WORLD CUPS as the defining moment
I've seen a lot of arguing over whether it is right for World Cup performances to be rated so highly. To some it's the biggest stage, others argue it's a few games every four years and lots of things (injuries, luck, etc.) are bound to have too much of an impact so the CL is a better indicator. The truth is somewhere in between.
The greatest quality the World Cup had was that the World's best players got together for a couple of months to play out of their comfort zone, sometimes in sides not drilled any better than a pub side. I know, I exaggerate, but it was an exceptional lab test.
Club sides are shaped over years, buying in or developing the missing pieces, drilling a certain playing style, permeating everything with a certain philosophy... Real talent shines brightly, but it is not that easy to tell how much comes from the player and how much comes from the team and the system they play in.
Continental competitions share some of the qualities of the World Cup but they are rarely melting pots allowing you to compare and contrast different styles and philosophies. Back when South Americans were largely stuck in South America and most European players actually played only in their domestic leagues for different club sides, the World Cup was an orgasmic experience that always promised to redefine conventional wisdom and tell the true greats from those who were very good in specific scenarios.
Of course, there have been national sides which relied heavily on a club spine and they generally did well. You can't underestimate the importance of Uruguay's forwards in 1950 playing from memory and being galvanised in the face of adversity, having faced it before successfully at Peñarol. The Magic Magyars were largely Honved. Holland and Ajax's total football... the list goes on all the way to Spain being Barca minus Messi but adding token Real quality.
These days the international calendar is busier, there are international breaks, a set number of days for players to travel and get drilled, penalties on clubs not releasing players, less stylistic differences as a result of the top players being moulded into "modern sides" in top leagues... The more successful nations even set a blueprint for their playing style and philosophy and stick to it from youth teams all the way to the senior side so that players are drilled and slot into it at ease. The quality on show in terms of drilled tactics is superior, but the result is cagey and somewhat boring. To some degree what made the World Cup a great testing ground is gone.
Gone are the days of true unadultered genius. When Pelé got called up to go to Sweden some of the Rio-based players had no idea who he was and had never seen him play. Both him and Garrincha were subs to begin with. Brazil was still scarred and suffering from stage freight and were very poor in the group stage, so halfway through the tournament the manager throws all his plans to the wind, goes "feck it" and plays those two.
A 17-year-old Pelé went on to score the only goal in the quarters, a hat-trick in the semi and a brace in the final. That is legendary stuff that will never get replicated but was an unquestionable true sign of greatness. In '62 Pelé gets injured halfway through, so Garrincha decides he should stop fecking about embarrassing defenders on the wing, stand up and be counted... Greatness. England in '66 was not West Ham, you would struggle to find a World Cup winning side with such an array of talent from different club sides, but their key men made it work even better than the sum of its parts. Greatness. Brazil in 70 just couldn't separate their No.10s so they played FIVE of them, the sort of thing Diego would try with Argentina, and they were so phenomenal that they made it glorious.
1986 to me was the last great World Cup, 1990 had drama, but 1986 was the last time you could sense and see one man on a mission blowing everyone and everything out of the water. Baggio was the last romantic attempt, but ultimately failed and that got erased from the realm of World Cup possibilities until Forlán in 2010, simply because Uruguay had no other credible way to get anywhere but with a performance like that one. But I seriously doubt a top country will ever have someone doing that again, it would be bad planning and the oppo would not be caught off guard.
So no, I don't expect nor demand Messi wins a World Cup ala Maradona. The truth is, that would be near impossible these days, there simply isn't an arena/competition out there where a player can single-handedly stick out like a sore thumb the way Maradona and Pelé did in the old World Cups regardless of what the rest of the team were doing.
I do expect him to at least have a Zidane '06 performance in a non-Barca setting, leave his mark in the knockout stages, rise above those around him, take games by the scruff of the neck, turn a game in the face of adversity and avoid headbutting anyone... It's not too much to ask but if he doesn't deliver it... Well, quite frankly, he wouldn't deserve to be up there. He has had loads of opportunities and will have many more ahead, there's no excuse. Yes, he is still young, but that didn't stop Pelé in '58, did it?
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