Argentine National Team is the journey of the hero. A journey full of obstacles and enemies, like Theseus’s journey to Athens. A very different journey from the one he had in Barcelona, where the inertia of victories pushed him to glory and his enormous talent was just one more of the engines of the super team led by Josep Guardiola. In his country’s team he needed more. He needed blood and dirt.
Lionel Messi, the United States and his American dream
In The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald makes a great critique of the myth of the American dream. Through the adventures of young Jay, Fitzgerald warns about the contradictions and risks of a belief that, despite perhaps being stillborn, marked the lives of generations of Americans. Equal opportunities to achieve, through one’s own virtues and merits, the stated objective… whatever its nature. Because there are no limits for (American) dreamers.
Like Fitzgerald, in his most iconic song, Springsteen also questions that idea (“There’s nowhere to run, there’s nowhere to go”). Soccer, born in British suburbs and taken to its maximum expression in the most plebeian South America, has little to do with North American idiosyncrasy. However, one of the greatest players of all time has forged a transcendent spiritual relationship with the country organizing the 2024 Copa América and the 2026 World Cup. He did fulfill the American dream. Or, better, the Argentine dream.
Messi suffered his worst defeat with the Argentina shirt in the final of the Copa América Centenario. Against Chile in the suburbs of New Jersey, the ten missed a penalty in the definition and minutes later he resigned from the team. “That’s it, I tried a lot. It’s incredible but it doesn’t happen. It hurts me more than anyone not to be able to be champion with Argentina, but that’s how it is. The national team is over for me,” he said with his heart in his hand, boiling.
He was only 29 years old and had too many frustrations on his back. Four defeats in international finals; three in consecutive years. But the failure in the warm New Jersey night hit him like no other. He broke it down. And at the same time gave him a chance. An offering, perhaps the most valuable that exists. She gave him the chance for redemption. Messi in New Jersey suffered and also saw something. He knew something. He felt, among all the sorrow and all the sadness, a small warmth in his chest that was the seed of the new man.
Messi was only a few months away from the Argentine National Team. And he came back stronger, proudly displaying his scars. As someone else did before, as Argentinian as him. Like Martín Fierro. “I will never give myself over to the arms of death; I carry my sad fate step by step and as best I can, because where the weak remain, evil usually escapes.”
Messi dragged on his sad luck for too long. It took him a long time to win his first international title. After the runner-up finish in 2016, he experienced all kinds of torment in Russia 2018 and Brazil 2019. Then the pandemic hit and between masks and empty stadiums, he finally achieved what he had seen in the midst of tears in New Jersey.
The story of the world champion captain in the United States began in 2006, when at 19 years old he traveled to one of his first preseasons with Barcelona’s main squad. A little later, in June 2008, he played there for the first time with the light blue and white jersey. He scored a goal and provided an assist in the 4-1 rout of Mexico in San Diego. It was his first great performance in that land. Just the first one.
With the Argentine ten, Messi played 16 games in the United States, with 12 wins and 4 draws. They never lost in the ninety minutes, but that defeat on penalties after 0-0 against Chile weighs much more. He had outstanding games, like that of his hat trick in the historic 4-3 win over Brazil, also in New Jersey. Or the 7-0 against Bolivia with a double in Houston. Or the extraordinary campaign in the Copa América Centenario, in which he scored 5 goals and gave 4 assists in 5 games. He always felt comfortable in the imposing NFL stadiumsas if the bombast of the stage were the most appropriate for his genius.
After becoming world champion, at the age of 35, he decided to change his life and left European football forever. So, He chose to beautify the MLS with his left foot, that tournament imagined in the late nineties as an attempt to bring the most popular game on the planet to every corner of the United States. The work went well, because today it is a respectable league that made a great contribution to the development of sports in the nation. And the talent of the best footballer of the century looks proud.
Like Springsteen, Messi was born in the United States. The champion Messi emerged there, in the same place where the final of this Copa América will be played. Under that sky, sobbing and tired red eyes transformed into the eyes of the tiger. The hesitant look of the defeated was replaced by the confident look of the inevitable winner.
