Fifa World Cup: The madness of King Messi, and the lesson from Morocco

Mark Reason is a sports columnist for Stuff

OPINION: Morocco seems to have got the hang of this male football thing. Get rid of the WAGs and bring in the Mamma Mias. You don’t need wives and girlfriends muddling a bloke’s head up. What you need is mum and dad. The parents can dole out the unconditional love to the super ego, but also get tough when their boy chucks his teddy bear at the ref.

In one of the most brilliant World Cup moves ever, coach Walid Regragui persuaded the Royal Moroccan Football Federation to offer an all-expenses paid trip to Qatar to family members chosen by the players. Suddenly the kids find themselves in a summer camp run by adults. And they’re loving it. Love and boundaries, baby.

The miracle of Morocco has taken them to the semifinal and not a single player from Croatia, Belgium, Canada, Spain or Portugal has managed to score a goal against them at this tournament. Spain couldn’t even manage it when their knockout match went to penalties.

Wow, this is a weird and wonderful World Cup. Did you know, for example, that it is the only World Cup in history at which not one of Germany, Italy, Belgium, Uruguay or Mexico made it to the knockout stages. Yet here are Morocco, the first African team to make the semi-final, and doing it with panache, athleticism and tactical acumen.

In short, they are showing the others, with the noble exception of Croatia, what a team looks like. Because teamwork is the foundation of the effort that has got the Atlas Lions this far. Of course Brazil and Portugal and lucky Argentina have better players. But none of them has solved the conundrum of the superstar.

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Junior were the marketing gods of the football World Cup until Kylian Mbappe came along. Yet they have played in a cumulative 15 World Cups and to date have only played one losing final between them. It is a statistic that suggests how hard it can be to sublimate a super ego to the team.

It’s all smiles and sunshine when things are going well for these boy kings, but when the going gets difficult, the bottom lip goes all trembly. Neymar deserves credit for staying around after his team’s defeat, and hugging the son of a Croatian opponent who was being ushered away by security guards, but the Brazilian boy wonder was lucky to still be on the pitch.

Before scoring the beautiful goal that put his team ahead, an increasingly petulant Neymar had fouled Marcelo Brozovic and then taken a wicked hack at the back of his legs. What was he thinking about. The answer is that he wasn’t. But then it is hard to keep your head when half the country thinks you are Christ the Redeemer and the other half thinks you are a brat.

And so it is with Ronaldo. He is the ‘me’ in Portugal’s team. Unlike Neymar, he didn’t have the grace to hang around after his country’s defeat. He could not shake the hand of every Moroccan and enhance their memory of a wonderful night. Ronaldo headed off down the tunnel in tears. No consolation for his younger teammates, no example set to the Moroccan victors.

But then perspective is rarer than gold when you are a young man propelled to such absurd heights of stardom. Ronaldo is the most followed person on Facebook, 22 million ahead of Mr Bean who isn’t even real. He has over 500 million followers on Instagram. It’s crazy.

And it can make referees crazy, too. Both Ronaldo and Messi won ludicrous penalty kicks in the group stages, but the battiest Bonkers awards were still to come. Did you see the match between Argentina and the Netherlands? It was a mad house.

When Argentina were hanging on to their 2-1 lead in the dying moments of added time, the referee awarded a very obvious freekick to the Netherlands on the edge of the area. This was more than Messi could handle. He went on and on and on in the face of Mateu Lahoz until the ref showed him a yellow card.

At this point the world tipped on its axis. A yellow card to Messi! Heavens, the little genius hadn’t even been given one in the 54th minute when he stuck his hand above his head and deliberately handled the ball. Presumably the ref had mistaken the Messi mitt for the hand of God.

Messi became so cross after the Dutch had equalised that he was escorted away by three teammates from getting at the ref any more. But the point was made. In extra time Messi turned and ran into a static Dutchman and rolled to the ground clutching his face. Free kick to Argentina.

By now the Dutch knew they were up against the proverbial 12 men. Steven Berghuis had been booked when Messi lost control of the ball and possession, ran into him and fell over. But this is how the world becomes distorted by the strange kaleidoscope of superstardom.

The Netherlands’ Frenkie de Jong said: “Jurrien Timber’s shoe was kicked off, but then he whistled for a foul against us. Luuk [de Jong] just wins a normal header and he blows his whistle. They kick the ball into our dugout, he doesn’t care. Messi takes the ball with his hand, he just lets it go.

“He (the ref) was really scandalous. He is a nice guy, a good referee. But here he was beyond reason. I think he lost his way in overtime. It could well be that the greatness of Lionel Messi had an influence on that. It’s not the referee’s fault, but it did affect the game.”

If a ref can lose the plot as completely as poor Lahoz, who has now been sent back to Spain, is it any wonder that the players can also go loco. The teammates of these galacticos sense their inferiority and always feel under pressure to give them the ball. It distorts the team.

A former teammate of Messi, who still worships the ground on which he walks, said: “He only wants the ball at his feet. He’s like a child. When he doesn’t have it, he always wants it: Give me, give me, give me. Once he has it again, there’s no problem.”

Let’s not blame these young men for such selfishness. Who amongst us could retain a normal perspective in the whirligig of such lunatic stardom. It is extraordinary that the charitable Messi has done so much for children when he is always prompted to think only about himself. It is not so extraordinary that he should become a prima donna on the football pitch.

The trick is to sublimate his genius to the team. It is a trick that the All Blacks have rarely had to master because of the humility of men like Richie McCaw and because of rugby’s relative anonymity as a global sport. But, small as it is in comparison, it is a trick they have struggled with since Beauden Barrett, who recently asked for the eligibility rules to be waived just for him, and Richie Mo’unga both came forth.

Multiply that 1000 times and you have the conundrum facing the managers of Portugal, Brazil and Argentina. The first two have now exited the World Cup in shock upsets. Argentina are hanging on by their fingernails, the subject of a Fifa enquiry into their scandalous behaviour.

The Albicelestes of Argentina should take the Moroccan road. Pick up the phone and bring in the mums and dads. It’s time for some tough love.