Lionel Messi Hangs Booth on International Career after Copa América Final Defeat

Argentine star Lionel Messi has said his international career is over at the age of 29 after he blazed a penalty over the bar in Argentina’s defeat in the Copa América final to Chile. The Argentina captain missed his spot-kick in the decisive shootout at Met Life Stadium, which Chile went on to win 4-2 and secure a second Copa crown in two years, and was disconsolate on the pitch after the game.

“It’s tough, it’s not the time for analysis,” he said. “In the dressing room I thought that this is the end for me with the national team, it’s not for me. That’s the way I feel right now, it’s a huge sadness once again and I missed the penalty that was so important.

 

After Sunday’s Copa América final defeat to Chile, he sounded adamant. “My thinking right now and thinking about it in the dressing room, I’m done playing with the national team,” he said, face solemn, barely able to meet the eye of the journalists who surrounded him. “I tried my hardest, it’s been four finals but I was not able to win. I tried everything possible. It’s hurts me more than anyone but it is evident that this is not for me.”
 

That echoed what he had said before the game, when he had reflected glumly on three lost finals and spoke about changing history. It’s almost as though Messi feels he is cursed, that he is the reason this great generation, the players that won the Under-20 World Cup in 2005 and 2007 and retained Olympic gold in 2008, cannot win a senior trophy.

But the sense of disappointment and disillusionment goes further than that. Javier Mascherano has also retired, while Sergio Agüero and Gonzalo Higuaín are considering their futures. Agüero missed two decent chances in the game. Higuaín wasted one, to go with the good chances he missed in last year’s Copa América final and the World Cup final the year before. 

 

Is it fair to blame the Napoli striker? Not really, but it’s hard to not reflect that, for all the talk of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winners being Diego Maradona plus 10 others, Messi’s international record might look rather better if he’d had a centre-forward of the calibre of Jorge Valdano to play alongside.

Source: Guardian / IBT