APRIL 2, 2011. Reckoning day for Indian cricket. Inside Yuvraj Singh's hotel room in Mumbai, there was a burning desire to become a world champion. It was the same for Virat Kohli. It was natural to feel that way. All athletes want to become world champions. That day, though, was different. They were also driven by another factor. To make Sachin Tendulkar a world champion. After that final against Sri Lanka, both Kohli and Singh made it pretty clear. The celebrations revealed it as well. Emotion was at the heart of those celebrations. When a team allows emotion to overwhelm itself during a World Cup, it can make or break it.
Over the last 12 years and four World Cups, Argentina's men's football team have allowed emotion to take them to great highs and devastating lows. It took them to a final in 2014. In 2010 and 2018, it wrecked them to a point where it almost finished two of its greatest athletes of all time (Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi). In 2021, it showed the possibilities when they won the Copa America, their first senior football title in 28 years. It was why watching Argentina in tournaments remained a maddening experience for such a long time. There was a lack of tactics, planning and strategy. They were like a team that belonged in the Ted Lasso Universe. It was Vibes Football Club. Trust in Messi. Trust in God.
You saw what the Copa title meant to the players. Sergio Aguero, who featured in that final, had said 'it gave new life to Messi'. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez went further. "From the bottom of my heart, I am happier for him than for me,” he had told El Pais. "I’m Argentinean. What Argentinean didn’t want the best player in history to lift the Cup? And the whole squad understood that. When he was about to lift the Cup, we shouted to him: ‘It’s your day."
When La Albiceleste landed in Qatar, they were one of the favourites to win the title, their first since 1986. There was also a general feeling that Scaloni had rid the team of this emotion. You cannot go on a 30-match unbeaten run with just vibes. Then, their entire world came crashing down. Saudi Arabia took a hammer and demolished Argentina's facade over 60 minutes. Three years of building the said facade, brick by brick, tile by tile, had been blown away in one hour of madness. It was Russia all over again. Or South Africa. Or those numerous Copa Americas the team had lost.
Forget the final. The task had just gotten that bit more difficult. They were now facing five finals to take part in the actual final. To be fair to them, they have won four of those five finals. On Tuesday against Croatia, they face a fifth final.
The interesting bit is the route they have taken to reach this final. It's all been one emotional roller-coaster, a mentally draining experience. Watching 90 minutes of Argentina has been like living through an intense cardio-session. The wild celebrations (it was reported that the players spent an hour inside the dressing room post the Mexico win in the group stage, for instance), the self-doubts after the slightest hint of adversity (Australia having two clear-cut chances to equalise after scoring a freak goal and Netherlands actually dragging them to a shoot-out after looking like a spent force) and losing their calm when calm was what the prescription said.
That even Messi has allowed himself to lose — for so long it was thought nigh on impossible to get under his skin — twice in as many games is suggestive of that.
Against Australia in the Round of 16, Aziz Behich and Messi had an altercation. It saw the former pull the latter's jersey and have an angry eyeball-to-eyeball exchange before the referee separated the pair. Messi scored the opener a few minutes later but he had been largely ineffectual till then. Since that provocation, the skipper was largely unplayable. Against the Netherlands, Messi cranked it up. He probably should have been sent off. His post-match comments and gestures were so un-Messi. He was actively goading the opposition.
That's the thing with becoming emotional. You either use it to scale unbelievable highs or allow it to destroy the team. At some level, Messi is also operating at an elite level driven by the dream of becoming a world champion, knowing full well this is likely his last dance. He has already been responsible for producing two of the standout moments of this edition. The goal against Mexico and the pass to Nahuel Molina, who was outside his periphery, for the opening goal against Netherlands.
He also has the additional responsibility of satisfying the needs of a lot of everyday Argentines who have finally stopped criticising him. For a long time, Messi had become the lightning rod for the reason behind Argentina's long trophy drought. Every theory from 'he just cares for Barcelona to he doesn't sing the national anthem before games' has been put out for more than a decade.
Argentine writer, Marcela Mora y Araujo, wrote about this for The Guardian after the World Cup in Russia. "The dichotomy between club and country is the single most referred-to question thrown my way when it comes to Messi, ever since he sat on the bench as an unused substitute in 2006 (World Cup), sulking while Argentina went out to Germany," she had written. "How come he delivers so much for Barcelona and so little for Argentina? Is it Andrés Iniesta? He doesn’t sing the national anthem was one of the criticisms. And he never played in his own country’s first division.
"A perception has been voiced that somehow he is sometimes a ravenous winner (for Barcelona) and other times a disconnected outsider who does not feel the emotion of the strip (for Argentina)..."
The last few years has helped change that perception (delivering a World Cup will win over the remaining doubters). A recently released Netflix documentary, 'Sean Eternos: Campeones de America', lifted the lid on how much that title meant. One of the most poignant pieces of the documentary features Messi delivering his pre-final dressing room speech before facing Brazil in Brazil. The cliche of treating every match including the final was out of the window. Angel di Maria, in the documentary, said 'Messi lost his mind'. The speech itself was something, especially coming from a player who had portrayed himself to be an introvert.
“Forty-five days where we travelled, ate, were locked up in hotels," he says. "Forty-five days without seeing our families guys. Dibu had a daughter and even though he couldn't see her, he couldn’t hold her in his arms. Chino also had a son and he only got to see him for a little while. All for what? For this moment. Because we had a goal and we are very close to achieving it. And you know what the best of all is? That this depends on us. That’s why we’re going to go out on the pitch, and we’re going to raise the cup. We are going to take it to Argentina to enjoy it with our family and friends and with those who have always supported us. The last thing, with this I finish, there are no coincidences guys. This Cup was going to be played in Argentina but God wanted it to be played in Brazil so that we can win it at the Maracana and make it more beautiful for all of us. So, go out to the pitch confident and calm, we will take this cup home.”
In Qatar, this team has not been calm. Or confident. They have traded in emotion and fervour for calm and confidence.
That naked display of emotion will again be displayed against Croatia. It has helped them in the first four of six finals. It has made this team believe. Will it help them? Or will it be the source of destruction? Only time will tell.
It helped India in 2011. It has largely driven Argentina thus far. They need it for roughly three hours more.