Can Lionel Messi finally get the major trophy monkey off his back for Argentina at the fifth try?

After 34 trophies with Barcelona and an Olympic gold medal with Argentina, many would be tempted to churn out that old cliche that Lionel Messi ‘has won everything in the game’.

Lighting up LaLiga and the Champions League for more than 15 years as well as netting 76 goals in 150 appearances for his country, the 34-year-old has tasted silverware on nearly all the stages he has featured on.

But nagging away at the back of his mind – in addition to his current free agent status as Barcelona look to renegotiate a new deal for him – is his empty trophy cabinet when it comes to major trophies won with his country’s senior side.

Lionel Messi will get another crack at Copa America glory when Argentina face Brazil

They qualified for the final on Sunday after Emiliano Martinez saved three penalties in a shootout against Colombia

Argentina are aiming to end 28 years of hurt at this year’s Copa America, having gone trophyless since their success in the same tournament in 1993.

Sunday’s final against Brazil provides Argentina’s No 10 and co another chance to put an end to that drought after their dramatic penalty shootout victory in the semi-final against Colombia. 

And his fiery reaction to Yerry Mina’s penalty miss in the semi-final shows just how crucial he considers this tournament to be. At his age, he is well aware of the fact that he is running out of chances to taste international glory.

That, imbued with the accumulated pain of losing three Copa America finals as well as the 2014 World Cup final against Germany, probably brought out ardent roars from the halfway line as Emiliano Martinez produced goalkeeping heroics. 

Messi has endured frustration on the international stage, beginning with the 2007 Copa America final defeat by Brazil

He first felt the stinging pain of a major final defeat back in 2007, just a year after he had become a first-team regular at Barcelona, celebrating his 20th birthday just before the tournament got underway.

Despite the presence of Juan Riquelme and Messi’s relative inexperience, Argentina manager Alfio Basile was not afraid to chuck the latter in at the deep end and he did not disappoint.

The prodigious youngster started the opening game against Colombia and provided an assist for Hernan Crespo’s second goal against the USA, with Argentina going on to win three group games out of three.

A quarter-final victory against Peru saw Messi net his first Copa America goal, but it was overshadowed soon after by his simply sublime chip in the semi-final against Mexico to set up a final against Brazil in Venezuela.

But having taken the tournament by storm so far, it all came to a crushing and devastating end for Messi and his team-mates at the final hurdle, suffering a brutal 3-0 defeat as Julio Baptista, Roberto Ayala and Dani Alves netted for the five-time world champions. 

Messi started the 2014 World Cup well but many claimed they were disappointed with his displays in the knockouts

Argentina were eventually defeated by Germany in the World Cup final at the Maracana

Messi nevertheless went on to establish himself as one of, if not the best player on the planet in the following years at Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, but that did not quite translate onto the international stage. 

Argentina were knocked out at the quarter-final stage by semi-finalists Germany at the 2010 World Cup and by eventual winners Uruguay at the 2011 Copa America, going without a goal in both tournaments.

Yet hope in the national team had been restored by 2014, and Messi was at the heart of their journey to the World Cup final in Brazil.

He netted just his second World Cup goal to ensure Argentina got off to a winning start against Bosnia and Herzegovina, before yet another stunner in a major tournament.

Iran had held Argentina for more than 90 minutes but in stoppage time, Messi picked the ball up 20 yards out and curled a sumptuous effort into the far corner.

His form would continue with another two goals in their final group game, before he set up Angel Di Maria to take Argentina past Switzerland and past the last eight this time around.

He was awarded the Golden Ball in Brazil but he missed the chance to beat Manuel Neuer (left)

Gonzalo Higuain’s goal was enough to see off Belgium, and Messi was one of the Argentina players to score their penalty in the shootout win against the Netherlands in the semi-final following a goalless affair in regulation and extra time.

Germany once more stood in Messi’s way of international silverware, but his lack of perceived effectiveness in the knockouts had not gone unnoticed.

‘I have been marginally disappointed,’ former Barcelona and England striker Gary Lineker said in July 2014. 

‘There is something not right. He has become very static. I went to the semi-final [against Holland] in Sao Paulo and watched him closely and there is so little movement now.  

‘He has done magical things at this World Cup and he is largely responsible for them being in the final but he looks jaded to me.’

Yet Messi created more chances than anybody at the 2014 World Cup and only former Italy midfield maestro Andrea Pirlo played as many through-balls.  

Messi’s frustrations continued as Argentina were beaten on penalties by Chile in the 2015 Copa America final

Such statistics earned him the World Cup’s Golden Ball as the outstanding player of the tournament, but fine margins denied him the chance at the award he really wanted and made the prize he had won seem rather bittersweet.

Having expertly collected a short pass, Messi went on one of his iconic runs down the left, before unleashing a whipped shot which beat Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer but also the far post. Mario Gotze would make no such mistake with his chance.

Sunday’s Copa America final will be held at the Maracana, the stadium where Messi and Argentina lost that World Cup final, and Messi will hope his wishes come true unlike when he announced them in 2014.

