You can be sixfold Golden Ball and have disillusionment in selection. At 34, Lionel Messi is living proof. The Argentine star has yet to win a major title with his national team, apart from the Beijing Olympics, in 2008. He remains on three failures in the Copa America finals (2007, 2015, 2016) and one loss in the final of World Cup against Germany in 2014 in the legendary Maracana stadium, which he will meet again on the night of this Saturday to this Sunday (2 hours French time).
Against Neymar’s Brazil, the opportunity is great for Lionel Messi to defeat the Indian sign by winning the first Copa America of his career. It would be the first for Argentina since 1993 and success in Ecuador. At the time, “La Pulga” was only 6 years old. This is to say if the Albiceleste has been dragging its spleen for too long. Messi would like to end this tournament by exchanging his tears of sadness for tears of joy, he who has won almost everything with Barcelona (35 titles, including four Champions League) and whose news is punctuated by his future in club, while his contract in Catalonia came to an end at the beginning of July.
Four goals in six games for Messi
Messi has still not made it known where he will play next season. But he doesn’t seem disturbed by questions about his future. Since the start of this Copa America, the Argentine captain has shown the way. In six games, he scored four goals, including two direct free kicks, and delivered four assists. He remains the guide of a selection that he hopes to lead to the top, while keeping in mind the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the other major event in the selection. Perhaps his last opportunity to offer his country a World Cup, the supreme title which distinguishes him today from the other legend of Sky and White Diego Maradona, winner of the World Cup in 1986.
The Copa America final could be played this year in a special atmosphere, since part of the Brazilian population wishes to express its anger against the holding of the tournament in the midst of a pandemic… by supporting Argentina! A dispute in the direction of President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of instrumentalizing the success of the Seleção, and which is not to the taste of the other star of the tournament, Neymar.
Two goals and three assists for Neymar
The PSG striker achieves a great Copa America (two goals, three assists). He spoke about it on Instagram: “I have never attacked or will never attack Brazil if they play for something. If Brazil is anywhere, I support Brazil. What Brazilian would do otherwise? Okay, I’ll respect it, but come on… It only serves those who are against it. “
It must be said that for him, as for Messi, an important page of his career could be written in the coming hours. The number 10 and Brazilian captain rose to glory in Rio, in 2016, during the Olympic coronation. He won the Confederations Cup in 2013, but has yet to win either the World Cup or the Copa America. In 2019, he was the big absentee, injured in the ligament of the right ankle.
This time, it is 100% that Neymar presents himself, on a mission, determined to carry Brazil to a second consecutive success in the prestigious Copa America. Messi, obviously, does not hear it that way. With these two, who together made the heyday of Barça, the show promises to be sumptuous. But in the end, there will only be one left.
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