Although Argentina boasts a squad stacked with World Cup-winning standouts and a storied legacy of past stars, you wouldn’t know it by strolling around Commanders Field on Friday. Yes, there was the odd supporter wearing Ángel Di María’s No. 11 shirt or the No. 9 of retired striker Hernán Crespo. But the vast majority?
“Messi 10.” Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Such was the scene as a living legend took the field in the D.C. area for the first time since 2017. After bringing Messi off the bench in a 1-0 win over Ecuador on Sunday night in Chicago, Argentina Coach Lionel Scaloni deployed his captain for the full 90 minutes before 51,713 in Landover.
Asked at a Thursday news conference what he wanted to see out of Messi in Argentina’s final Copa América tuneup, Scaloni said, through an interpreter: “The same as always — to play soccer, to play well, to be a good teammate.”
A goal or two doesn’t hurt, either. After No. 108 Guatemala stunned the top-ranked Argentines in the fourth minute, forcing an own goal by Lisandro Martínez off a pin-balling free kick, Messi pulled his team level in the 12th with perhaps the easiest of his 108 international tallies.
Virtuosic individual strikes, crafty team efforts, precise set pieces — Messi has a wealth of ways to find the net. But the rich got richer when Guatemala goalkeeper Nicholas Hagen gifted him a goal, shanking a one-touch pass that Messi corralled and slotted into an empty net.
It was the first of many highlights. Messi rang the inside of the post with a low, driven free kick late in the first half. In the 66th minute, he slipped behind the back line to connect with Enzo Fernández’s clipped through ball and set up Lautaro Martínez’s second goal of the game. Four minutes later, Messi barreled in on net and was denied by Hagen’s left foot. And he finally scored his second in the 77th, capping a give-and-go with Di María with a silky chip.
“We never considered man-marking Messi,” Guatemala Coach Luis Fernando Tena said through an interpreter. “In the end, it was a big experience for us, and I think it was good prep for them for Copa América.”
For local fans, it was a treasured glimpse of Messi in action. He last played in Landover in a 2017 summer friendly with Barcelona. In March, he sat out Inter Miami’s win over D.C. United with a hamstring issue.
“Leo knows that he came to play,” Scaloni said. “As long as he is healthy and is willing, he will play.”
Those in attendance were treated to a performance characteristic of Messi’s late-career renaissance. He walked off the ball and dropped deep to find touches in unthreatening positions, then accelerated and played quick combinations at the first sight of an opening. If it weren’t for a moment of veteran deference — Messi declined his usual penalty-kick duties and let Martínez convert one in the 39th minute — he would have had a hat trick.
“Leo Messi is the one who takes our penalty kicks,” Scaloni said. “I don’t know exactly what happened on the field, if he asked and decided to give it to him. It shows how kind Messi can be.”
The friendly culminated two days of Messi mania in and around the nation’s capital. On Thursday night, photograph- and autograph-seeking die-hards swarmed Black Lives Matter Plaza once word of Argentina’s hotel accommodations spread. After authorities shut down the corner of 16th and K streets Thursday amid the hoopla, more than 40 yellow-clad security guards stood guard around the field Friday, braced to deal with any pitch invaders willing to risk jail for a close encounter with an icon. (It didn’t work: One fan bolted onto the field in the second half and bumped into Messi before being swarmed by security.)
Having improved to 13-1-0 since winning the World Cup in 2022, Argentina will pivot to its Copa América opener against Canada on Thursday in Atlanta. The Argentines then face Chile on June 25 in East Rutherford, N.J., and conclude the group stage vs. Peru on June 29 in greater Miami.
After leading Argentina to the 2021 Copa América crown and 2022 World Cup title, Messi can roam the field free of the pressure he long carried to cement his reputation in his native country. But as the turnout Friday night reiterated, every Messi appearance remains an occasion unto itself.
“It’s a very beautiful thing,” Scaloni said of the fan base that follows Messi and Argentina around the globe. “It satisfies us, and it makes us very proud that not only Argentine people can see themselves in the national team.”
