Scaloni has built the context to get the best from Messi – patient, collective football – and the Inter Miami forward has done his part, with months of double sessions with De Paul and obsessive attention to nutrition.
His top speed, a nutritionist close to his camp says, is now about 5% higher than in Qatar. He walks for 47% of a match, and he has only covered 631 metres at maximum speed across the tournament.
He is also the best goalscorer of the World Cup. Only two players in history have 10 or more direct goal involvements across two different World Cups – Messi, with 10 in 2022 and 10 again now, and Mbappe, with 10 and then 11.
The titles clearly back the approach up. Argentina have won their past three semi-finals and lifted four trophies in this cycle – two Copa Americas, a World Cup and a Finalissima.
Ask Messi about Scaloni the team-mate and the answer is warm. He was a character, Messi says, much more serious now, but back then always winding people up, always close to the younger ones.
“I still tease him, he used to kick lumps out of me in training at the 2006 World Cup. It’s not true, he tells me. But I remember,” said Messi.
When appointed in 2018 Scaloni inherited a squad with a group of exhausted stars forming Argentina’s inner circle, under permanent scrutiny and unable to perform at the highest level.
He took the job on an interim basis when nobody else wanted it, started leaving big names out and called up others nobody rated at the time.
He brought harmony off the pitch and logic on it: look after Messi. Messi doesn’t search for solutions in a congested game, he finds them, the product of an extraordinary ability to read the play and spot exactly where an opponent is weak.
So Scaloni lets him choose. He moved to the right-hand side of the attack against Egypt. After 38 minutes versus Switzerland, he moved central. And the team adapts.
“No, we did not tell him to do it,” Scaloni said. “But the team needs to respond to his decision.” That basically means De Paul using the space freed by Messi.