‘I would give all my personal records to be world champion,’ Messi told German tabloid Bild ahead of the 2014 final. ‘I’d prefer to win the World Cup than the Ballon d’Or. As a player, winning the World Cup is the biggest thing there is. It’s something you dream of as a youngster and that dream never fades away.’ 

Speaking after the game, he said: ‘I don’t care about the prize [Golden Ball]. I don’t care about anything. Right now, nothing can console me — not the award or anything else,’ he said. ‘I wanted to take Argentina to the World Cup for all the people,’ Messi said. 

The same team produced the same result against Argentina in the same competition a year on

‘I believe this World Cup deserved another final because we had chances. We reached the final… but we’re disappointed not to have won this game. There’s a lot of anger.’

That fury was perhaps matched over the next couple of years, when not even the numbers could save him. 

He scored just once and assisted three in the 2015 Copa America campaign but saw his team reach the final yet again after hammering Paraguay 6-1 in the semi-finals.

Yet this time Chile would stand in their way, with Messi the only Argentine player to score his penalty in the shootout in the former’s capital of Santiago. 

A year later at the centenary anniversary tournament, Messi would return to goalscoring form and netted five goals in the tournament, including a hat-trick against Panama.

A goal each in the quarter-final and semi-final against Venezuela and the US followed to go along with four assists in the tournament as a whole.

Messi has always drawn comparisons to Argentina icon Diego Maradona throughout his career

But again Chile would prove to be Argentina’s nemesis, once more defeating them in the Copa America final on penalties after the game had finished 0-0, with the only difference being that Messi would miss his penalty on this occasion.

‘It’s not enough to just get to the final and not win,’ Messi said of that cup run. He subsequently announced his international retirement before eventually reneging on that decision a month or so later.

The defeat also marked 30 years since Argentina, led by Diego Maradona, won the 1986 World Cup after beating West Germany in the final.

Messi has never been able to shirk that comparison with the country’s iconic No 10 figure, who urged him to stay on and reconsider before the 2018 World Cup. 

At the 2014 event, he completed 46 dribble, more than any other player. It was the sort of success that bordered on Maradona’s total of 50 in his pomp during 1986.

He was fined for paying tribute to Maradona following his death in November last year

Yet after the 2014 World Cup final defeat, some even questioned whether Messi was the outstanding member in the team given the work Javier Mascherano was doing in midfield.

‘Messi has to stay in the national team. He will go to Russia in form to be world champion,’ Maradona said via La Nacion after their 2016 final defeat.

‘He has to rely more on boys who can help take the team forward and less on those who say they have to go.

‘Those who are saying he should quit are doing it so that we won’t see what a disaster Argentine football has become.’  

The 2018 World Cup did not make Messi a world champion though and brought similar scrutiny and a familiar exit in the knockouts, this time to France in the last 16.

Maradona won the hearts of his fellow countryman by leading them to the 1986 World Cup

Whether Messi’s indifferent form was still being utilised to divert away from the issues plaguing Argentinian football, as Maradona had claimed two years before, remained up for debate. What was not is the extent to which Messi was targeted.

He was accused of not feeling the shirt and going missing when the going got tough. Deep down, many felt he would prefer to be back in Barcelona running the show rather than toiling away for his country.  

‘It became customary to say things about me. A lot of lies and invented things, it makes me angry because people believe it,’ Messi said in 2019.

‘My son asked me ‘why do they kill you in Argentina?”

It was something Maradona never faced to such an extent, always more openly demonstrating the love he had for his country and even willing to scored an infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal for them against England.

After all, Messi grew into a star in Spain, not Argentina. His greatest achievements were accessible only with a television remote and a screen, not something that could be experienced in the stadium by his fellow countrymen.

Messi has performed well this summer, scoring four goals and laying on five assists

But the television will be the only manner in which fans can try and watch his latest attempt to end Argentina’s wretched run at major tournaments, with no fans allowed in to the Maracana for the first Copa America since Maradona’s death in November.

Messi was fined some around £500 for his tribute to Maradona during Barcelona’s win over Osasuna in December.

Yet ending the 28-year for a trophy could be the best tribute Messi could hope to offer to a nation now without their greatest and most cherished icon. 

He has the form necessary to lead Argentina to that promised land, having already netted four goals and laid on five assists so far this summer. 

He has therefore been directly involved in nine of Argentina’s 11 goals of the tournament so far and has played his part in the build-up for the other two. 

He now has the chance to win silverware with his country as Maradona did 35 years ago

He has been named man of the match in four of Argentina’s six matches and is one one goal away from Pele’s record of 77 international goals by a South American player. 

That record is in sight in the same tournament as he became Argentina’s most capped player against Bolivia. ‘The individual awards are secondary,’ Messi said. ‘We are here for something else.’

Not only is that financial reward as opposed to fiscal punishment, but also the chance to claim revenge on the team against whom the pain began and allow him to get the overbearing monkey of international failure off his back once and for all.