Soccer does not believe in Gardel. He never moved to tango. Not when Maradona made the English dance or when Messi broke hips. Twenty years is a long time on a playing field. Ask Buffon, or Joaquín, perhaps the only two recognized figures who played in the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup and are still at the top level of football. But since Italy did not qualify and the Andalusian has not fit in the Red for a long time, for Qatar 2022 there will be no player from the first Asian edition. Of the participants in Germany 2006, only five were summoned to their respective teams.
A Cuban poet said that the survivors were the rust of shipwrecks. Those who will shed rust on the green seas of Doha, Rayán, Jor, Al Wakrah, Lusail will be Andrés Guardado and Memo Ochoa with Mexico, Luka Modric (Croatia), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and Leo Messi (Argentina). The ship captains of a generation that capsizes in time, although some will leave marks for history afloat.
Cristiano, in Qatar, can become the first mortal to score at least one goal in five World Cups. His premiere was in Frankfurt sixteen years ago, on June 17, 2006, with a penalty that sparked an iconic celebration, kneeling on German soil, clenched fists and a deafening scream. Later, Cape Town, Brasilia, Sochi and Moscow saw him drill nets in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 editions, so he is on the verge of reaching Eusebio, the Portuguese legend with the most goals (9) in the Cups .
It will be the last World Cup for Cristiano, and probably for Messi, who has said, almost in a farewell tone, that he may not play much more. But before leaving, the 10 from the albiceleste can go down in the books as the only mortal with assists in five different World Cups.
⏱ First 15 minutes in a World Cup:
✅ Goal
✅ Assistance
✅ Diego’s celebration? 16 years after Messi’s debut with @Argentina in #Germany2006
There are 158 days left until the World Cup ?? pic.twitter.com/kJZWZXN22p
—Luciana Rubinska (@LRubinska) June 16, 2022
In 2006, he drew his first assist with a cross from the left that traveled throughout the Serbian area until he found a finisher in Hernán Crespo. He then served his teammates four more times between South Africa 2010 and Russia 2018, and in Qatar he could surpass Maradona as the all-time top assister.
But nothing would give Messi more satisfaction than playing seven games in the middle of the desert. If that happens, Argentina would be in the final, again at the gates of heaven, and his star would become the player with the most caps in World Cup history, ahead of the current leader, the German Lothar Matthaus.
“La Pulga” is one of the two survivors of the albiceleste champion of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, along with Ángel Di María, players from another era. The same thing happens with Sergio Busquets, the only one left from the world champion Spain in 2010. In Germany, with the resignation of Toni Kroos Only Manuel Neuer and Thomas Mueller, bronze medalists in South Africa, will return to the group.
Karim Benzema returns to France bathed in the gold of his ball. After missing out on the title at Luzhniki four years ago due to being involved in legal conflicts, he metamorphoses from cat to rooster in order to lead the young and favorite team.
Despite the losses of Pogba, Kanté, Kimpempe and Nkunku, Les Bleus They come with overflowing talent, they just need the appetite of the cat that makes the Santiago Bernabéu vibrate almost every week. Goalkeepers Hugo Lloris and Stip Mandanda are the members of the European squad that will reach their fourth Cup.
The Belgian Red Devils will drop their horns after December 11. For the demonic trident of Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku, this will be the last chance to put their country into a world final. The endorsement of the bronze in Russia 2018 on the one hand, and the exorcism of the last two European Championships on the other, make doubt a team that arrives without the poster of the two previous World Cups.
Perhaps the same will happen for Brazil’s Neymar. It’s now or never for a star who hasn’t had her carnival on these dates. Tite rescued veteran Dani Alves (39 years and 6 months, the fourth longest in Qatar after Canadian Atiba Hutchinson, who will debut in these games and is two months older than the verdeamarela side) from Dunga’s 2010 team, the The rest of the team will live, for the most part, their second or first date. The Uruguayan neighbors bet on the experience of Luis Suárez, Edinson Cavani, Fernando Muslera and Diego Godín, the only ones who can boast three previous cups and who must lead a renewed team that will miss the maestro Tabares and Diego Forlán.
Yes, strange, sometimes worse than losing a game without getting shot on goal. The gods chose Forlán as the greatest back in 2010; mortals, as always, ignored them. Whoever did not fall in love with Cachavacha at that time will hardly love a player in his life. Anyone who does not like the teacher Oscar Washington Tabares hardly loves soccer. And it’s not because now he’s wearing his grandfather’s cane and broken hip, his glasses and that understanding father’s look; It’s because he’s not on the bench for the sky-blue now —just as he’s not on the Cachavacha field— and we mourn him as one mourns a father. We miss him like a grandfather is missed. And we will forget even the shots on goal.
Gardel never watched football. After twenty years he suffers more than in a tango. something changes.
