It took Lionel Messi 28 years to get around to playing a competitive game in the U.S. It was worth waiting for.
After sitting out Argentina’s first game in the Copa America Centenario, Messi entered the second match, against Panama, as a second-half substitute, then scored three goals and assisted on a fourth in just 29 minutes.
“Messi,” Panama Coach Hernan Dario Gomez said with equal parts awe and respect, “is a monster.”
All of which raises one big question heading into the final day of group play Tuesday: What will Messi do for an encore when Argentina, the world’s top-ranked team, plays win-less Bolivia, at No. 82 the lowest-rated team in the tournament, in Seattle (FS1, Unimas, UDN, 7 p.m.)?
If you believe Messi, there’s a lot of room to improve after he sat out two weeks with a bruised back.
"It was difficult,” Messi told the Argentine sports daily Ole of the injury. “It felt like an eternity because I was unable to move for many days, practically not doing anything.
But Messi has a lot more to accomplish than simply getting his groove back. It’s been 23 years since Argentina has raised a trophy in a major senior competition, a drought that has come to define Messi as one of the greatest players never to win an international soccer championship.
In the last World Cup he carried Argentina through group play, scoring four of his team’s six goals. He arrived for the final exhausted and was rarely dangerous, so Germany took home the Cup and Messi got the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player.
Last summer he got Argentina to the Copa America final unbeaten, only to lose to Chile on penalty kicks. Messi was again named the tournament’s best player but this time he declined the consolation award.
He’s made it clear there’s only one prize he’s interested in this summer.
"I hope it is our Copa, it is what we want, but we must be calm," he told Ole. "First we have to think of Bolivia and after [that game] the quarterfinal. Every game will be difficult.”
Especially if Argentina midfield threat Angel di Maria is unavailable. Two years ago in the World Cup, Argentina scored seven goals in its first four games but none in its final three after losing Di Maria to a torn muscle in his right thigh. Di Maria limped off the field again Friday in Chicago with an abductor problem and was originally thought to be done for the tournament.
The team later upgraded his condition, saying Di Maria had “minimal swelling” in his right leg and could be available by the quarterfinals.
But if Messi won’t look ahead to the knockout round until after Tuesday’s group-play final, others have already begun considering the possibility of a U.S.-Argentina match-up in the semifinals.
The U.S. will first have to win Thursday’s quarterfinal against Ecuador, a team it beat in a warm-up less than three weeks ago. And Argentina still has to win its group – Chile and Panama each have a mathematical possibility at the group title if Argentina falls to Bolivia – and its quarterfinal.
Should all that happen, it would bring the world’s best player face-to-face with the home team. It would match a legend seeking his first international title against a U.S. national team seeking respect.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to see how our team is compared to those top nations,” U.S. Coach Juergen Klinsmann said. “That’s why you want to put a stamp on the tournament. You want to send out a strong signal to everybody that we are growing, that we’re getting better.”
Panama, too, came here eager to get a look at Messi – until they did.
When the Argentine star finished warming up and walked to the sideline to check into the game, Gomez, the Panama coach, turned to the fourth official and asked, “How much time [is] left?”
“Thirty minutes,” came the reply.
For Panama, it was 30 minutes too many. For Messi, on the other hand, it may prove to have been just the start of something.
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