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Lifting World Cup Would Enhance Philipp Lahm’s Legacy More Than Lionel Messi’s
Published: July 12, 2014
Much of football is about glory. Inevitably the glory lies in winning. Winning, unless penalties become involved, is about scoring the most goals.
As a result, it is the prolific goalscorer who is always going to be the one who attracts the attention, the headlines, the awards and the endorsements.
One can debate endlessly about whether creating goals or preventing them is the more complex art, but it is undeniable that it is the attacking players who always end up taking the lion's share of the credit once the final whistle is blown.
For no player is that truer than Lionel Messi, who will captain Argentina in Sunday's World Cup final.
Messi, who has scored 354 goals in 425 competitive games for his club side Barcelona, has long been regarded as the world's greatest player for his unmatched ability at putting the ball in the net.
As a player, he has won every individual accolade, and with him as their talisman, Barcelona have won every major trophy—at least a few times over.
That success is still to convert to international level, however, where Argentina have not won a major trophy since 1993.
As the received wisdom goes, winning the World Cup, as his countryman Diego Maradona famously did in 1986, would put Messi among the greatest ever to play the game; alongside (and perhaps even above) Pele and Maradona as the most vaunted of all.
Standing in the way of Messi and that opportunity is Germany, the same country Maradona faced in that 1986 final (well, West Germany). If they end up preventing the 27-year-old further elevating his place in the pantheon, then it is his opposite number, Philipp Lahm, who will lift the World Cup inside the famous Maracana instead.
For Lahm, winning the tournament would also increase his reputation, perhaps securing him the legacy he undoubtedl...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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