Lionel Messi stands on the brink of matching the magic of Maradona

Argentine maestro is one game away from emulating the great Diego at World Cup 2022

Argentina's Lionel Messi and Julian Alvarez celebrate during the 3-0 World Cup semi-final win against Croatia at the Lusail Stadium on December 13, 2022. AP

Lionel Messi celebrates Argentina's win with Rodrigo De Paul, Paulo Dybala, Leandro Paredes and Alejandro Gomez after the match. Reuters

Argentina's Lionel Messi and teammates celebrate their victory. AP

Lionel Messi of Argentina after the team's win over Croatia. Getty

Lionel Messi of Argentina celebrates after the game. Getty

Julian Alvarez celebrates with teammates after scoring the third goal. Getty

Argentina's Julian Alvarez scores the third goal of the game. PA

Julian Alvarez celebrates scoring the second goal with Lionel Messi and teammates. EPA

Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring the first goal. Getty

Argentina's Julian Alvarez celebrates with teammates after scoring the second goal. Getty

Argentina's Julian Alvarez scores the second goal. PA

Julian Alvarez celebrates after scoring. Getty

Croatia's Dominik Livakovic fouls Julian Alvarez, leading to the penalty. Getty

Croatia's goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic lies on the ground after fouling Argentina's Julian Alvarez to concede a penalty. AFP

Lionel Messi scores his penalty. Getty

Lionel Messi after scoring Argntina's first goal from the penalty spot. Getty

Lionel Messi in action with Croatia's Mateo Kovacic. Reuters

The best goal Diego Maradona scored at a World Cup started its journey with a pirouette in his own half.

He carried on past the attempted challenges of four England players down the inside-right channel and then won his duel with Peter Shilton, the goalkeeper. That virtuoso run put Argentina into the semi-final of the 1986 tournament, the event commonly remembered as The Maradona World Cup.

That goal, and that year’s gold medal, set a towering standard for Argentina for all nine World Cups since, and, for the last four of them, for Lionel Messi, whose moments of brilliance are routinely judged against the great Maradona’s.

So too the dazzling run that on Tuesday sealed Argentina’s place in the final of Qatar 2022. It started near the halfway line. It covered most of the right flank. It featured a pirouette. Poor Josko Gvardiol, the Croatia defender, endured all on his own, again and again, the same dispiriting frustrations as England’s Peter Beardsley, Peter Reid, Terry Butcher and Terry Fenwick 34 years ago, in trying and failing to dispossess a dribbling genius.

A key difference is that at the Lusail Stadium, Messi’s epic run gathered steam without teammates feeling momentarily irritated. During Maradona’s legendary slalom, colleagues anxiously waited for a pass.

Jorge Valdano and Jorge Burruchaga, who both scored in the winning final against West Germany a week later, had made runs to anticipate a Maradona cross. The midfielder Ricardo Guisti later recalled: “I wanted him to give the ball to Valdano and thought: ‘He’s not going to pass it!’.”

Against Croatia, with Gvardiol twisted this way and that and left trailing in Messi’s wake, the PSG star delivered a perfect pass, a cutback from just in front of the goal-line. Julian Alvarez was his grateful Burruchaga or Valdano, steering in his second goal of the semi-final.

Alvarez had also contributed decisively to Argentina’s opener, fouled to earn the penalty emphatically converted by Messi in the first half.

Argentina v Croatia ratings

ARGENTINA RATINGS: Emi Martinez - 7. Untested in a cagey start as Croatia had possession but few opportunities. Comfortable save from Perisic on 72. Reuters

Nahuel Molina - 8. Right-back who made a fine run to support Argentina’s second goal. AP

Cristian Romero - 8. Hard, not always fair, the Spurs central defender is loved by Argentina’s massive travelling support. Booked in front of the 88,966 crowd. AP

Nicolas Otamendi - 8. The old master, the foil to the younger Romero, he took a ball to the face in a Croatia attack. Argentina only had 40 per cent of possession, but let Croatia play in front of their defence. EPA

Nicolas Tagliafico - 8. Brought down in a stiff early challenge but stood strong throughout. Best moment was when he won the ball on 63 to turn defence into an attack - which he supported. Then did the same two minutes later. Getty

Rodrigo De Paul - 8. As Argentina played the same 4-4-2 system that hadn’t convinced against Mexico. Hit a shot that was deflected wide on 41. AFP

Leandro Paredes - 8. A first start since the opening game and initially up against it as Croatia dominated in the middle. Shot on target after 47. Solid alongside Fernandez. AP

Enzo Fernandez - 8. Very comfortable against some of the best midfielders in the world. Superb tournament for the Benfica midfielder, 21. He only moved to Europe this year. He won’t be playing in Portugal in a few years. Getty

Alexis Mac Allister - 8. Headed a 42nd-minute corner towards goal that was saved. Volleyed wide on 82 as Argentina dominated. Grown throughout the tournament. Getty

Lionel Messi - 10. Scored the penalty that put Argentina ahead. Supporting role in the second. Evaded defenders to make a super run on goal on 57 to almost make it three. Equalled Lothar Matthaus’s World Cup appearance record. Sensational for the third, winning ball on halfway line, beating his men and setting up Alvarez. Genius. AFP

