One can make the case that never in the history of football has a player had the amount of pressure that Lio Messi has on his shoulders right now.
It's hard to say that it's easy for a 22-year-old to not only start to come into his peak years, but also be at the verge of reaching Mount Olympus status and at the same time carry the fears, angst, and hopes and dreams of a football-rabid nation on his shoulders. He is the barren of all 40 million Argentines' hopes of this World Cup being the place where they end 24 years of heartbreaking exits for the Albiceleste.
In Argentina, the expectations of what Lio Messi can do and has to do are in some cases disproportionate. He can dominate a game; I really don't have to go into specifics on that one as his body of work says more than any amalgamation of words that I can conjure up.
Not even Pelé and Maradona had such a high degree of expectations that they had to deal with in their respective virtuoso performances of 1970 and 1986. Maradona wasn't expected to win the World Cup by himself. In the end, it seemed like he did. Now his performance in 1990 on a gimpy ankle -- that could rival what Messi has to go through with the always-demanding, yet fickle Argentine fan.
Okay. Messi's teammates might be better than Diego's supporting cast, especially up front; at the same time they will probably never reach the level of Rivelino, Tostão, Jairzinho, and the rest of that cast of Pelé's great Canarinha side.
The big question mark in all of this is how he will fit in with the team -- or, better yet, how the team will fit with him. This is the biggest question mark. Where is he going to play? Where is he going to have to move towards? How will his teammates move around? Will his teammates clean up areas for him?
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Juan will be covering Argentina's World Cup run on Simply Futbol