Lionel Messi has not scored at this Copa America.
Argentina’s magic man has been slowed down by a right adductor (groin/thigh) injury, and frankly, has looked human in front of goal during his three appearances. The missed Panenka penalty against Ecuador in last week’s quarterfinal shootout win exemplified his current form.
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Argentina, though, continues to win. The defending Copa America champions and World Cup holders have a semifinal date with Canada on Tuesday (early Wednesday, UK time), in part because they are learning to do that without Messi — whether he is on the pitch and less effective or actually absent.
This point was always going to come eventually.
Messi is now 37 and has been hampered by persistent hamstring injuries since the fall of 2023. Even if he would like to, he can no longer carry Argentina’s national team on his back in the way he once did.
That, however, hasn’t diminished Messi’s influence on the squad. Their captain is still Argentina’s emblem, and his play tends to elicit a feeling that his scoring drought could end at any moment.
Still, this Copa America has challenged Messi in different ways.
The playing surfaces in the United States-hosted event — in several cases, natural grass temporarily laid on top of artificial turf — are choppy and unpredictable. They are also small; the smallest allowed for an official international fixture. In that shootout win over Ecuador, the 100-meter long, 64-meter wide pitch (109 by 70 yards) at the home of the Houston Texans NFL team boxed Messi into tight spaces (NFL fields need to be 120 yards long but only 53 yards across). Ecuador’s wing-backs and central midfielders pounced when Messi gained possession.
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“The truth is it was a difficult match, which was very hard to play,” Messi said afterwards. “We knew it was going to be that way because they’re a great team, a hard team who presses well, who have intense, dynamic players, a bit fast, and when they have the ball they do damage as well. We expected this kind of game and the important thing is that you win.”
If this summer has proven anything, it’s that Messi doesn’t have to score to inspire Argentina to victory.
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As he nears the end of a glorious playing career, Messi has become a selfless leader who may punish himself for not finding the opponent’s net, but whose command of the international game is crucial to the success of his team. No player in the Argentina squad, for example, has been involved in more sequences leading to shots than Messi’s 22 this tournament, despite him sitting out the final group-stage game against Peru.
Compare this to his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo’s performances for Portugal at the European Championship happening in parallel in Germany — performances widely regarded to have hindered rather than helped his country’s chances of success.
The world watched as Ronaldo’s obsession with trying to score came at the expense of Portugal’s mission to win the competition. He missed a penalty, too — even if, like Messi’s shootout effort against Ecuador, that moment in extra time of their round-of-16 match against Slovenia did not prove fatal to his side’s progression. Ronaldo also failed to score a goal in the tournament before Portugal were eliminated by France in the quarterfinals.
One tournament at the age of 39 won’t diminish Ronaldo’s incredible record — his world-record 130 goals in international football is a staggering statistic — but the differences between his contribution to Portugal and Messi’s to Argentina over the past three weeks are striking. You have to wonder whether Messi has been watching events in Europe from afar, doing everything possible to avoid becoming a similar burden for his country.
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“I’ve seen how late he stays after training to recover in order to be with us,” Argentina midfielder Rodrigo De Paul said of Messi on Thursday. “Leo is like an older brother to us. He gives us so many assurances. Perhaps we’ve spoiled our fans, but we have faith in the quality of our players.”
Under head coach Lionel Scaloni, Argentina has found a core group of players who are very well-suited to complementing this particular version of Messi.
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Alexis Mac Allister and Enzo Fernandez are ball-playing central midfielders who allow No 10 Messi to find positions further up the field. Julian Alvarez does the pressing (the running, to put it another way) and when Lautaro Martinez is in this kind of mood, the Inter Milan striker is among the best finishers in the world. If games get cagey, central defender Cristian Romero and goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez have done well to shut down the opposing team’s best attacks.
Scaloni has managed to incorporate tactics and add players to the squad who allow Messi to go with the flow of a match, rather than overload him with the responsibility to own it.
As we can see from the heatmap below detailing where Messi has received his passes in each Copa America game so far, he has the freedom to drift wide, drop deep, and occupy that right-half space where he can be so creative and dictate the attacking play.
He looked at his best during this tournament in the group-stage opener against Canada on June 20.
Canada let him roam freely — as we can see from the heatmap on the left, above — and Messi took advantage. His vision and passing led to both Argentina’s goals and his command of the final third helped earn a 2-0 win. Alvarez and Lautaro scored on the night from plays that came off Messi’s left foot — Jesse Marsch’s side will need to try something different in tomorrow’s rematch.
Yet Messi still left the stadium that night rueing his missed chances in front of goal.
In the next match, against Chile five days later, Messi’s first-half shot from outside the penalty area smacked the post and veered out of bounds, before the game became physical and he was eventually slowed by tightness in his right adductor, which would rule him out against Peru.
Chances to score himself have been few in his three games at the tournament so far but it is as a creator where Messi has excelled.
Against Chile, every dead ball that came off of his foot was dangerous. Messi tried to beat goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, a former team-mate at Barcelona, with an ‘olímpico’ corner kick. Messi has never scored directly from a corner. But when the goal closes for him in the run of play, the olímpico has become one of his go-to alternatives in trying to score.
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Bravo tipped that one over the crossbar but Messi’s next whipped-in cross at the near post ping-ponged in the box before Lautaro finished from close range. A Messi corner against Ecuador also led to a goal for Argentina.
“So much of what we do as football players depends on how we receive the ball or if the opponent anticipates what you’re going to do,” De Paul told broadcaster Telemundo before the tournament began.
“Everything that (Messi) does is up to him. If he wants to do something, he’ll do it. He’s the only player in the world like that. It’s all up to him. But it’s not easy to be Messi.”
This Copa America will be Messi’s last (it won’t be played again until 2028). As it’s two years until the next World Cup, it could yet be his last international tournament, period. On Sunday, Messi’s older brother Matías, 42, told an Argentine radio station that “my brother’s beautiful film is coming to an end”.
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De Paul let slip in that interview with Telemundo in May that he is already preparing himself mentally to play that 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, without his close friend.
“Eventually the national team will no longer be about one person, because no one is like Leo,” De Paul said. “Because he won’t be at the next World Cup. I tell (Messi) that it’s going to be very difficult because he makes everything so much easier for us. We have all benefited from following him so closely. Leo has to be taken care of.”
Argentina is two wins away from back-to-back Copa America titles.
As difficult as it is for his team and the millions of fans who idolize Messi, it might also be 180 minutes away from having to move on without him.
Additional contributor: Thom Harris
(Top photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)