Back from the edge, suddenly clear of failure’s very slipstream, Lionel Messi is alive and kicking. Not just that, he’s breathing once more, no longer suffocated by the prospect of humiliation.
He got lucky on Tuesday night, soccer’s much loved modern maestro, and he knows it. Over the course of a rugged and fierce battle in Saint Petersburg, Argentina’s win over Nigeria long looked elusive, sealed eventually by a late volley from midfielder Marcos Rojo.
It wasn’t a virtuoso performance from Messi, nor one of his better nights overall. It wasn’t the kind of game that he would take in his palm and squeeze it into whatever shape he wanted. It was all about survival.
If Rojo hadn’t struck when he did, it was over. Argentina would have been out, toasted in the group stage for the first time in Messi’s career and probably ensuring the 31-year-old would go 0-for-the-World-Cup when all is said and done.
Messi had carved out a little chunk of magic in the first half, tucking away a 14th minute opener and becoming the first man in history to score a World Cup goal in three decades of his life. Yet that was the furthest thing from his mind when Victor Moses equalized from the penalty spot early in the second half and put Nigeria