Qatar 2022: Modric and Croatia are Messi’s final hurdle to greatness 

Croatia captain Luka Modric and Hakim Ziyech will have other ideas but the dream ending for Fifa, and their strong-willed Qatari hosts, is for a World Cup final between Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, two players on the payroll of the Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain. Romantics probably crave seeing Messi win the World Cup at his fifth and final attempt.

It would also end for good the debate over who is the greatest current player, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi leads Argentina out against Modric’s Croatian side at Lusail Stadium on Tuesday night, with the wave of praise washing over him added to by his full back Nicolás Tagliafico.

“He is our captain, our leader,” Tagliafico said. “He is the one pushing us, motivating us. We have a special advantage on the pitch. We know we have Messi and that is a great source of motivation and inspiration. We try to achieve our dreams, and the most beautiful thing is to do it with Messi by our side.”

Argentina’s coach, Lionel Scaloni, played the PSG card in trying to defuse criticism about his Argentina side being deemed “bad winners” for taunting the defeated Dutch in the quarter-finals. Nicolás Otamendi, Leandro Paredes, Gonzalo Montiel, Ángel Di María and Alexis Mac Allister were seen to goad the heartbroken Dutch.

“Some games, things can happen, arguments, challenging times, that’s why there’s a referee to ensure there’s justice,” Scaloni said. “We need to put an end to this idea that this is Argentina. We lost to Saudi Arabia and didn’t do anything.

 “We won the Copa America in Brazil [last year] and experienced the most sporting behaviour with Messi, Paredes and Neymar, all sat together in the tunnel at Maracanã.” They were at the time PSG players, although Paredes is now at Juventus on loan.

“I’m not convinced of this idea of unsporting behaviour. We play with pride, the way we have to play and then the referee is in charge of decisions. We respect all the teams, the Netherlands, Croatia and all the opponents. That’s one of our main characteristics of our personality.”

Tagliafico gave a player’s viewpoint. “We’re not machines, we’re humans, and that means things happen in games,” he said. “They’ll probably happen in the match. This is football. It is two teams going for a dream.”

The referee is Daniele Orsato, the experienced Italian. “In Argentina-Netherlands it was quite feisty, many duels and non-football related incidents,” Croatia’s coach, Zlatko Dalic, said. “I really hope this will not be the case [again].”

Dalic was keen to praise Argentina. “Messi is in great shape again,” Dalic said, “and he is very good at setting up the assists.” And scoring. Messi has four goals already in the World Cup, one fewer than Mbappé. Repaying the compliment, Scaloni was full of praise for Dalic’s No 10. “It’s such a pleasure to see Modric play, he is a role model not just because of his talents but also his behaviour,” Scaloni said. “We should enjoy him just as [we should enjoy Robert] Lewandowski and all the top players.”

Ivan Perisic understood the Messi narrative, even if he is determined to rewrite the script. “We saw a couple of days ago that Portugal with Cristiano lost,” Perisic said. “He was here five times with the World Cup and was unable to win and Messi’s the same for Argentina, trying to do it for the first time.”

Dalic felt that overcoming Messi and company to reach a second successive World Cup final would be a phenomenal feat. “For me, the semi-final against England [in Moscow in 2018] was the greatest match of all time, the match against Brazil [their quarter-final win on penalties last Friday] comes in second. If we manage to win tomorrow that would make it the greatest historical game of all time for Croatia.”

Argentina will take comfort from their huge support, from the talismanic, 35-year-old Messi and also from their outstanding goalkeeper, Emiliano Martínez, who has seized his chance in the Premier League since moving from Arsenal to Aston Villa.

Three years ago, Martínez was on loan with Reading in the Championship, letting in three against Hull City and getting booked.

Now he is the toast of Argentina for saving the penalties of Virgil van Dijk and Steven Berghuis in the shoot-out against Holland.

 “We trust Martínez so much but we can never be too calm,” Tagliafico said. “You can practise penalties but when you are on the pitch with thousands of fans and emotions running high it is never the same. But we know we have Martínez to support us.”