After scoring 5 goals against Estonia, Messi started a key holiday before the World Cup. Photo: Mario Quinteros (special correspondent)
Outside Osasuna it was already past 11pm. In Pamplona, Lionel Messi made history by scoring five goals for the national team for the first time. A crowd of Argentine fans was waiting for him on the other side of the fence and the security men. The captain was one of the first to leave the locker room after the end of the European tour which included the title of the team Final against Italy in London. LeoAlready dressed in plainclothes, he dodged the reporters behind the mixed zone and headed for the exit almost as quickly as he passed the Estonians. He greeted with a hellish cry the people who stunned him and got into a van that would take him directly to the airport to get on a private plane with Angel Di María, Giovani Lo Celso and Rodrigo De Paul bound for Rosario.
The warrior’s rest has begun. And it won’t be any rest. It will be crucial. It is the first extended in a long time. And it comes at the right time, right in the last break before the World Cup in Qatar 2022 which will begin in November.
Lionel Messi arrived in his hometown together with Ángel Di María and Giovani Lo Celso di Rosario, and also Rodrigo De Paul joined. Photo: Telam
The albiceleste captain ended a very particular and difficult season for him on the rise. His level at Wembley and the re-poker reached at the El Sadar stadium reconfirmed that after a few months of ups and downs and irregularities due to various factors, Messi was Messi again, the best in the world. And for him it meant being able to go home with a big smile of satisfaction, together with his family, because in his bag he brought with him the certainty that two weeks after his 35th birthday (June 24), he has a lot of thread left on the coil
Far from taking the friendly with Estonia, a rival of very low caliber, as a simple formality, Rosario faced it with the responsibility of another duel for points. And he took all the balls that he couldn’t take against the Italians. The flea I wanted to play that game and keep adding takes with the Scaloneta, who already has 33 without losing. They say she wants to make the most of his time dressed as albiceleste.
It was the best bridge to cross lightly towards the holidays, which will last about three whole weeks, a problem that rarely happens as he finds him almost always concentrated with the national team: World Cup 2014, Copa América 2015 and 2016, World Cup 2018, Copa América 2019, the pandemic was decreed in 2020 and the Copa América won in 2021.
As usual, Leo and Antonela will spend a few days on the soil of Santa Fe, their land, and then relax with their children, Thiago, Mateo and Ciro, in some destination with sand and sea, as they usually do, until the end of the month or all. beginning of July.
As Clarin might have known, it will not be completely disconnected. She can’t, she is stronger than him. He will want to be aware of market movements and how his Paris Saint-Germain is arming himself to try once again to aim for the maximum Champions League goal. It will also be necessary to see what will happen with Mauricio Pochettino’s future in the position of coach.
Those days of sun and beach will also be maintenance days machinery. Messi does not relax even on vacation and, beyond the fact that he will not perform a strong workout, he will continue daily with cardio sessions and gym work. He always does it and much more this time, with the World Cup at the door. However, your preparation will not be just physical.
Last year, after winning the Copa América, Messi and his wife Antonela Roccuzzo took their dream vacation.
They say that Lionel will deal with this situation in a special way. You will have to think differently. The first reason is because the calendar offers something unprecedented: a World Cup at the end of the year, mid-season, in full Champions League. It is something out of the ordinary that will undoubtedly alter the behavior and preparation of many, including Messi.
But for him it will also be important from above because he didn’t have fun at the beginning of the year. And he had already come from a sensational change of life when after the immense happiness of being able to win a title with the Major, he had to leave Barcelona and move to France, where he shares the limelight with Kylian Mbappé and his friend Neymar. .
She went through a great process of adaptation and when he thought he was already used to his new team, covid-19 broke him. Although nothing was leaked about his condition at the time (he was rumored to have some symptoms, nothing more), it was later learned that the virus affected him a lot. so much that he also had a lung infection. Therefore, it took him longer than expected to recover.
Leo wants to shine, even at PSG. Photo: AFP
Once he left that behind, he regained his light, the one that dazzles everyone. His numbers increased at PSG in the last part of the semester. And they turned out better than they did when they arrived. Of course, adapting to a game where he was more of a point guard than a finisher, his firepower was affected. Sure, in assists he was the best.
Now, Argentina’s 10 has already left behind the concentration in Bilbao, the great match in English territory and the barbarism of goals in Pamplona to focus on what is coming and work even more on its voracious and winning mentality. The semester of the World Cup has begun and Leo he knows.
Nahuel Lanzillotta
Source: Clarin
