It had not happened since Mexico 86 or Italy 90: Argentina is summed up in a single footballer. It’s not just anyone. It’s Lionel Messi. The top winner of the Ballon d’Or and leader of the American champion is at the Qatar 2022 World Cup ready to lift the only trophy he played for and did not win. And the hope of the millions of Argentines – and the more than 40 thousand who traveled to the small country in the Middle East – falls on his meter 69 and his prodigious left foot.
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However, an image in the last training set off the alarms of a country that already suffered the casualties of Gio Lo Celso -everyone’s partner, fundamental in the Scaloni team-, Joaquin Correa Y Nico Gonzalez. hours of Argentina’s World Cup debut against Saudi Arabia, Messi went back to training with his teammates, but television cameras caught his apparently swollen right ankle.
What happened? Wasn’t it supposed that the ’10’ had worked differently in recent days just as a precaution? Although in principle there is no official pronouncement by the AFA (Argentine Football Association), everything indicates that there is nothing to worry about. This was reported by various Argentine media.
According to the newspaper Olé, It would be a cryotherapy treatment that the captain of the Albiceleste is doing to avoid anti-inflammatories. “It is clear that Leo has some discomfort in that area and perhaps it was another of the reasons, together with fatigue, why he did not train at the same level the first two days in Qatar, but in principle, there is nothing that prevents him play against Saudi Arabia”says the aforementioned medium.
DOHA, 11/21/2022.- Detail of the swollen ankle of Argentine striker Lionel Messi during a training session for his team this Monday at the football field of the University of Qatar on the eve of Argentina’s debut in the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Argentina will face Saudi Arabia on November 22 at the Lusail Stadium. EFE/Juan Ignacio Roncoroni
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“Information about Leo Messi: he is fine. When he trained differently he did it for an overload in the calf. Today he trained well and on par. That inflammation is normal for him. There is no new injury. In fact he played 160′. He’s going to play tomorrow and without problems”reported from Qatar the journalist Gastón Edul.
“I feel very good physically. I think I arrive at a great moment, both personally and physically. I have no problem, “said the ‘Flea’ at a press conference in which she also released the words that no one wanted to hear: “It’s probably my last World Cup”.
Messi was smiling in Argentina’s last training session. He worked normally and was enthusiastic about the premiere in what will be his fifth world championship – his last? – And with the hope that now he will be world champion. However, the photo of his right ankle, beyond the fact that it is not cause for concern, reminded Diego Maradona in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Why? We’ll tell you then.
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Maradona and his ankle in Italy 90
“I have rarely felt as much pain as in that World Cup. I don’t know how my ankle held up”he confessed a few years ago Diego Maradona in an interview with “Infobae”. El Pelusa recalled Argentina’s third match in Italy 1990 against Romania, which ended 1-1 with a goal from Monzón after his assist.
“That match, many don’t remember, but it was tremendous, we kicked the shit out of each other. Because they gave, but so did we. I remember that I got to the locker room at halftime and I couldn’t step on it. The doctor told me that I couldn’t go out for the second half. It was the game that classified us or left us out! Not even dead I missed it. So they infiltrated me in the locker room and I went out to play like that.”he added.
Diego Maradona suffered many fouls against Romania in Italy 90. (Photo: Agencies)
That terrible ankle injury with which he played the entire tournament Maradona He added to the blow he suffered in one of the training sessions in which one of the sparring partners tore off the big toenail of his left foot with an iron.
“Diego couldn’t step because of how his ankle and nail were. They had to make her a spare nail! They brought him six, seven pairs of boots so he could try them on, to see which one fit him better or hurt less. I walked from here to there, to get a hand when he asked me to. Doctor Madero told him: ‘You can’t play.’ ‘How am I not going to play?’, he replied. ‘Give me another injection, and another, and another,’ he would ask. Eight pichicatas hit him on the ankle! Eight! Can you imagine what it was… he Came out with a numb ankle”recounted Miguel Di Lorenzo, prop man and physiotherapist of the Albiceleste at that time.
Italy 90 was a Via Crucis for Maradona, who four years ago had emerged world champion in Mexico, consecrating himself above all. Without a fingernail, with an ankle the size of a tennis ball, he stood on the field as a beacon for his teammates and a magnet for his rivals, with sacrifice and pain, a lot of pain. Even so, he managed to guide Argentina to a new final, which he lost to Germany due to Sensini’s controversial penalty against Völler, which Andreas Brehme converted even against the superman version of Sergio Goycochea.
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