By Concepcion M. Moreno
Buenos Aires (EFE).- Before being booed by the fans of Paris Saint-Germain, he was booed in Argentina; prior to the idolatry in the country he loved, there was that of the fans of FC Barcelona. And, after being compared ad nauseam with Diego Armando Maradona, on December 18, 2022 he was finally able to get that ‘backpack’ off of him.
After ‘O Rei’ Pelé and ‘Dios’ Maradona, football has a ‘Messiah’ in the figure of the captain of the Argentine team, Lionel Messi. That is the starting point of “Messianico”, an “unauthorized biography”, as explained by his co-author, the journalist Sebastián Fest.
In an interview with EFE in Buenos Aires next to one of the murals dedicated to the 7-time Ballon d’Or that began to proliferate after the Albiceleste won the World Cup in Qatar 2022, Fest ends the sterile debate about who is the best of the story and summarizes: “Di Stefano, Maradona, Messi… What a privilege for Argentina!”.
a book with history
“Messianico” (Sudamericana, 2022), published last week in Spain and this week in Argentina, is an investigative book written between Fest and the French journalist Alexandre Juillard and whose idea began in 2011, when the winner of 5 Leagues, 3 Champions Leagues, a Super Cup and a Club World Cup with Barcelona was whistled when he played for Argentina.
“That was unthinkable,” explains this journalist who has spent half of his 30-year career in Spain -he is currently a correspondent for El Mundo for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay- and verified, through his work in Barcelona, the love of Barcelona fans for Messi.
The first version of the book -in French and later in Spanish- was published between 2012 and 2014 in France, Spain and Latin America, and was later translated into Italian, Hungarian and Czech; the French edition was updated in 2021 and the achievement of the World Cup in December was the kickoff for this reissue.
The role of his family, the physical difficulties, the intricacies of his career, the most influential characters in his environment and his leadership in the ‘Scaloneta’ after the disappointment of the Maracaná in 2014, are some noteworthy episodes.
The authors were unable to interview the footballer, so they prefer to speak of an “unauthorized biography”, but they do speak of a large part of his intimate family and professional circle.
‘D10S’ and the ‘messiah’
Possessing extraordinary talent for playing football, Messi and Maradona will go down in history for wearing the ’10’ on their backs and leading the Albiceleste to a world title: ‘D10S’ and the ‘Messías’.
Regarding those who always saw the man from Rosario as “Maradona’s successor” or made comparisons between them, Fest believes that “at the time of Messi’s explosion, Argentina was still very ‘sick’ with maradonitis.”
“Messi couldn’t be Messi, he always had to be compared to Maradona. Messi was from Maradona. What has happened now is that Messi is from Messi, that Maradona is Maradona, great, with all his enormously positive aspects and the criticizable aspects of him, and that Messi is Messi, ”he indicates.
The also collaborator of Infobae, Forbes and Bild asserts that “el Pelusa” is “someone who took Argentine soccer to incredible levels of soccer and passion and adoration” and that it was “for many years Argentina” for those who traveled through the world and were recognized as their compatriots.
However, he points out enormous differences between them, such as Maradona’s verbiage compared to Messi’s silences, or the “level of aggressiveness and confrontation” of ‘Diego’, which led countries like Brazil to support Argentina in Qatar.
“That desire for Argentina to win the World Cup was the desire for Messi’s Argentina to win. The Argentina of Maradona would have been different, ”he specifies.
And after the third?
For Fest, the triumph of the ‘Scaloneta’ in Qatar, Argentina’s third world title, after those of 1978 and 1986, as well as “a debate solver for all time”, was “a nice synthesis of things that Argentina can do very well” in the midst of the current socioeconomic crisis in the South American country.
“It’s a team that transmits joy, that transmits something positive about us”, points out the author, who adds that “the title in Qatar would not have been possible without Messi, for sure, but surely Messi would not have been able to win without that support and those players I had.
In his opinion, unless an injury prevents it, ‘la Pulga’ is going to play in the 2026 World Cup and points out, at a time of ‘divorce’ at PSG, a possible future at Inter Miami or at Newell’s, his club of origin , although he believes that he should go to the English Premier League because “he would have fun there and he deserves to have fun in this final stretch.”