Just introduced as one of the new DFB rescuers, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is traveling to Qatar for the World Cup. He sees a lesson in football. Argentina beat Croatia 3-0 and warm up for their third title. Not only Lionel Messi is enthusiastic.
Maybe it’s just this song: “Muchachos”. They sing it louder and louder and with more and more certainty. They sing it in the Lusail’s dressing room, they sing it under the gold-lit rims of the stadium and in the streets of Buenos Aires. “I was born in Argentina. The land of Diego and Lionel.” It doesn’t need more. Then everything is settled. This is Diego and Lionel’s land. Two footballers of the century who bring fragile happiness to their country.
What a team! Argentina don’t care about the “harbingers of doom” they faced on November 22 at the Lusail Iconic Stadium in a 2-1 draw with Saudi Arabia. Undeterred by the historic defeat after 36 unbeaten games in a row, they have been doing their circles at the World Cup ever since, rarely spectacular, often magical and when the circumstances demanded it also dirty. They play like the German team played years ago. And there is also a pinch of Messi.
Like in 1990, when they lost to Roger Millas Cameroon, they entered the final after a humiliation at the start of the tournament. Unlike in 1990, they can play with their best eleven on Sunday. Unlike in 1990, archenemy Germany is certainly not waiting there. He left long ago and is now breaking his legs in wintry Germany.
The end of the curse
With a 3-0 (2-0) win against Croatia, Argentina has been confirmed as the first finalist. The old king of football, Lionel Messi, is waiting for his successor, Kylian Mbappé. And if he doesn’t come, then only Morocco stands between him and the step into eternity. Between him and stepping out of the larger-than-life shadow of Diego Maradona, who brought the last World Cup trophy back to Buenos Aires in 1986.
Since then, 36 long years have passed, two finals and a number of decisive defeats against Germany – 1990 in the final in Rome, 2006 in Berlin, 2010 in Cape Town and 2014 in the Maracaná in the Rio. The Germans were always there and destroyed the dream. The longing for the third triumph is endless, the title is now within reach. You will get him. You are safe. They’ve been singing about it all along. Messi is on the last lap. Then he will be just an icon. And no one anymore who paints games and who only won his first title with Argentina at the Copa 2021. For the Albiceleste it is the first title since the 1993 Copa. It is the end of a curse.
“The finals that we lost. How many years have I cried for them. But that’s over because we won again in the final against the Brazilians in the Maracaná,” sing the fans of the sky blue. Louder and louder and now they’re waving their right hands, now they’re knocking on garbage cans with their shoes and now they’re hanging on the lanterns of the Argentine capital.
From Argentina to the world
They sing because Croatia are trapped in the World Cup semi-finals. “We know how to suffer when we have to suffer and we have the ball when we have to have it,” said Lionel Messi when he was not allowed to sing or present the award for the best player of the evening. “It wasn’t easy today. We were tired but the team came back and got serious.”
The team around Messi, who made people forget Maradona’s 86 solo run against England with his painting disguised as preparatory work, sets this trap. In the first 22 minutes Croatia plays and Argentina recovers. They have the ball and Mateo Kovacic drives it through the middle again and again until Leandro Paredes is too colorful. He straddles and without really touching Kovacic, he takes him out of the game and the game turns. The trap snaps shut. First Messi scores from the penalty spot and then Julián Álvarez just seconds after a corner for Croatia.
At 22, Álvarez, whom they only call La Araña, the spider, is moving out into the world from River Plate this year. He ends up at Manchester City, his team-mate Enzo Fernández at Benfica Lisbon and possibly also in England next summer. Jurgen Klopp is said to be interested.
Which is not surprising: 21-year-old Fernández is one of the big surprises of the World Cup, but this time he is overshadowed by Álvarez in the Lusail, who somehow saved himself with the ball to the goal in the 2-0. The ball bounced off a Croatian and back to him several times, then opponent Borna Sosa fell to the ground and the spider pushed the ball through the legs of keeper Dominik Livakovic.
The Albiceleste is not just Messi. She is Álvarez, Fernández, Nicolas Otamendi, Paredes, Rodrigo De Paul and Nicolas Taglificao indulging in his straddling frenzy. She is also Lautaro Martinez, who fails to score in the tournament but concedes the winning penalty against the Netherlands. She is dirty, waiting, lurking and sometimes, after conceding a goal, also panics. But that’s not a problem against Croatia. She is also Alexis Mac Allister, who plans to leave Brighton & Hove, who will become a world-renowned player at the World Cup, in January.
Germany keeps to itself
“Jorge Valdano, a football philosopher, once said that every footballer must retain a small quota of criminal instincts,” says his father, Carlos Mac Allister, a former Argentina international alongside Diego, recently in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Not only does he hit a core of the Argentine game, he also hits the already ailing heart of German football. Objective lessons for Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who watches the game in Lusail and can pass on his findings directly to the new council of DFB wise men.
After all, the German elimination from the tournament is due to just that, to the lack of a criminal instinct in the DFB team. Most of the players in the German team have lost it over the years. He slipped out after the 2014 World Cup triumph and slipped into complacency. Because those who join the DFB from Borussia Dortmund bring more desperation and hopelessness year after year and much more, of course, because those who are no longer used to resistance from FC Bayern Munich. You own the world.
Year after year, Bayern win the title in the league and put everything on the Champions League. Except for the pandemic tournament, when the world shakes and German efficiency is rewarded, that doesn’t work. The two big clubs in German football have been ill in their own way for years, and it’s not just the league that’s suffering. As the past three tournaments all show.
Unlike France, the other big football nation with a sick league, hardly any top players from Germany are drawn abroad. They come to Dortmund to bury their career and they go to Bayern to become champions. They come to Leipzig to take part in the league’s “most exciting project” and they go to other Bundesliga teams to open these doors. And everyone is trapped in the Bundesliga. Only a few break out. And then never really arrive in the DFB-Elf. They are the foreign bodies in the self-sufficient system.
Diego watches from heaven
In the Lusail, the game goes into the final minutes. Croatia will give up at some point. Not this evening. The Argentines are more efficient, more ruthless and, in a few moments, more gorgeous than the Brazilians, who barely did any damage to the Croatian defense and are long back in Rio. Farewell to the great Luka Modrić. He left his mark on Croatia, twice taking them into the top 4 in the world and even winning the title of World Player of the Year in 2018. He leaves to loud applause. This Argentina is too strong for Croatia. The first World Cup without Diego Maradona, who died two years ago, should be hers. And Diego is still there, on the banners at the stadium and in the heart of the country.
“Muchachos. Now we have hope again. I want to win the third title. I want to be world champion. We can see Diego in the firmament cheering for Lionel with (Diego’s parents) from there,” they sing and are still hours later in front of the stadium and move to the Plaza de Mayo hours later. It’s their night and they’re only just through to the final. “I was born in Argentina. The land of Lionel and Diego”. One more game and 2022 will be like 1986. All good things pass, but all good things come again. Maybe it’s just this song.