Javier Mascherano’s metamorphosis: from “the reincarnation of San Martin” to the haters’ favorite villain

July 9, 2014. Itaquerao Stadium in San Pablo. Argentina draw with the Netherlands at the World Cup in Brazil. Knife match between the teeth. The clock strikes 90 minutes and everything goes to extra time, but Arjen Robben is released in the Argentina area to come face to face little rosemary. He has the shot in his beautiful left to decree the elimination from the World Cup of Alejandro Sabella’s team. But, when he’s about to shoot, he appears Javier Mascherano with an epic closure that will be remembered as time goes on. Sweeping is expensive, causes indescribable pain, adhering to the rules of good taste: “What do you want me to tell you, I don’t mean to be rude but I opened the queuethat’s why the pain”, clarified Masche after the team’s classification in the Maracana final.

These are the days when “El Jefecito” is the spirit of the Argentina national team. The owner of the epic. He plays for Barcelona and is the engine that drives Messi towards his first world final. “Mascherano, Messi and 9 others”. The undisputed leader. The one who gives advice and patents Maradonian phrases: “Today you become a hero”, he told Chiquito Romero, before the penalty shootout with those in orange we now know as Holland. And his words are fulfilled; A few minutes later, the current Boca goalkeeper covers Ron Vlaar’s first penalty (the memory is the strange parable that the ball made after the save that returned to the goal and stopped exactly on the line, while the goalkeeper was exulting) and later to Wesley Sneijder, two key balls in the transition to the final.

Argentina is delirious with the possibility of being world champion. Y that masking closure is a flag. Things are said on social media. They meditate on it. “Masche recovers the Malvinas with two toothpicks”. “I love you Mascherano”. Photoshop also brings the of him: Mascherano in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, touching the finger of God. Mascherano with Che Guevara’s cap… And even an Argentine fan plotted the hood of his car with the closure of Masche against the Dutchman. If you don’t believe it, follow the arrow.

Those memories leave a clear picture: football is ‘the glory or the devoted’. “Silver or shit.” What the captain of the Argentina national team got tired of eating between 2008 and 2011.

Finally, as the diva of lunch said (as she says), in Argentina “they treat you as they see you and if they see you badly they mistreat you”. And Javier Mascherano began to fall into evil. At least if that can count as reaching every final that comes your way in four or five years. And lose them.

“To lose the finals, you have to play them,” Luis Miguel el Pulga Rodríguez clarified yesterday on Radio La Red.

what was said With Messi and Mascherano in the lead, after the defeat against Germany in the final of the World Cup in Brazil at the Maracana (in those days, some even dared to call Messi “looser”), The Argentina national team lost two more Copa América finals. Both against Chile. But the biggest blow was the 2018 World Cup in Russia directed by Jorge Sampaoli. In the midst of total disorganization and internal struggles, there were many who spoke of dual command: “What you say does not reach us”, they say that Mascherano told Sampaoli when the ship was sinking and asked him to participate in the decisions in the Assembly of the team together with the rest of the contact persons.

Moscow’s disappointment put an end to the former River’s career in the biancoceleste: “From now on I’m one more fan”he said in the mixed zone. And the man who in 2014 was “the reincarnation of San Martín” has mutated to become a meme-man.

Suddenly, the same guy who would make up for the Malvinas, the one who played for River, Liverpool and Barcelona, ​​the winner of 15 club-level titles and two Olympics with the Argentina national team became the king of underdogs. The one responsible for all evils.

Mascherano is not criticized for this “attempted coup” against Sampaoli or for his one-year prison sentence for tax fraud in Spain (which would go against the ethics he himself preaches), he is criticized for having lost. For those endings that inexplicably escaped. It wasn’t enough and, in terms of billiards, Mascherano was the first of the losers.

With his skin tanned, his appearance as DT of the U-20 Selection has brought him back into the eye of the storm. And, with the results that didn’t accompany him to the start of the South American tournament that is being played these days, the pigeon blow to Mascherano’s head is back. You already know what you are subjecting yourself to if you fail to qualify for the final tournament hex tomorrow or if you do and then fail to reach the World Cup of the category which will be played mid-year in Indonesia.

Messi’s coronation in Qatar 2022 doesn’t seem to have helped much. Neither to calm the hearts of the haters nor to take the Scaloni case as an example, a DT for which no one gave two pesos, except the president of the AFA Chiqui Tapia, whose skills guided the Selection and who ended up getting the jackpots. It should be noted.