Argentine great Lionel Messi celebrated wildly with his teammates after they cruised to the final of the 2014 World Cup at the Arena de Sao Paulo on Wednesday. Delighted upon reaching his first World Cup final in third appearance, Messi hopped and jumped along his teammates in applaud from the ever active Argentina fan group.
However, it may sound terrible to the ear but its highly likely that Messi will want to forget his performance in the match as he was marked very closely throughout the stipulated time, allowing him no free movement. He failed to make a single touch inside the opposite D-box during the 90 minutes as Vlaar and Nigel de Jong made his life on pitch harder than expected.
Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal promised there will be a plan for Messi and there it was. He put De Jong as the marker of Messi and the muscular and stocky midfielder did his duty efficiently. It’s incredible how De Jong adopted to his call as only nine days ago he was ruled out of the World Cup with a hamstring injury. The Dutchman shadowed Messi and it worked most of the time, and when it didn’t Bruno Martins Indi just took him out.
Vlaar, the Aston Villa defender, had the Barcelona forward pocketed, an almost unseen event in the football. In the 57th minute Vlaar executed a perfect sliding tackle 20 yards out to poke the ball away from a dangerous looking Messi who was just about lining up a shot. The only time Messi threatened was from a free-kick, the only time De Jong couldn’t be right next to his target. Dutch goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen was relieved to see that the maestro opt for power – rather than placement – and was in the right position to grip the ball.
In the 117th minute finally Messi produced his trademark burst down the right to reach the byline, but his chip to was weakly volleyed by Maxi Rodriguez to Cillessen.
Taming Messi on the field, however, did not produce the last laugh for the Dutch and Van Gaal, but for Messi it was a very different outing indeed.
