On Closer Examination: Hero Ball
Argentina’s World Cup dream begins and ends with Lionel Messi
Breakdown and analysis of particular plays happening during the 2014 World Cup.
I don’t know what Iran’s manager, Carlos Quieroz, exactly told his team to do on defense, but I’m hoping instead of simulating the Argentinian attack during training, he instead just kept showing them that Helm’s Deep battle scene in The Two Towers while handing out poorly photoshopped images of Uruk Hai in Argentina jerseys. Because that’s exactly how this Iran team defended for 90 minutes—bunkered down the hatches and turned back every wave of attack the enemy threw at them. They packed the final third with up to 11 men and pushed play wide. For most of the game it looked like Iran would take a point in this match and quite possibly steal the full three if not for a spectacular save.
But that’s the thing with the World Cup, the victor will sit atop a throne of shattered hopes and dreams of entire nations. Lionel Messi accepts that all teams must die, and so, at the edge of darkness, he prolonged Argentina’s journey by launching them into the knock-out round in the 91st minute of play.
“Hero ball,” is a basketball term used to describe a single player trying to drag their team to a win, often by way of myriad of ill-advised shots. But it’s often epitomized with buzzer beating attempts where the hero is isolated 1-on-1 with the game on the line, think iconic Michael Jordan moments in the NBA finals. That’s the best way I could make sense of Messi’s game winner, except he was staring down a 1-on-11 situation. In soccer, individuality is integrated into the system, into the team. But there are moments when the individuals rise above and assert the “me” in “team” because there is no alternative. Messi grabs this moment by the throat and bends the ball through space and time to steal 3 points. There’s nothing to breakdown on this play. The defense is solid and, sure, we could say that the 2nd defender should have flared out on that shot. But in the 91st minute of tirelessly defending the Alamo, there is nothing more Iran can do than to become part of the narrative that is this World Cup. And it is now abundantly clear, for better or worse, that Argentina will only go as far as hero ball, in the form of Lionel Messi, will take them.