Julian Alvarez - 9. Won the penalty having been brought down by the goalkeeper, which led to Argentina going ahead. Brilliant individual goal to put Argentina two up on 39 – his third goal of these finals. Made it 3-0, sweeping in Messi’s ball on 69. Four goals puts him behind only Messi and Mbappe. AFP

SUBS: Lisandro Martinez - 7. On for Paredes on 61. A bit of bite as he helped Argentina reach a sixth World Cup final, including two of the past three - the Messi era. Reuters

Exequiel Palacios - 7. On for De Paul on 73 and straight into the middle. AP

Paulo Dybala - 6. On for Alvarez on 74 for his first minutes in these World Cup finals. Top player. EPA

Angel Correa - N/A. On for Mac Allister on 86 as Argentina’s wise coach Scaloni used as many players as possible. Getty

Juan Foyth - N/A. On for Molina on 86 and straight to right- back to help see out the game. AFP

CROATIA RATINGS: Dominik Livakovic - 5. After conceding the penalty that led to Messi opening the scoring, Livakovic was never the same outside of a few decent saves. Getty

Josip Juranovic - 7. Fought harder than most to get Croatia into positive positions and rarely put a foot wrong at the back, other than the second goal. EPA

Dejan Lovren - 4. The former Liverpool man was way too deep ahead of the opener and looked lost more often than not. Getty

Josko Gvardiol - 5. Inconsistency was the key here as Gvardiol went from looking unbelievably nervous to composed and back again. PA

Borna Sosa - 5. The defender just couldn’t get his final ball right with the cherry on top being a fluffed clearance for the 2nd goal. EPA

Luka Modric - 7. Croatia’s talisman put on a typically impressive and controlled display, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome the Argentines. Reuters

Marcelo Brozovic - 6. Showcased a strong presence in the middle of the park, only to fade away once Argentina began to step on the gas. AP

Mateo Kovacic - 7. The midfield maestro was aggressive and persistent but didn’t show enough of an attacking edge for his teammates. PA

Mario Pasalic - 5. Not quick enough to the ball, too slow to react in the final third and generally pretty useless for the underdogs. EPA

Andrej Kramaric - 6. Outside of some solid determination to get forward, Kramaric was too erratic both in and out of possession. EPA

Ivan Perisic - 5. The veteran simply couldn’t find his way into the semi-final and was marked out of the match throughout. AP

SUBS: Nikola Vlasic - 6. Was slow to the ball for the third goal, which is a shame, given that his early work showed promise through his build-up. Getty

Mislav Orsic - 7. Zagreb’s finest had some nice movement, even if it ultimately didn’t lead to anything substantial for Croatia. AP

Bruno Petkovic - 6. Held play up well in the box but didn’t possess the killer instinct necessary to get his side back in the game. Getty

Marko Livaja - N/A. Worked hard but wasn’t able to get much going in what proved to be an uneventful cameo. Getty

Lovro Majer - N/A. Held a firm position in midfield as the minutes ticked by en route to his nation’s defeat. AFP

It has been quite a year for Alvarez. Twelve months ago he was preparing himself for a far less glamorous final, the equivalent of the Argentinian Super Cup. It was his last match as an employee of River Plate ahead of the announcement of his signing for Manchester City, who promptly told him he was not needed in their first team for six months and could continue on loan at River.

Enzo Fernandez, now of Benfica, was in River’s midfield that day. The pair of them, 22 and 21, have come a long way fast. In the past three weeks, both have established themselves as trusted starters for Argentina, now on the threshold of the most desired medal a football career can deliver.

Argentina’s supporting cast often talk of Messi as their “leader”, and for several, the elevation into his orbit has felt sudden and exhilarating.

Alvarez has made a good impression at City since August but is still the understudy to Erling Haaland. Fernandez only made his international debut in September. Alexis Mac Allister, of Brighton, won his first competitive cap in March.

Fernandez and Mac Allister’s companions in the midfield picked by coach Lionel Scaloni against Croatia were Rodrigo De Paul, who tends to be on the bench for his club, Atletico Madrid’s European Champions League matches, and Leandro Paredes, who in August was told by Messi’s Paris Saint-Germain he should leave if he wanted more chance of regular first-team minutes. He joined Juventus, who have had a very poor autumn, on loan.

On paper, that quartet are not a world-beating midfield. Scan the Argentina squad and it contains probably fewer stars than any of those that accompanied Messi to his previous four World Cups, from which his best finish was the losing final of 2014.

Yet Scaloni, reacting to the setback of an opening group-stage loss to Saudi Arabia, has developed a strong unit to complement his megastar.

While Messi can roll back the years with surges like the one that tortured Gvardiol, he also needs, at 35, his moments of pause. The energy and stamina of Mac Allister, 23, Fernandez and Alvarez compensate.

They are steadily eclipsing older allies, too. Fernandez is delivering the sort of through-balls that Angel Di Maria, in Qatar but restricted by fitness issues, has been directing at Messi for the best part of 15 years in the national jersey.

Alvarez is keeping Inter's Lautaro Martinez, a strike partner of Messi’s through almost 40 internationals, on the bench.

Which may be reassuring for Argentinians as they look beyond Sunday’s final, the game Messi says will be his last for his country.

Bravehearts for the next generation are emerging. None will ever be comparable to Messi but they have gained from being alongside him, guided by him in the month he honoured comparisons with Maradona in 1986, and, perhaps, the month when he finally matches Maradona’s status as World Cup-winning leader.