Lionel Messi has been the focal point for Barcelona’s success for well over a decade
now.
He’s also Argentina’s all-time leading goal-scorer, but while Barcelona have successfully
crafted side that maximise the Argentina forward’s abilities, his national side seem overly reliant
on him and, when Messi misfires, so do they.
Jorge Sampaoli’s predecessor in the Argentina dug-out, Tata Martino, managed Barcelona before
taking the reins.
While his Barcelona tenure was considered a failure, as the Catalans ceded La Liga on
the final day of the season and only won the Spanish Super Cup, the boss worked well with
Messi and it stood him in good stead when moving to manage the Albiceleste, using Messi
effectively on the right hand side of a three man front line.
Jorge Sampaoli has so far failed to replicate this consistently.
At Barcelona this season, Messi has once again excelled.
Ernesto Valverde has played a 4-4-2 based on controlling possession and pressing.
Young French winger Ousmane Dembele has started on the right, while Messi has played as a
right-sided centre forward who drops off into space to collect passes from Sergio Busquets,
Ivan Rakatic, and Andres Iniesta, who tucks inside.
In this 4-4-2, Dembele can and does push up and in, joining Luis Suarez up front, while
Messi swaps and drops off in space centrally or on the right-hand side.
This forces defences to react to the chopping and changing, rather than working against
a positionally static set-up, which can make the defence lack cohesion as they do not know
who to pick up and where to go.
This ideally sets Messi up one v one against the opposition full back, or running into
space if the full back mistakenly tracks Demebele cutting inside.
When Messi drop off centrally, as Iniesta pushes up and in with Jordi Alba overlapping,
he does not need to drop too deep.
Rakitic also pushes up, while Busquets’ superb range of passing means that Messi can
be found just off the defence, between the lines, rather than having to come all the
way back to his own midfield line to collect the ball and then drive forwards.
For Argentina, Messi has been playing as a 10 in a 4-2-3-1 off Sergio Aguero, with Maximiliano
Meza to his right and Angel di Maria to his left.
It’s worth noting that Meza had to step in to the role at very short notice; Manuel
Lanzini of West Ham had been playing in that position and had worked on his interactions
with Messi, but was forced to withdraw on the eve of the tournament due to injury, which
hampered Meza’s ability to fit neatly into the space vacated by the West Ham player.
Meza is supposed to cut inside, but often when he does he then stays static so that
even if Savio overlaps from right back, he is close to Messi and not moving off him or
creating issues for defenders.
In addition, Meza and Messi do not yet have an understanding of when one should cut in
and the other go wide, such as Messi and Dembele do at club level.
But to lay the blame for Messi stuttering at Meza’s door is unfair.
It’s noticeable how deep Messi often had to drop against Iceland to receive the ball,
playing almost more as an eight than as a ten, as Javier Mascherano and Lucas Biglia
offered almost nothing in terms of progressive passing or movement.
This, in turn, isolated Meza so that he was forced to drop off himself, or push inside
to offer a vertical passing option to Messi, which meant Savio had a huge distance to move
up to create an overlap and stop Argentina clustering far too much in the central column
of the pitch.
Argentina have a few options to make changes and get more from their talisman.
A shift to three at the back would allow a more natural progression on the overlap for
Messi to play with, while also ensuring that at least one midfielder could push up and
link the 10 to the two deeper players.
Alternatively, Savio could move to play as a more orthodox wide man, with Gabriel Mercado
playing right back, which would again give Argentina more width; though this would not
solve the issue of Messi having to drop off to collect the ball, unless a more attack-minded
midfielder is played centrally.
Argentina and Messi should improve, and one cannot underplay the efforts of Iceland in
being obdurate and tough to play against.
Nonetheless, it’s still hard to shake off the feeling that Jorge Sampaoli does not know
how to get the best from his star man or set up the team around him yet, and Argentina,
for all their quality, could pay the price.