Maradona and Mexico as two different ideas for Messi's Argentina

Maradona and Mexico. Argentina’s pre-match talk with the press resonated with these two words here on Friday. Up until now, the words had sat happily beside each other, becoming a world by itself and getting a life of its own. And importantly, staying that way for 36 years.

Doha: On Friday, those words and the idea they carried seemed so different, so far away.

Mexico’86 is the last, distant happy World Cup memory for Argentina, made primarily by Maradona and his largely single-handed genius. It has proved both a boon and a burden since. Almost like being stuck in a moment they cannot get out of, the Argentinan invokes the ebullience and brilliance of that memorable summer, but at every World Cup, Argentinian teams, players, managers and staff have been trying hard to better that, simply by equalling the magic. They continue to fail each time even as the rest of the world has moved on.

As they encounter another similar reality this time, rather early in their World Cup life in Qatar, ironically it is Mexico that stands before this suddenly beleaguered team. The Lionels, Messi and Scaloni, face a strangely unfamiliar reality of defeat – and highly possible ouster from Qatar – as once again they see the rest of the football-playing world passing them by.

And all this, happening in the shadow of Diego Maradona’s second death anniversary on Friday.