Messi and Di María are already in the final that they dreamed of for the last dance together in the Argentine National Team

The Argentine National Team will play the 20th final in its history. The 2-0 in New Jersey against Canada, solid and without objections, will make him defend the Copa América title. It will be with Lionel Messi y Angel Di Maria on the field, the emblems of a mystique that was born 20 years ago in the youth teams, and that after a temporary lapse was reborn in the stadium Maracanamatured in Wembleyamazed at Qatar and seeks to have another happy ending in Miami, next Sunday against Uruguay or Colombia.

“These are the last battles”graphed Messi, who does not forget the past generations, whom he invoked in each of the conquests of the Triple Corona (which includes Finalissima and Qatar World Cup). “Let’s enjoy everything we are experiencing, what is happening to us as a National Team, with unity, as a group. It is not easy to be in a final again, I reiterate, we must take advantage of it,” he added.

In the same vein it was Say Maria. “I feel joy, only happiness. I thank life for this moment of winning everything, the previous generation taught me not to give up and this one gave me the achievements,” he summarized.

There they both go together, without their shirts that they exchanged as soon as the match ended, and closing a line of teammates that jumps to the beat of the fans fluttering their shirts to celebrate the classification, the ‘normalization’ of playing decisive matches for trophies.

The For money y Video They share much more than their birthplace. They share a life linked to the National Team, in the youth teams and later in the Major League. They share family relationships and even position on the field. They shared a club (at Paris Saint Germain). But they also shared for many years the unpleasantness of a sport that turned its back on them with the albiceleste shirt.

“Many times we were deprived of credit for not having won. This group is going to play a fourth consecutive final, again from the first to the last day, this one was very close because everyone wants to beat the last champion,” Messi said.

And that’s where a buzzword in recent years comes in: resilience. “The wall broke”said Di María, sitting on the grass of the emblematic stadium of Rio de Janeiro with the champion’s medal hanging around his neck and while talking on his cell phone with his family.

The same one who is now in the stands, who saw how he entered the playing field with Sinkher youngest daughter, who enjoyed it just as her sister Mía had done in the previous games.

It is no wonder that Videoat 36 years old he is “enjoying” his last active moments in the National Team, as he expressed in a post on his social networks before the semifinal, in which he once again started. Unlike the first match of the Copa América against the same rival, he positioned himself on the right, his favorite place to face the court.

Inside it was Messi, like ‘false 9’, trying to get references to the Canadian center backs. The captain was much more active than against Ecuador, he had two almost identical shots in which he made his typical inward hook and shot at the near post, but he didn’t hit the mark. He then scored his first goal of the tournament with a field hockey deflection.

In 2007 Messi played his first final with the Senior National Team (two years before he had won the Under 20 World Cup), where he began a winding journey. “I would tell that Leo that it is a long, hard journey, that he should try to enjoy everything because many times I didn’t. The fact of always wanting to win and not having it happen, I mistreated myself too much. I didn’t give value to what I We achieved it and now that I’m older I give him the courage to make it to the last day. I would tell him to enjoy the whole journey and that at the end the joys come,” he said honestly.

Sunday’s race will be number 43 of the Flea race, There is no footballer who has played as many finals as him.. He won 30 and lost 12. Nine were with Argentina, he celebrated in five. Di María has six definitions with the Albiceleste.

But there is something that remains beyond the numbers of one and the other. It is the love of the fans who tattoo their faces, who paint them on the flags that they then display in the stands, who wish them complete happiness because they give them the joy that perhaps they do not get from other areas.

There remains one more step for the cycle to close in the best way because the Argentine National Team will play another final.