What if: Lionel Messi played for Spain instead of Argentina

Would we have seen Messi like this?

 

As we all know, Lionel Messi was born in Rosario, Argentina and spent his childhood there. However, at the age of 13, he moved to Spain after joining Barcelona. Five years down the line, he acquired the Spanish citizenship.

However, before he gained full Spanish citizenship, Messi represented Argentina in a competitive match at youth level. Now, according to the rules of FIFA, any player who has represented his/her country for even a single minute, cannot represent any other country. So Messi became ineligible to represent Spain by FIFA rules.

One should keep in mind that in the olden days, this was not the case. A player could choose to represent whichever nation he/she wanted to provided he/she had the citizenship of that country. Imagine that was the case even now. What if Messi was still eligible for Spain and chose to represent the Spanish national team instead?

Note: This is a hypothetical situation and all of the following points are mere conjectures.

#5 No final curse for Argentina as they wouldn’t have reached them

Since Lionel Messi made his debut for his national team in 2004, Argentian have gone on to make the finals of 2014 World Cup, the finals of the 2007, 2015 and 2016 Copa America tournament, and had won the Olympic gold medal in 2008.

Would that have been possible without Messi? It is difficult to say. After all, the nation does have a tendency to produce some scintillating forwards every decade.

Keeping that in mind, it is also important to note that, although people say Messi is not good in national colours, he is the highest all-time goal scorer for Argentina. Moreover, he has been involved in a bulk of the goals scored by Argentina in the last decade. The question is if Messi did not turn out for Argentina, would they be able to perform so consistently?

To fill a void as big as Messi’s is next to impossible. And given how some of the Argentinian strikers have let the team down, it is highly doubtful that they would have even made it to the 2014 World Cup finals without the little magician.