How has the Argentina national team fared without Messi?

Lionel Messi is synonymous with Argentina. And not only because in every corner of the planet, no matter how remote it may be, just naming the country implies that the interlocutor on duty will answer with the surname of the person from Rosario, but also because wherever the interlocutor on duty is , Selectionthere also come the Ten: since he first appeared for the light blue and white, on August 17, 2005 in a friendly match against Hungary, until the match against Bolivia on September 12, 2023 – in which he did not participate despite the fact that I traveled to La Paz – only La Pulga He did not play in 46 of the 222 official matches played by the Albiceleste.

In his first decade in the national team, Rosario’s presence was almost perfect, missing just 15 games between 2005 and 2014. During that period, the year he missed the most was 2013, when a series of injuries forced him to miss four games. Previously, he played all the national team matches in 2012 and was only absent for one match in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2014. In 2006 he did not play twice (both at the World Cup in Germany) and in 2008 three times.

Subsequently, the absences would become more and more frequent, often due to injury and sometimes due to mental exhaustion. In 2015, Messi missed seven Albiceleste games, almost half of the games he had missed in the previous decade. And he missed a further eight games between 2016 and the 2018 World Cup. Then there would come burnout: After elimination in Russia, the flea nine months without wearing the light blue and white shirt, in which he missed six friendly matches.

Finally, the captain returned in March 2019 to lead Lionel Scaloni’s cycle on the pitch. And his commitment was total: after the defeat against Venezuela that marked his return to the national team, Leo was missing from seven other matches, five friendlies in the same year and two qualifying matches in 2022.

After participating in all the matches played by Argentina in 2020 and 2021, Messi collected 22 consecutive matches played, in which the team became champions of the Copa América and qualified for the Qatar World Cup four dates in advance, until the streak was broken on the first FIFA date of 2022: after a month off the field and after a recovery experienced the coronavirus that lasted longer than expected, Scaloni decided not to call him up for the matches against Chile and Colombia.

After that absence, Leo played Albiceleste’s fourteen remaining matches in 2022: the last two dates of the qualifiers, the Finalissima against Italy, four friendly matches and the seven matches that led to commitment in the league. Qatar World Cup. Later, in early 2023, the captain was present at the world title celebrations against Panama and Curaçao and at the friendly victory over Australia at the start of the Asian tour in June. With their loss against Indonesia, The man from Rosario ended a streak of seventeen games played without ever missing a beat.

HOW ARGENTINA WENT WITHOUT MESSI IN MATCHES FOR POINTS

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La Pulga has only missed 16 games due to points since making his debut with the national team: 13 took place in World Cup qualifying matches, one in the Copa América and the remaining two, in the matches that did not participate in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Messi’s first absence from the qualifiers was only in 2013: after playing the last three matches in the qualifier for Germany, the Ten played the entire route to South Africa (2010) and were missing on the last two dates only on the route to Brazil (2014). Argentina had already guaranteed its ticket. The road to Russia 2018, on the other hand, was a winding one: between injuries and a suspension, the left-hander missed eight of the eighteen games. In the qualifiers for Qatar 2022, meanwhile, he played 15 of the 17 matches (not including the canceled match against Brazil in September 2021). At the start of the 2026 South American qualifiers, he was key against Ecuador on debut but was missing against Bolivia in La Paz.

In the Copa América meanwhile Messi has only missed one match in the six editions played so far: the 2-1 win against Chile in the first match of the competition played in the United States in 2016. Until then, Leo had taken part in the sixteen matches played by Argentina between the 2007, 2011 and 2015 editions, the three that had been played since his debut. He then played the next five matches on North American soil, was in all six matches of Brazil 2019 (apart from his early eviction in the third place match against Chila) and of course did not miss a single minute at the 2021 inauguration .

In total, his assist percentage in point games is very high: out of a total of 136 meetings (72 from qualifying tournaments, 28 from World Cups, 35 from Copa América and the Finalissima), Messi played 12188.97% of the total.

As for the team’s performance, if the best of them all isn’t there, the numbers obviously suffer. Without the flea, The national team achieved 26 points out of a possible 48 points in official league matches the result of seven wins, five draws and four defeats. With the player from Rosario on the field, the balance between World Cups, Copa América, Qualifiers and Finalissima is 71 wins, 33 draws and 18 losses: 246 units of 366.

HOW ARGENTINA WAS WITHOUT MESSI IN FRIENDLY MATCHES

Meanwhile, at friendly level, Leo did not play in 30 of the possible 84 matches (For this statistic, the two matches against Catalunya in 2008 and 2009 are not taken into account because they are not recognized by FIFA, the four Superclásicos of the Americas are played only with local players, the friendly matches are played exclusively with players from the Argentine tournament of the Maradona era, nor the two matches played by a U-25 team that Sergio Batista put together during his short cycle): the left-hander missed one match with José Pekerman, three with Alfio Basile and Diego Armando Maradona, one with Checho , two with Alejandro Sabella, four with Gerardo Martino and Sampaoli and twelve with Lionel Scaloni, eleven in the first year of the current coaching cycle and the match with Indonesia in 2023.

In the preparatory matches, however, the team’s performance does not suffer as much in the absence of the captain: without Messi, Argentina won twenty friendly matches, drew six and lost four, for an effectiveness of 73.33%.

In short, apart from statistics and indirect results, No one doubts that Argentina without La Pulga offers advantages to every rival.

Below are the details of the matches Messi missed with the national team*:

*Data updated until 09/12/2023.