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We live in an era where the weight of a whole country tends to fall on the most talented player of a determined national team. This happens with every single country in the world, we've seen the example of Neymar with Brazil as they won the Olympic Gold Medal and the player confirmed he no longer wants to be the skipper. With Leo Messi something similar happened after Argentina lost the Copa America Centenario final to Chile, but Leo's decision was more alarming.
There are two different theories to why the Barcelona star made this rushed choice, the most popular one is because he got tired of losing and couldn't take another defeat because be loves Argentina so much. The other one that many former Argentina international believe to be true, is because of all the criticism coming from different parts of both the media and the fans, people who believe Leo Messi doesn't have an honest feeling when he is wearing his country's shirt.
Talking to Diario Ole, Jorge Valdano wanted to clear this up and said: "I understood [Messi's retirement] as the act of a player who had an unbearable weight on his back and brought it into the microphones out of the locker room. That weight passed its limit. Luckily, he changed his decision, which if not changed would have been very hard for Argentine football."
About Bauza's appointment as the new coach, Valdano added: "I think he's a fantastic guy, passionate about football, with whom I lived in the selection. But I'm not able to do a portrait of him from the football because I've only seen his San Lorenzo in the final of Club World Cup against Real Madrid. A squad, of course, playing with €600million against a budget 10 times smaller. Now you have a very large capital resources and there we will see well what their chances are."
Photo credit: Seleccion Argentina
