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Messi proves he can play in the middle
This is not an ode to Argentina forward Lionel Messi.
Even the mighty World Wide Web, for all its endless space, contains no more room for another one of those (such as this one).
This is a bit of good news for Argentina. And for its World Cup hopes in particular.
Lionel Messi has been insane -- socceristically, not psychologically -- this season. Twenty-nine goals in 35 games, domination, lots of unprecedented things -- blahblahblah, you know the deal. Good for him. Good for his club, Barcelona, too. Even better for Argentina.
How so?
Messi has been playing much more centrally for Barcelona. This should render him far more effective for Argentina, too. For the last few years, Messi's transcendent Barcelona form hasn't translated to his national team, chiefly because he was deployed in a different position, in a different system. At Barcelona, Messi played on the right wing; for Argentina, he was forced into an unfamiliar behind-the-strikers role.
But in recent weeks, coinciding with an absurd scoring run that saw Messi score eight goals in a single week and 11 in five consecutive games, Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has deviated from his beloved 4-3-3 system, as taught to him by role model and Barcelona savior Johan Cruyff. Instead, he has devised a system that looks more like a single deep striker and three trailing attacking midfielders. While Messi is still technically posted out wide, he has spent much more time in the center of the field.
This is good because it should prepare him to slot right into his Argentina role. This is even better because Argentina was never going to adapt its system to profit Messi, the way Barcelona essentially has of late. Why? Because Argentina coach Diego Maradona, it has become plain to see, knows only one system -- the one he himself was deployed in, as the trailing central attacking midfielder.
The risk of employing formerly great players as coaches who have little or no coaching experience is that they have no recourse other than to replicate what they saw during their own careers. Maradona thus set about the task of finding the 21st-century incarnation of himself. He couldn't find him. So he took the best player available and put him in his own old spot anyway.
Luckily for Maradona -- whose selection policy has been undiscriminating, given that he has included some 100 players on his team in the past 16 months -- Messi seems to have been handed the tools to excel in Argentina's attack, thanks to his reconfiguration at Barcelona.
The 22-year-old Messi has been so good, in fact, that talk of his eclipsing Maradona is gaining traction -- a side effect certain to be self-reinforcing if he plays in the same role as Maradona did for Argentina at the World Cup.
El Diego says he doesn't mind. "I don't like comparisons," Maradona recently told Radio Cooperativa. "But if someone has to surpass me, then let it be an Argentine. If Leo is better, I welcome it." This, of course, is nonsense. Maradona will snicker at all claims that somebody other than him was the best ever. And Maradona adores comparisons, especially to himself. For more than a decade he has been chiming in on who his successor will be, like a dying tyrant looking for a successor, going back and forth between his many sons. In his crass 2000 autobiography "Yo Soy El Diego" (I Am The Diego), he offered up a handful of suggestions. He has since kept up this promiscuous streak, fawning over every half-promising attacker to emerge from his native country.
Messi, understanding his role, is reverential. "Diego is Diego and millions of years can pass and he will still be the greatest in history for me," he told the Associated Press. "I intend to have my career, make my mark and get into the record books with things I have done. I'm not trying to be like Maradona." Good news there.
The freedom that befalls Messi at Barcelona could also be his with Argentina, which would be an astute move by Maradona, letting Messi run amok opposite opposing defenses. "I don't believe in fixed positions, much less with Messi," Maradona said. "He ... should have the freedom to move to be in contact with the ball."
Messi is aware of the discrepancy between his Barcelona and Argentina form. "I know I have had good games [with Argentina], but I'm not at the same level as I am with Barcelona," he said. "I'm going to try to change that. What I want is to perform with that national team as I have with Barcelona."
With his respective roles now aligned, his chances of so doing are better than ever -- meaning, not incidentally, that Argentina's chances at the World Cup are now also better than ever.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at leander.espn@gmail.com.
