You must have guessed what the M stands for!
At least after today’s sublime performance in Argentina’s debut match against Algeria, Messi has taken himself to another level.
Some call him the magician, others the messiah and, even to his detractors, or adversaries on the field, he is magnificent.
Argentina’s magic began in the 80s or, to a lot of football fans, the 1986 World Cup when Maradona emerged as the gladiator who outshone all the other fighters in the arena.
Maradona was simply mind blowing in 1986!
He was methodical and, well, Machiavellian too as he knew how enforce the line: everything is fair in love and war!
But wait a second, let’s make the story a little more interesting here and go back to the World Cup in 1978 when the Albiceleste first won the cup in Argentina amidst murky clouds of geo-politics.
In the World Cup 78, there was another Argentine alchemist – Mario Kempes.
Mario Kempes, Maradona and Messi – there you have it, the three wizards or shall we say the crucial ‘M’ factor for Argentina!
As the World Cup 2026 is underway with Messi securing an emphatic first match win for the South American giants, Argentine fans, especially in Bangladesh, are going wild.
This is exactly the start they hoped for.
When thousands of Argentine supporters brought out a rally within the Dhaka University campus yesterday, the popularity of the team in Bangladesh was palpable.
And I thought, all this frenzy, jubilation and of course the passion should bring the Argentine team to Bangladesh just to see their supporters in a far away land.
But how many fans know about the first magician called Mario Kempes?
In 1978, despite the controversies and sordid fumes of the ‘Dirty War’ hanging over the World Cup, Mario Kempes emerged as Argentina’s goal machine.
He scored twice in the final against a highly charged Netherlands and then received the Golden Boot for being the highest goalscorer and the Golden Ball for being selected the most valuable player.
For your information, only two other footballers won both in a single World Cup: Garrincha in 1962 and Paolo Rossi in 1982!
In 1978, Mario Kempes was the poster boy but sadly, back then posters travelled slowly and today, hardly any large picture of the player can be found in Dhaka.
While Maradona and Messi cannot be deemed tall, Kempes was 6 feet and dubbed El Matador.
What did the female fans think of him then?
Well, in an age without social media, sports dominated by black and white TV plus sports news coming to us via grainy images, we never knew how members of the opposite sex idolised Mario Kempes.
Mario Kempes paved the way for a very young and aggressive player called Maradona in 1982 where the latter got a red card and walked out.
But in that card was the indelible message – ‘I will come back to claim redemption.’
In 1986, Bangladesh Television, BTV began direct telecasting of matches as opposed to the 1982 norm where only semi finals were shown live while the others were shown as recorded (dharonkrito) matches.
Maradona came, brought the flair and, if you recall, the famous Puma King boots.
Before Maradona popularised Puma, ADIDAS was the main boots preferred by players.
Soon after the World Cup, Bangladeshi league players began to bring Puma King boots when they went overseas to play tournaments.
Even in the early 90s, getting ‘foreign boots’ in the local market was a challenge.
The rise of Puma was also due to a very canny marketing strategy in which Maradona juggled with the ball keeping the shoelaces untied.
The camera focused on the untied laces, trying to fathom why the Argentine star had left them loose.
Maradona also single handedly made the world fall in love with the Argentine team.
Here in Bangladesh, Maradona holding the trophy adorned school exercise books to pencil boxes to lollipop wrappings to T-shirts.
Then came the third magician – Messi.
One actually cannot but think that his name has a profound symbolic meaning: Messi messes it up for the other side!
Until 2022, there was deep seated anguish within Argentina fans because despite winning several other major trophies, Messi kept having bad luck at the World Cup.
That hoodoo was conquered!
Argentina lost the opening match in 2022 against Saudi Arabia and then went on to win the trophy.
Forgive me for an audacious comparison, but there is a similarity with the Bangladesh national side which, in 1999, began the SAF Games football campaign with a shocking loss to the Maldives.
However, from the ashes, the team rose and then beat Nepal in the final to win the gold for the first time.
Messi and Argentina played extraordinary football in 2022 to snatch the trophy from the French Musketeers, but I like to think that beyond a terrific game there was also something more powerful, something that cannot be calculated in any footballing terms – the heart felt prayers of millions of Bangladeshis!
Towheed Feroze is former a journalist!
