I hope football does end up paying me in 2018: Messi
PARIS: The “wounds” of 2014 will probably never heal, concedes Lionel Messi but the Argentine superstar is hopeful that 2018 will bring with it the World Cup that football “owes” him. Counted among the greatest of the game, the 30-year-old has still not forgotten the heart-breaking 0-1 loss to Germany in the 2014 final.
“I don’t know if they are ever going to heal. We are just going to have to live with it. It is going to be there forever. The World Cup is a very happy memory and a bitter one too because of how it ended, how it all worked out. But it’s always going to be there,” Messi said in an interview to ‘FIFA.com’.
Argentina lost a couple of Copa America finals to Chile after that, fuelling criticism that Messi has under-achieved with Argentina. But he silenced his critics by singlehandedly guiding Argentina to the 2018 World Cup main draw. After the Albiceleste won a do-ordie clash against Ecuador, riding on a Messi hattrick, coach Jorge Sampaoli said that football owed him a World Cup. Reminded of that statement, Messi came up with a cheeky response.
“Yes, I did hear it, and he said it to me too. I hope football does end up paying me!” he said.
Speaking about Argentina’s erratic qualifying campaign, Messi shudders to think what he would have done, had the team not qualified.
“It was very important because missing out on the World Cup would have been a huge blow, firstly for the squad and then for me on a personal level. I don’t know how I would have taken it. The same goes for the people of Argentina. Failing to make Russia would have been an all-time low,” he said.
Messi said the team will be a changed outfit when it lands in Russia. “We’ve had four competitive matches with a new coach, but the team’s going to change now that the Ecuador game’s behind us. It’s going to grow and it’s going to get rid of all the tension because of that match and because of the risk of not achieving our objective. The team’s going to change a lot,” Messi said.
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It was very important because missing out on the World Cup would have been a huge blow, firstly for the squad and then for me on a personal level.
LIONEL MESSI, on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup