Messi, Defeat, and the Long Game

A note to young leaders.

We all spit the dummy sometimes. Some of us plop it. Others launch it across the room with operatic fury.

Either way, the real test is what we do next.

Copa América Centenario final, June 2016. Messi steps up to take Argentina’s first penalty in the shootout and skies it over the bar. Argentina lose.

It was Messi’s fourth defeat in a major final for his country in nine years.

The reaction was brutal. Fans called him a coward, a Catalan, a man who saved his best for Barcelona. In the tunnel, emotional and spent, he announced his retirement from international football.

He was twenty-nine, had carried Argentina to four finals and had somehow come to be treated as the principal cause of losing them.

Then the appeals began. Maradona called on him publicly to reconsider; the president of Argentina appealed to him; and murals started appearing across Buenos Aires.

Six weeks later, with no press conference and no Oprah interview, Messi came back. He swallowed his pride and got back to playing for his country.

Six years after that, in Qatar, he lifted the World Cup.

So, next time you spit the dummy, no need for speeches or explanations. Just pick up the dummy and get on with the game.