Time for Messi to silence the sceptics

Posted Saturday, July 02, 2011 by timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Argentina's Lionel Messi smiles during their practice session at the squad's camp, ahead of the Copa America soccer tournament, in Buenos Aires.

NEW DELHI: What if one of these days, riding a wave of Polish nationalism, a section of critics starts pulling down Joseph Conrad? Born in an affluent Polish family in Kiev and learning to speak the English language fluently only in his twenties, Conrad won the Nobel Prize in literature writing in English.

The sane world will rubbish the detractors as foolish.

What if a 13-year old boy leaves Argentina, spends the next 10 years in Spain, learns the art of playing football at La Masia and wins all the silverware that club competition has to offer but is yet to achieve the highest honour in his national colours?

There are voices of unreasonable dissent at Lionel Messi's lack of embellishments in the blue-and-white stripes. And as Messi leads Argentina's charge at the Copa America at home, the world focus will be on the diminutive Barcelona winger.

Just to refresh the memory, Messi won the youth World Cup and the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics for Argentina.

On the eve of Argentina's lung-opener against Bolivia in La Plata, their 1978 World Cup-winning hero Mario Kempes fires a salvo: "Leo has a debt to pay for Argentina. In a Barcelona shirt he shows he can be the best player in the world but we haven't seen that for Argentina."

With Barcelona, Messi has collected five La Liga titles and three Champions League winner's medals. The World Player of the Year was also not spared by his idol Diego Maradona. At one stage, after Messi had spurred Barcelona to six trophies in 2009, Maradona said, "he plays for himself."

Talking about success with a club, Maradona, in his career, won two Italian League titles with Napoli and one UEFA Cup. The Atomic Flea is yet to be 25 and is only one World Cup old.

Even though the World Cup is considered to be the Holy Grail, technically, a Champions League may be considered a tougher title to win because of the sheer quality of talent that comes into play.

Copa, the pride of the Latin Americans, offers Messi an opportunity to snuff out the barbs about his Argentine failures. If Messi must emulate Diego, the Sergio Batista has to do a Bilardo - a system that favours Messi's game.

Messi has vowed to win everything for Argentina. There are sceptics to win over and this Copa may just make Barcelona's Messi an avowed Argentine.

Even if he fails, who cares. The Johann Cruyff's or the Joseph Conrad's have their sacrosanct places in the pantheon. And so does another of Argentina's favourite sons, Ernesto Che Guevara. Conrad now rests in Canterbury, far from Kiev or Warsaw.